| Chapter 2: | Background and Hypothesis |
The most recent formulation of the LC3MP views the two fundamental dimensions as reflecting motivational activation, which consists of two basic parameters: direction (appetitive and aversive) and intensity (Bradley, 2000). In other words, judgments of valence are thought to indicate the activation of appetitive or aversive motivation systems, while judgments of arousal are understood as reflecting the intensity of the motivational activation. Thus, emotional messages that engage the underlying motivational systems are likely to be processed differently from neutral (or nonemotional) messages.
Applying LC3MP to Studying Web Banner Advertisements
A crucial step in applying the LC3MP to a specific media message is to identify the structure and content features of the message and to examine how each of the features affects the allocation of mental resources. A relevant question here is whether a medium has structural features that can elicit an automatic resource allocation. Extensive studies have shown that structural features in a media message are able to elicit an OR, a representative example of the automatic allocation. For example, A. Lang (1990) identified a number of structural features used to produce a television message: cuts, edits, zooms, and movement. Next, she examined whether each of them would elicit an OR and found that cuts, edits, and movement elicited ORs but zooms did not. As another example, Potter (2000) examined the effects of structural features of radio messages on ORs. He identified three structural features used for the production of radio messages: voice changes (a replacement of one voice by another), laser effects (beam sound), and echo effects. All the three features elicited ORs.
As a media message can be taken apart into several structural features, it can also be broken down into a number of content components.