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Selection of Influence? A Study of News Media’s Effects on Social Networks and Power Dynamics among Religious Group Members

ABSTRACT This study investigates how negative news coverage about the pastor of a large Korean-American church affected the social ties and power dynamics among members of the congregation. The study adopts a media effect approach and the competing theories of social selection and social influence to provide a theoretical framework for the cognitive and behavioral processes that affect the formation of social ties. Through the interview method, this study found that two distinctively different types of new social network phenomena: tie formation and removal based on perceptions on the article vs. changes in perspectives on the news story due to the existing social network.