이 연구는 의제설정 효과의 원인으로 알려진 정향욕구(Need for Orientation)를 개념적으로 세분화해 재구성하는 것을 목표로 했다. 이는 기존의 정향욕구 개념이 1차 의제설정 효과를 설명하는데 그치거나 다변화한 커뮤니케이션 환경에서의 의제설정 효과 발생 이유를 담보하는 데 한계가 있다는 선행연구들의 지적에 따른 것이다. 즉 1차를 넘어 2차 의제설정 효과 원인을 규명하거나 과거에 비해 다채로워진 현대 뉴스 의제설정 효과의 근거를 확인하기 위한 기초 작업으로 정향욕구의 탐색적 재구성을 시도했다. 이를 위해 커뮤니케이션 분야에서 수용자의 선택적 매체 정보 이용을 설명하는 이용과 충족 이론, 정보 검색 분야에서 유사한 내용을 다루는 논의를 빌려왔다. 구체적으로는 인지적 차원에서만 다뤄지던 기존의 정향욕구 접근법에 정서적 차원을 더하고, 이를 관련성(Relevance)과 불확실성(Uncertainty)이라는 정향욕구 기초 인자에 적용했다. 그렇게 재구성된 개념은 각각 4가지(화제적·실질적·상황적·사회감시적) 인지 차원과 4가지(쾌락적·자아적·소속적·위안적) 정서 차원의 하위 요소로 구분됐으며, 이들은 이번 연구에서 시도한 확인적 요인분석을 통해 개념적 정당성을 확보한 것으로 보인다. 연구진은 탐색적 차원에서 의미가 확인된 이 변인들이 추후 구체적인 실험 연구 등을 통해 보완을 거치며 실질적 설명력을 확보하는 토대가 되기를 기대한다.
The Need for Orientation (NFO) is known as the key psychological backbone explaining ‘why people cognize media issues as important’ in agenda setting theory. It seemed to successfully describe how media effects take place, specifically in first level studies of traditional media settings. Relevance and uncertainty, the two components of NFO, have been regarded as the strongest variables to support the effects, and thus treated as intrinsic predictors that guaranteed the theory and were barely further scrutinized. Since the emergence of new media, armed with internet technology, however, new questions have loomed about whether the robust power of these two variables can maintain their ability to explain agenda setting effects. Such questions were mingled with another curiosity, can the original NFO variables support the next phases of agenda setting effects including the second level. Along with these queries, scholars suggested agenda setting research which could combine other media effects theories, including uses and gratification, to enhance its explanatory power. In that regard, this article explored if there is any chance to find or develop NFO variables that strongly elucidate the causes behind why the agenda setting effects occur. To meet the goal, this study first attempted to refine relevance, the major and fundamental NFO variable, with two (cognitive and affective) dimensions. The cognitive dimension was then divided into four sub-dimensions (topical, substantive, situational and surveillant), and the affective dimension into another four sub-dimensions (hedonic, self, belonging, and aesthetic). Following the preceding literature, authors borrowed Saracevic’s conceptual manifestation of relevance (1996) and utilized some original ideas of NFO researchers (Camaj, 2014; Matthes, 2005; McCombs & Weaver, 1973; Weaver, 1980; Valenzuela & Chernov, 2016) and uses and gratification theorists (Katz, Blumler & Gurevitch, 1973; Katz, Haas, & Gurevitch, 1973; McQuail, Blumler & Brown, 1972; Palmgreen, Wenner, & Rayburn, 1980; Papacharissi & Rubin, 2000; Rubin, 1981; Rubin & Perse, 1987) in order to theoretically support these 8 variables. Then, the other original NFO component, uncertainty, was also categorized into 8 dimensions. After organizing the conceptual variables, this study conducted a survey (N = 334) to find if they can be employed as feasible variables to explain agenda setting effects, and factor analyses revealed that each of the variables had satisfactory internal reliabilities (All Cronbach’s Alpha values are over .7) and structural validity, which showed that all of them were found to be statistically workable variables. We believe that the results of this study can lead to various ways to consider the nature of NFO, and they hope the variables investigated here will eventually grow into some effective keys that can widen the understanding of agenda setting effects. Numerous studies, including experiments with different settings, are highly recommended to achieve this end.