This research explored the ways consumption goals and political expertise may influence the depth at which people process political information in television news. Participants were assigned randomly to watch a television news profile of a political candidate with the goal of either forming an evaluation or merely passing a few minutes. They then completed measures of their evaluations of the candidate, their recall of information, and their political knowledge. The results provide evidence that processing goals and political expertise can be powerful determinants of how carefully people process political information. Experts and participants with evaluation goals were more likely than were their counterparts to process the story and form evaluations systematically. This study suggests that communication researchers and political scientists need to consider audience goals and expertise in future investigations.
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