The Social, Civic, and Political Uses of Instagram in Four Countries

Instagram has more than 1 billion monthly users. Yet, little is known about how citizens engage with this platform. In this paper, we use representative survey data to examine social, civic, and political uses of Instagram by citizens in four countries: the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and France (n=6,291). The survey was administered to an online panel matched to the age and gender profile of each country (September to November 2019). About 40% of respondents used Instagram. This platform is especially popular among young adults (73%). Users’ network sizes are typically small, as a third of users have less than 15 followers and follow less than 15 other accounts. About 15% of users followed news organizations, a nonprofit organization or charity, or a political candidate or party. While users rarely cultivate networks with ties to these formal organizations and groups, civic and political information flows on this platform. Approximately 57% of users report seeing political information on Instagram during the previous 12 months. These findings suggest political information on Instagram flows through informal rather than formal networks. This paper establishes the importance of social, civic, and political uses of Instagram among citizens in four Western countries. Furthermore, we offer insights into the segments of the population that are intense users of Instagram, which helps to understand the role of this platform in civic and political life.

What Drives Selective Exposure to Political Information in Spain?

Communication research underlines two types of selective exposure to the media: one guided by ideological-partisan affiliations and one guided by interest in politics. This work will compare both motivations in the consumption of political information through three media types (digital press, television, and radio) by Spanish citizens during the 2019 November General Election. Through multinomial logistic regressions applied to a representative post-electoral survey, results show that ideological-partisan orientations are the most important variables governing selective exposure, especially for the digital press and the radio. Besides confirming ideological selective exposure, the data highlight an important tendency towards selective avoidance of news media perceived as ideologically incongruent. For television, however, both socio-demographic trends and ideological orientations exhibit a similar explanatory weight, which suggests that political segmentation of the Spanish television market is still being deployed by communication groups, in comparison with the press and the radio.

The degree of heterogeneity of news consumption in Germany—Descriptive statistics and relations with individual differences in personality, ideological attitudes, and voting intentions

This study aimed to examine the degree of homogeneity versus heterogeneity of individuals’ political information environments across offline and online media types and relations with sociodemographic variables, personality, and political attitudes. In two online surveys, German participants (sample 1: N = 686; sample 2: N = 702) provided information on sociodemographic variables, consumption of political news, and voting intentions, and completed the Big Five Inventory and Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) and Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) scales. Results revealed that absolutely homogeneous political news consumption was evident for a small proportion of individuals (2.04% and 0.43%). Openness (positively) and Agreeableness (negatively) exhibited significant associations with the degree of heterogeneity of political information environments across samples. No consistent patterns of relations with either the ideological attitudes of RWA and SDO or voting intentions were observed. The findings shed light on the existence of absolutely homogeneous political information environments and “who” might be prone to a more homogeneous versus more heterogeneous information environment.

Cognitive Dissonance: Affecting Party Orientation and Selective Recall of Political Information

Cognitive dissonance theory posits that inconsistencies between attitudes and behaviors cause an uncomfortable arousal state, and people are motivated to reduce this discomfort by changing attitudes or behaviors to increase consistency. This principle applies to research on political affiliation. Due to dissonance processes, individuals focus less on political information that opposes their views and pay greater attention when it is congruent with their views. This study adds to this research by examining whether political orientation causes a similar pattern of selective attention bias during the recall stage. Participants (117) studied a political article on a social issue representing a viewpoint that was favorable to Democrats. Next, participants recalled as much information as possible by typing the information in a textbox. Using a sliding scale, they also rated how they felt about the article in terms of arousal and affect, and indicated whether the article was neutral, positive, or negative. Democrats were predicted to recall more positive information and more positive affect after reading the article than Republicans. Surprisingly, more Republicans, rather than Democrats, recalled more positive information about the article. Finally, those who scored more conservatively on the political slider also reported more positive affect toward the article. Although contrary to the study hypotheses, these results have implications for our current understanding of selective attention in a political context by showing the bias also occurs at the recall stage. It takes a special effort to be able to think outside the bubble. The purpose of this study is to find what it takes to pop the bubble and change the mindset of political engaged people. Keywords: cognitive dissonance, attentional bias, political orientation, selective recall

Introduction

The introduction outlines the book and analyses previous historiography and perspective regarding senatorial relationships and Roman politics. This book offers a new way of understanding elite relationships, based upon face-to-face communication and the circulation of information through personal oral contact between members of the elite and their entourage. Roman politics, based upon ever-changing and short-lived alliances established over a particular issue, were constructed through the constant transmission and circulation of political information. For the proper functioning of the system, Roman senators had to be constantly informed about their peers’ opinions and intentions.

Political Conversations in Late Republican Rome

We are familiar with the notion that the Roman political world of the Late Republic included lofty speeches and sessions of the Senate, but also need to remember that another important aspect of Late Republican politics revolved around senators talking among themselves, chatting in the corner. The present book intends to analyse senatorial political conversations and illuminate the oral aspects of Roman politics. It argues that Roman senators and their entourages met in person to have conversations in which they discussed politics, circulated political information, and negotiated strategies; this extra-institutional sphere had a relevant impact both on politics and institutions, as well as determining how the Roman Republic functioned. The main point of this book is to offer a new perspective on Roman politics through the proxy of conversations and meetings. Orality has represented an important component in analysis of Roman institutions: oratory before the people in assemblies and contiones, addresses and discussions in the Senate, speeches in the law courts. Orality was also crucial in rumours and public opinion. The present research posits that, in Rome, oral was the default mode of communication in politics, especially outside institutions. Only when they could not reach each other in person did Roman senators and their peers resort to letters. The book suggests that the study of politics should not be restricted to the senatorial group, but that other persons should be considered as important actors with their own agency (albeit in different degrees), such as freedmen and elite women.