This thesis explores differences in cognitive and affective responses due to medium-related characteristics. A between-group experiment was conducted, in which 82 students were exposed to two messages equal in content but different in format, produced for television and radio, respectively. A thought-listing protocol and a questionnaire were used to measure the participants’ cognitive elaboration, operationalized as thoughts indicating the activation of stored knowledge beyond the information in the stimulus, emotional reactions to the stimulus, and the perceived likelihood of the event described in the message. It was hypothesized that deeper cognitive elaboration would occur with the radio message. However, some of the findings point to the contrary: the television group reported more thoughts that suggest deeper elaboration, while the radio group listed more thoughts indicating a peripheral processing route. In terms of affective responses and the perceived likelihood of the event described, the study found no significant differences due to medium characteristics.