Online Incidental Exposure to News Can Minimize Interest-Based Political Knowledge Gaps: Evidence from Two U.S. Elections

2021 ◽  
pp. 194016122199155
Author(s):  
Brian E. Weeks ◽  
Daniel S. Lane ◽  
Lauren B. Hahn
Keyword(s):  
Political Knowledge ◽  
The United States ◽  
Online News ◽  
Opportunities To Learn ◽  
Knowledge Gaps ◽  
Panel Surveys ◽  
Media Environment ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
Presidential Candidates ◽  
Incidental Exposure

Concerns persist over the potential for the fragmented media environment to promote motivation-based political knowledge gaps between those who are interested in politics and those who are not. Yet, there is also evidence that the Internet can provide opportunities for individuals to incidentally encounter and learn from news, which may decrease these knowledge gaps. The current study tests this possibility using two, two-wave panel surveys of adults in the United States conducted during the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections. Across two distinct electoral contexts, we find evidence that incidental exposure to online news and political information promotes learning about presidential candidates’ policy positions over the course of the campaign. In addition, the data suggest the least politically interested benefit the most from this incidental exposure, as they see the largest gains in political knowledge. These findings indicate that opportunities to learn via incidental exposure have the potential to reduce motivation-based knowledge gaps.

Media, Electoral Accountability, and Issue Voting

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Jerit ◽  
Jason Barabas
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Models ◽  
Political Knowledge ◽  
The United States ◽  
Electoral Accountability ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
Policy Issues ◽  
Issue Voting ◽  
The Past ◽  
Research Designs

Issue voting concerns the extent to which citizens reward or punish elected officials for their actions or inaction on legislative issues. There are debates about styles of issue voting as well as whether it takes place in the United States, but nearly all theoretical models elevate the role of political knowledge. That is, voters must know where politicians stand on policy issues as well as their own positions. While there are a variety of ways citizens could learn about policy positions and actions, the mass media are presumed to play an important role. Yet, demonstrating the empirical linkages has been difficult in the past due to ever-present challenges with data and research designs. More research is needed to understand the various mechanisms underpinning representative democracy.

scholarly journals Setting the Transgender Agenda: Intermedia Agenda-Setting in the Digital News Environment

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas J Billard
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Agenda Setting ◽  
The United States ◽  
Online News ◽  
Press Coverage ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Digital Native ◽  
Media Environment ◽  
Intermedia Agenda Setting ◽  
Digital News

Transgender issues have recently emerged as highly salient topics of political contestation in the United States. This paper investigates one relevant factor in that ascent: intermedia agenda-setting between digital-native and legacy press news. Through a content analysis of the top-five digital-native and top-five legacy press online news entities from 2014 to 2015, we investigate the dynamics of intermedia agenda-setting in the context of transgender topics, both at the level of attention to transgender topics in general and at the level of attention to specific issues related to the transgender community (e.g., anti-transgender violence). Results indicate significant causal effects of digital-native coverage on legacy press coverage at the level of general attention to transgender topics. However, results also indicate that at the level of specific transgender issues, digital-native coverage drives legacy press coverage on some issues, which legacy press coverage drives digital-native coverage on others. Implications for intermedia agenda-setting in the digital news media environment and for the future of transgender political rights movements are discussed.

Bossa Mundo

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
K.E. Goldschmitt
Keyword(s):  
Local Governments ◽  
Film Music ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
National Brand ◽  
Brazilian Music ◽  
Media Environment ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Media ◽  
Rich Countries

Bossa Mundo chronicles how Brazilian music has been central to Brazil’s national brand in the United States and the United Kingdom since the late 1950s. Scholarly texts on Brazilian popular music generally focus on questions of music and national identity, and when they discuss the music’s international popularity, they keep the artists, recordings, and live performances as the focus, ignoring the process of transnational mediation. This book fills a major gap in Brazilian music studies by analyzing the consequences of moments when Brazilian music was popular in Anglophone markets, with a focus on the media industries. With subject matter as varied as jazz, film music, dance fads, DJ/remix culture, and new models of musical distribution, the book demonstrates how the mediation of Brazilian music in an increasingly crowded transnational marketplace has had lasting consequences for the creative output celebrated by Brazil as part of its national brand. Through a discussion of the political meaning of mass-mediated music in chronologically organized chapters, the book shifts the scholarly focus on the music’s transnational popularity from the scholarly framework of representing Otherness to broader considerations of a media environment where listeners and intermediaries often have differing priorities. The book provides a new model for studying music from culturally rich countries in the Global South where local governments often leverage stereotypes in their national branding project.

Political sophistication

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Παύλος Βασιλόπουλος
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
American Literature ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Political Knowledge ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Information ◽  
Cognitive Capacity ◽  
Basic Knowledge ◽  
Political Sophistication

This dissertation is concerned with the concept of political sophistication, referring to the extent and organization of a person’s stored political cognition (Luskin 1987).Available empirical evidence on the levels of political sophistication in mass publics comes almost exclusively from the United States and point to two broad conclusions: First, systematic empirical research has demonstrated that political information in the mass public is particularly low (Converse 1964, Delli Carpini and Keeter 1996). Citizens lack basic knowledge over political affairs. Time and again empirical studies have systematically showed that citizens in the United States and elsewhere fall short of passing even the most rudimentary political knowledge tests. This finding that was first illustrated by the Michigan school in the early 1960s (Campbell et al. 1960) resulted in a wide pessimism over the meaning of public opinion and even of representative democracy (Inglehart 1985).The second broad conclusion is that the politically sophisticated and unsophisticated differ: Political sophisticates have the cognitive capacity to translate their deeper held political values and predispositions into consistent political attitudes (Zaller 1992). They are able to use their political knowledge in order to make informed vote choices in the sense that they accurately adjust their political positions to the parties’ platforms (Delli Carpini and Keeter 1996, Lau and Redlawsk 1997, 2006). What is more, they are more likely to participate in elections and other political activities and are less susceptible to political propaganda (Delli Carpini and Keeter 1996).However the idea that political sophistication matters for the quality of the public’s political decision-making has met strong theoretical and methodological criticism by the ‘low information rationality’ perspective (Popkin 1991, Lupia 1994,Graber 2001). This group of theories argues that politically inattentive citizens can form their political judgment on the basis of heuristics that allow them to make reasonable choices reflecting their predispositions and interests even though they lack political knowledge.The principal aims of this thesis are: a)to compare different measurement perspectives on political sophistication and assess their methodological potential especially in regard with comparative research on political knowledgeb)to explore the extent to which the pattern of ignorance that has been repeatedly highlighted in the American literature is an internal characteristic of political behavior stemming from the low expected utility of acquiring political information or it is subject to particular cultural and systemic characteristics. To this direction I use Greece as a case study by undertaking an analytical survey of political sophistication, one of the very few that have been conducted across the Atlantic.c)The third aim is to investigate the determinants of political sophistication and especially the potential of the mass media in political learning and in the context of the Greek political and media system.d)d) Finally this thesis addresses the unresolved question concerning the differences in quality of political decisions between the political sophisticated and unsophisticated layers of the public by evaluating the explanatory potential of two competing theories (political sophistication v. low information rationality) in the multi-party political environment of Greece

scholarly journals Towards nuanced universality: Developing a concept bible for public service online news production

2018 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-87
Author(s):  
Jenni Hokka
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Online News ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
General Level ◽  
Audience Segmentation ◽  
News Production ◽  
Media Environment ◽  
Social Media Platforms

With the advent of popular social media platforms, news journalism has been forced to re-evaluate its relation to its audience. This applies also for public service media that increasingly have to prove its utility through audience ratings. This ethnographic study explores a particular project, the development of ‘concept bible’ for the Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE’s online news; it is an attempt to solve these challenges through new journalistic practices. The study introduces the concept of ‘nuanced universality’, which means that audience groups’ different kinds of needs are taken into account on news production in order to strengthen all people’s ability to be part of society. On a more general level, the article claims that despite its commercial origins, audience segmentation can be transformed into a method that helps revise public service media principles into practices suitable for the digital media environment.

scholarly journals What Happens after an Abortion Denial? A Review of Results from the Turnaway Study

2020 ◽  
Vol 110 ◽  
pp. 226-230
Author(s):  
Sarah Miller ◽  
Laura R. Wherry ◽  
Diana Greene Foster
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Human Capital ◽  
Longitudinal Data ◽  
Administrative Data ◽  
The United States ◽  
Opportunities To Learn ◽  
Study Team

We provide a brief overview of the Turnaway Study, the first study to collect longitudinal data on individual women who received versus were denied a wanted abortion in the United States. The study team collected data on nearly 1,000 women seeking an abortion from 30 facilities around the country and followed them for 5 years. We discuss some of the main findings from the study related to the health, labor, and human capital outcomes of the women who were denied abortions and gave birth. We conclude by describing future opportunities to learn from the study with new linkages to administrative data.

Online news creation, trust in the media, and political participation: Direct and moderating effects over time

Journalism ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (5) ◽  
pp. 611-631 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alberto Ardèvol-Abreu ◽  
Catherine M Hooker ◽  
Homero Gil de Zúñiga
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
The United States ◽  
Online News ◽  
Citizen Journalism ◽  
Panel Survey ◽  
Moderating Effects ◽  
News Production ◽  
The Media ◽  
Over Time

This article explores the role of trust in professional and alternative media as (a) antecedents of citizen news production, and (b) moderators of the effect of citizen news production on political participation. Using two-wave panel survey data collected in the United States between December 2013 and March 2014, results show that trust in citizen media predicts people’s tendency to create news. In turn, citizen news production is a positive predictor of both offline and online participation. More importantly, trust in the media moderates the effect of citizen news production over online political participation. Overall, this article highlights the importance of trust in the media with respect to citizen news production and how it matters for democracy. Thus, this study casts a much-needed light on how media trust and citizen journalism intertwine in explaining a more engaged and participatory citizenry.

Implications of online incidental and selective exposure for political emotions: Affective polarization during elections

2021 ◽  
pp. 146144482110613
Author(s):  
Qinfeng Zhu ◽  
Brian E Weeks ◽  
Nojin Kwak
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
Presidential Elections ◽  
Emotional Responses ◽  
Selective Exposure ◽  
Panel Surveys ◽  
Political Emotions ◽  
Incidental Exposure ◽  
Shared Information ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Political Groups

The Internet and social media create an environment in which individuals can selectively approach information supporting their political worldviews while also being incidentally exposed to socially shared information that challenges their beliefs. These competing information consumption patterns may help explain whether and how digital media contribute to affective polarization (i.e. affect-based division between political groups). This study examines how pro-attitudinal selective exposure and counter-attitudinal incidental exposure in tandem influence political emotions. Using data from 2, two-wave panel surveys conducted during the 2016 and 2020 US presidential elections, our findings demonstrate that seeking consonant political information is consistently associated with anger toward political opponents and enthusiasm toward like-minded partisans. In contrast, despite the purported democratic benefits endowed on political disagreement, cross-cutting incidental exposure does not temper political emotional responses associated with pro-attitudinal selective exposure. However, we find little evidence that unexpected exposure to disagreeable information backfires either.

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