Written in Code: Exploring the Negative Effects of Acronyms in News Headlines
Alyssa Appelman · Journalism Practice · 2021
Through two experiments (N1 = 131, N2 = 520), this study looks at whether the negative effects of acronyms and abbreviations in headlines are based on their presence or their difficulty. In all, it finds support for a difficulty effect; people had lower content and source perceptions when they were shown a headline with unfamiliar acronym(s) compared with ones they knew, and they were more frustrated with those articles. These differences were moderated by need for cognition. In terms of a presence effect, people did perceive some differences in articles with acronyms in their headlines compared to those without, particularly if they were paying close attention, but those differences were much less pronounced. In other words, readers don’t seem to be inherently bothered by the presence of acronyms in headlines; they seem to be bothered by the ones they don’t understand. These findings suggest that journalists should strive to explain acronyms and abbreviations in headlines, rather than worry about avoiding them altogether. Implications for journalistic practice, reader engagement, and dual-processing theories of persuasion are discussed.