The exemplification theory of communication suggests that the human mind is acutely receptive to concrete information from its surroundings. In a series of experimental studies, communication researchers have consistently found that people tend to extrapolate from exemplars they see in the media—even when given conspicuous statistics that suggest the given exemplars are in the minority of cases. Despite the findings of those experimental studies, only a handful of researchers have attempted to catalog the use of exemplars in media reports. This study was undertaken as a first step toward correcting that research imbalance.
This study employed a content analysis to measure the use of exemplars in six metropolitan American newspapers in 2003. The content analysis used a sample of two constructed weeks to search for exemplified narratives on the front page of each newspaper and on the front of the local news/metro section. The content analysis did not uncover a significant number of exemplified narratives in a constructed two-week sample of papers, which suggests that the experimental model of exemplification may be at odds with real-world journalism practices.
This study also examined four of the exemplified narratives found by the content analysis in qualitative case studies. Those case studies employed Hall’s model of encoding/decoding and Barthes’ conception of myth to reconsider the underlying theoretical assumptions of exemplification theory. The results of the exercise suggest that the interpretation of exemplars by an audience is a much more complex process than researchers may have previously acknowledged in the literature on exemplification.