The influence of heterogeneous exposure and pre-deliberation queries on pretrial publicity effects

Prior research on pretrial publicity has produced mixed results and a roughly equal number of studies show an effect, show no effect, or show mixed results. We explored the effects of (a) homogenous vs. heterogeneous exposure (whether deliberating jurors were all exposed to the same publicity or not...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inCommunication monographs Vol. 83; no. 4; pp. 521 - 534
Main Authors Bruschke, Jon, Gonis, Andrew, Hill, Sarah A., Fiber-Ostrow, Pam, Loges, William
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Abingdon Routledge 01.10.2016
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects
due process
Due process of law
exposure homogeneity
fair trials
free press
Freedom of the press
pre-deliberation query bias
Pretrial publicity
Publicity
Trials
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Summary:Prior research on pretrial publicity has produced mixed results and a roughly equal number of studies show an effect, show no effect, or show mixed results. We explored the effects of (a) homogenous vs. heterogeneous exposure (whether deliberating jurors were all exposed to the same publicity or not) and (b) pre-deliberation queries as potential contributors to mixed results. We found an effect for positive but not negative publicity on conviction rates but not evidence ratings. Exposure heterogeneity appears to explain these differences and pre-deliberation queries did appear to play some role in the obtained outcomes. Overall these findings do not replicate a robust publicity effect and future research should consider how homogeneous exposure and pre-deliberation opinion queries influence results.
ISSN:0363-7751
1479-5787
DOI:10.1080/03637751.2016.1182639