Explaining effects of sensationalism on liking of television news stories: The role of emotional arousal

This study investigates the appeal of sensationalist television news. News stories were content analyzed to measure the presence of sensationalist features. In addition, the stories were watched and evaluated by participants to measure the degree to which the items elicited emotional arousal and the degree to which the items were liked. As predicted, the findings showed that emotional arousal mediates effects of sensationalist features on liking and that the relationship between emotional arousal and liking takes the shape of an inverted U