A study by Anita Atwell Seate and Dana Mastro (2016) studied news coverage of immigration and its relationship to viewers' immigration policy preferences and negative attitudes regarding immigrants. They found that exposure to negative messages about immigrants in the news generated anxious feelings towards the outgroup (i.e., immigrants), particularly when the news program showed a member of the outgroup. This exposure did not necessarily immediately influence immigration policy preferences, but long-term exposure to messages of this kind can affect such preferences.