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Abstract
As citizens inadvertently “encounter” news and political information through digital media and social networking sites, they might perceive themselves to be well informed about politics without actively seeking political information, which has been labeled as the “News Finds Me” (NFM) perception. We attempt to explicate and further advance the conceptualization and corresponding measurement of “News Finds Me” perception. Using a nationally representative survey conducted in Austria, our analysis shows that social media news use may contribute to cynicism towards politics, and that such a relationship is critically mediated through NFM perceptions, but to a differential degree depending on specific sub-dimensions of NFM perceptions.
... However, the protracted COVID-19 pandemic has formed an environment wherein people can easily get abundant health misinformation. Considering that NFM perception indicates individuals' passive approach to assessing information (Song et al., 2020), they may be more susceptible to falling for health misinformation. This, in turn, has the potential to hinder and undermine the effectiveness of public health communication and management (Lin et al., 2023). ...
... The NFM perception is defined as "the extent to which individuals believe they can indirectly stay informed about public affairs -despite not actively following the news -through general Internet use, information received from peers, and connections within online social networks" (Gil de Zúñiga et al., 2017, p. 107;Song et al., 2020, p. 49). Based on this initial conceptualization, Song et al. (2020) aptly indicated its three dimensionalities, namely, the epistemic (i.e., being informed), motivational (i.e., not seeking for news), and instrumental dimensions (i.e., reliance on peers). ...
... In other words, the abundant information availability motivates individuals to not actively seek for news. The instrumental dimension is the notion that individuals can rely on or delegate the process of acquiring information to their social network peers (Song et al., 2020). Besides the informion availability and the fact that news providers compete for attentions, the affordance indicators of social media such as liking and retweeting have made obtaining information from peers much easier. ...
... In the current digital media landscape, however, it is all too easy to take a passive stance to getting news updates. One phenomenon that may be at the heart of this issue is the news finds me perception (NFM), which refers to the belief that one does not need to actively follow the news to be well informed about public affairs because the news will "find me" through social media, social ties, and general internet use (Song et al., 2020). People holding NFM beliefs tend to have less political knowledge over time (e.g., Gil de Zúñiga et al., 2017;Lee, 2020), are less interested in politics (e.g., Gil de Zúñiga & Diehl, 2019), and are less likely to vote (e.g., Gil de Zúñiga & Diehl, 2019) relative to people who do not develop the perception. ...
... To date, NFM research has primarily used longitudinal survey methods to predict political outcomes over time (Gil de Zúñiga et al., 2017;Gil de Zúñiga & Diehl, 2019;Park & Kaye, 2020;Song et al., 2020) or qualitative methods to understand lived NFM experiences (e.g., Oeldorf-Hirsch & Srinivasan, 2022;Toff & Nielsen, 2018). These investigations address the democratic consequences of believing the news will find me, such as political cynicism, political knowledge, and voting behavior. ...
... Dimensions and Consequences of NFM NFM refers to "the extent to which individuals believe they can indirectly stay informed about public-affairs-despite not actively following news-through internet use, information received from peers and online social networks" (Gil de Zúñiga et al., 2017, p. 107). NFM theorists have identified and validated three dimensions of the NFM construct (Song et al., 2020): an epistemic component (being informed), an instrumental component (reliance on peers), and a motivational component (not seeking). First, NFM is characterized by an epistemic sense that one is sufficiently informed about public affairs, as news will find them. ...
Individuals harboring perceptions that the “news will find me” (NFM) tend to be less active consuming traditional media, preferring news online and on social media. NFM has also been linked with lower political knowledge and political participation over time. What remains to be seen, however, is whether high-NFM individuals are in fact less likely to expose themselves to news once they do encounter it online. This preregistered study fills this gap in the literature by unobtrusively logging selection behaviors while U.S. adults browsed a mock news website featuring various hard and soft news stories. Consistent with our hypothesizing, NFM was associated with greater exposure to soft news. Additionally, we examined whether genre-specific NFM beliefs would predict less exposure to those news genres. We found support for this hypothesis in the context of science news, but for political news, this relationship depended on the news stories presented.
... The consequences of NFM are mostly politically undesirable such as decreasing political knowledge (Lee, 2020) and political participation (Gil de Zúñiga and Diehl., 2019) and increasing political cynicism (Song et al., 2020). Only a handful of studies have examined the impacts of NFM on misinformation, especially about non-political issues. ...
... While the original study (Gil de Zúñiga et al., 2017) and most subsequent studies have treated NFM perception as a single-dimensional construct, Song et al. (2020) later suggested that NFM is a multidimensional construct with three subdimensions: being informed, not seeking, and reliance on peers. Being informed refers to individuals' epistemic belief that they are well informed about current affairs (Song et al., 2020). ...
... While the original study (Gil de Zúñiga et al., 2017) and most subsequent studies have treated NFM perception as a single-dimensional construct, Song et al. (2020) later suggested that NFM is a multidimensional construct with three subdimensions: being informed, not seeking, and reliance on peers. Being informed refers to individuals' epistemic belief that they are well informed about current affairs (Song et al., 2020). The social media environment creates such beliefs due to its ambient nature and abundant information availability (Hermida, 2010). ...
This study explores the role of the news-finds-me (NFM) perception-the belief that people can be well-informed without actively seeking news due to their social networks-in fostering social media users' inaccurate beliefs about COVID-19. Findings from a US national survey (N = 1003) suggest that NFM perception is positively associated with belief in COVID-19 misinformation and mediates the positive relationship between social media use and false beliefs when NFM is measured as a single-dimensional construct. However, the sub-dimensions of NFM have distinct implications: The reliance on peers and not seeking but feeling informed dimensions work in the same manner as when NFM is treated as a single-dimensional construct, whereas reliance on algorithmic news negatively predicts belief in misinformation and negatively mediates the aforementioned relationship. We also found the mediating role of exposure to misinformation in the relationship between social media use and false beliefs. Implications from these findings are discussed.
... Citizens who develop this perception believe that when public affairs and current event news are important, that information will find them through online and social media news feeds, as they rely on their peer networks on these media platforms to provide relevant news (Gil de Zúñiga et al., 2017;Lee, 2020). NFM has been found to be associated with less news sharing (Segado-Boj et al., 2019), less consumption of traditional news (Park & Kaye, 2020), lowered expectation and standards of journalism quality (Segado-Boj et al., 2020), decreased learning from news content (Oeldorf-Hirsch & Srinivasan, 2021), higher levels of political cynicism (Song et al., 2020), and decreased levels of political knowledge (Lee, 2020), political interest and voting behavior (Gil de Zúñiga & Diehl., 2019). ...
... Within this backdrop, most of the empirical research on NFM has been linked to adverse democratic consequences. For instance, those who have higher NFM perception tend to report higher levels of political cynicism (Song et al., 2020), and lower levels of political knowledge (Gil de Zúñiga et al., 2017;Lee, 2020). Similarly, NFM tends to explain why people learn less from news events (Oeldorf-Hirsch & Srinivasan, 2021), lower their political interest and cast their votes less frequently in local and general elections (Gil de Zúñiga & Diehl, 2019). ...
... Linking NFM with algorithmic news Prior research revolving the NFM theory empirically tested three sub-dimensions encompassing the NFM construct: being informed, not seeking, and reliance on peers (Song et al., 2020). All these individual dimensions may be theoretically linked to the algorithm news selection process, so that NFM people will be more likely to hold a favorable attitude toward algorithmic news, be it user-driven algorithmic news or socially-driven algorithmic news. ...
Prior literature on political filter bubbles suggests an overall positive association between social media use and political networks diversification. Sometimes, this might not be the case. This study argues that the News Finds Me perception (NFM) or the belief that “one” can be well-informed about public affairs without actively seeking information as news will find “me” through “my” networks, tend to nurture a positive attitude toward algorithmic news gatekeeping. Likewise, NFM’s news over-reliance on one’s social network support the development of homogeneous information and discussion political networks in social media (political homophily). Results based on a variety of ordinary least squares regression models (cross-sectional, lagged, and autoregressive) from a U.S. representative panel survey, as we all as autoregressive structural equation model tests, indicate that this is indeed the case. This study serves to specifically clarify when and how social media and the NFM facilitate politically homogeneous filter bubbles.
... Along these lines, insulting campaign messages may have resonated especially well among cynics who evaluated the current political situation with a high degree of uncertainty (Tian et al. 2020). Moreover, according to Song, Gil de Zúñiga, and Boomgaarden (2020), the perception of being informed decreases citizens' political cynicism, and these individuals take an active role in the democratic process despite the illusion of being informed. ...
... Practically, cynicism could be the most contrary feeling to political efficacy, as it is a feeling of absolute distrust in political life and is closely related to the perception of being misinformed (Song, Gil de Zúñiga and Boomgaarden, 2020), this feeling being a clear example that exposure to misinformation forms political cynics (Jones-Jang, Kim, and Kenski 2021). ...
a university of atlántico Medio, las Palmas, spain; b rey Juan Carlos university, Madrid, spain; c visiting lecturer, esai Business school, espiritu santo university, Guayaquil, ecuador ABSTRACT In recent years, censorship of streaming movies and series have gone hand in hand with social movements that pressure large audiovisual production companies, distributors and OTTs through digital networks, in the context of a growing «woke culture», especially among the younger generation. This study aims to examine the psychosocial feelings of efficacy, alienation and political cynicism in the millennial and centennial generations in Mexico and Spain, the two Spanish-speaking countries with the highest rates of streaming audiovisual content consumption. For this purpose, a national survey was applied to 998 participants in both countries. Among the main results, it is highlighted that centennials feel a higher level of political efficacy, considering valid that the opinions in social networks should serve for audiovisual production companies to take into account the wishes and expectations of audiences. Regarding alienation, both generations, but especially centennials, consider that changes in the plot or story of a series or movie due to social pressure are due more to a clientelistic vision of the production companies than to the empowerment of the viewer. Finally, about political cynicism, millennials in both countries believe that audiovisual production companies respond more to political agendas interests than the idea of «responsible entertainment».
... It is formed through aggregated appraisals of information (epistemic factor), non-seeking behavior (motivational factor), and acquaintance dependency (instrumental factor); thus, it shifts the main source of news consumption to virtual acquaintances. 57 With news exposure via social media sites commonly regarded as coincidental encounters, NFMP is critical in linking such coincidental encounters to news consumption. 58 However, NFMP has been shown to induce public susceptibility to social media news without encouraging knowledge absorption. ...
... In this case, users' contextspecified skepticism is generated by their associated management of NFMP on social media. 57 While NFMP holds an insignificant influence on news dissemination, its influence on individuals' news consumption has been well-established. 62 Representing personal perceptions that require low cognitive investment, NFMP demonstrates direct correlations with flawed susceptibility and the increased credibility of fake news. ...
This study is one of the few studies that aimed to examine, first, the effect of social media usage for news consumption on users’ cognitive notions in terms of focal and affiliate social media trust, and second, the effect of social media trust, news-finds-me perception (NFMP), and fake news’ deception detection self-efficacy (DDSE) on news credibility, brand (dis)trust, and consumers’ propensity to believe and act on fake news. The analysis findings indicated that: (i) social media usage induces focal and affiliate social media trust, (ii) NFMP and DDSE influence news credibility, which in turn determines brand (dis)trust and the propensity to believe in and act on fake news, and (iii) the impact of focal and affiliate social media trust on news credibility is moderated by persuasive knowledge. The present study’s findings contribute to the existing consumer behavior literature by offering insights to counteract the impact of fake news on brands.
... The NFM perception has been empirically validated in numerous cultural contexts (see Gil de Z uñiga, Strauss, and Huber 2020) and it is generally operationalized to include three sub-dimensions: reliance on peers in the network for relevant news, confirmation-bias (false notion that one is informed), and lack of purposeful news intention (Song, Gil de Z uñiga, and Boomgaarden 2020). These three factors constitute one omnibus variable, and it is associated with decreasing political knowledge (Gil de Z uñiga and Diehl 2019; Lee 2020) and susceptibility to believe in fake news stories, over and above partisan reasoning (Diehl and Lee 2022). ...
... Gil de Z uñiga, Weeks, and Ard evol-Abreu 2017; Lee 2020). In this study, we found empirical support for earlier work, as we found that social media news use leads to higher levels of the NFM perception (Lee 2020;Song, Gil de Z uñiga, and Boomgaarden 2020). Similarly, we also found support for earlier findings that have documented the negative impact of NFM perception on political knowledge (Gil de Z uñiga, Weeks, and Ard evol-Abreu 2017; Gil de Z uñiga and Diehl 2019; Lee 2020). ...
Scholarship has now recognized the potentially detrimental effects of social media on political knowledge. At the same time, a separate but similar line of work has raised concerns that these platforms are the primary vector of political misinformation. Despite the renewed focus on misinformation studies, the question as to whether political knowledge and susceptibility to misinformation are related remains open. If they are indeed related, we still know little about the underlying cognitive mechanisms that drive political learning when people rely on social media for news. Based on a two-wave panel survey collected during the 2020 U.S. presidential election, we found that social media news use fosters the news-finds-me perception (particularly among those who feel overwhelmed with the volume of information available on social media). This, in turn, leads people to be both uninformed and misinformed about politics and current affairs. Implications for democracy are discussed.
... NFM reflects the individuals' belief that "they can indirectly stay informed about public affairs through general internet use, information received from peers, and connections within online social networks" (Gil de Zúñiga et al., 2017, p. 3). As such, NFM has been theorized as a higher-order construct with three subdimensions: being informed (epistemic dimension), not-seeking (motivational dimension), and reliance on peers (instrumental dimension; Song et al., 2020). Often seen as a byproduct of media environments with many choices, high levels of NFM do not entail an active avoidance of news. ...
... Far from that, individuals ranking high on NFM are particularly receptive to new information gathered using social media, especially when this comes from peers . In fact, the NMF's instrumental dimension reflects that people believe they can delegate the acquisition of information to their online and social network peers (Song et al., 2020). It is here that we see the connection with populist attitudes. ...
Prior studies have theorized a positive association between people's populist attitudes and an increased use of social media to consume news, which will be mainly driven by individuals' engagement with news that reflects their people-centered, anti-elitist, and Manichean understanding of politics. However, such general connection remains elusive. This research seeks to further clarify this strand of the literature by incorporating people's belief that important political information will find them without actively seeking news-"News Finds Me" perception (NFM). For that, we use online survey data from two European countries that differ regarding the ideological political supply side of populism (Italy and Portugal). The main results suggest that citizens who hold stronger populist attitudes will also develop stronger NFM. Furthermore, findings reveal a mediating effect of social media news use on the effects of populist attitudes over NFM. That is, those who hold stronger populist attitudes tend to use social media to get exposed to public affairs news more often, which in turn explains the development of the NFM. These results emphasize the importance of systematically exploring citizens populists' attitudes within today's social media, social networks, and complex information systems.
... Es indudable el enorme poder que han ganado en la última década y media, las redes sociales y no sólo para intercambio de información sino también por su capacidad de generar nuevos tipos de sociabilidades, así como formas de acción política (Song et al., 2020) donde se forman comunidades con capacidad de incidencia en los acontecimientos, así como también definir grupos que pueden ser ganados en el tiempo de campañas electorales, gracias a los datos que permiten establecer perfiles de las personas con sus gustos y preferencias. Con la expansión en el uso a escala global del smartphone que permitieron la portabilidad de internet e hicieron de los teléfonos móviles, no Influencia de las redes sociales digitales en la política. ...
La política en el siglo xxi ha experimentado cambios significativos, especialmente en la forma en que los candidatos se comunican con los votantes. Las redes sociales y la comunicación digital han adquirido un papel protagonista en las campañas electorales, lo que también ha propiciado la proliferación de noticias falsas e influencia de ideologías políticas. En este contexto, se analiza la campaña presidencial de 2022 en Colombia, caracterizada por la presencia activa de los candidatos en redes sociales y el uso de nuevas estrategias comunicativas. Metodología: se realiza un análisis cualitativo y descriptivo de las estrategias comunicativas de los candidatos en redes sociales, enfocándose en sus mensajes y formas de interacción con los votantes, así como en la presencia de noticias falsas y elementos ideológicos. Además, se examinan los resultados electorales para evaluar el impacto de estas estrategias en el desempeño de los candidatos. Aportes: se proporciona una visión detallada de cómo las redes sociales pueden afectar la política moderna y las elecciones. Conclusiones: aunque las redes sociales y la comunicación digital, junto con la propagación de noticias falsas y la influencia de ideologías políticas, jugaron un papel importante en la campaña presidencial colombiana de 2022, no pudieron sustituir completamente la interacción humana y la conexión directa con los votantes. Los candidatos deben buscar un equilibrio entre el uso de estas plataformas y la participación en actividades políticas tradicionales para establecer una conexión más profunda con los votantes y abordar de manera efectiva sus preocupaciones y necesidades.
... An example is the 'news finds me' (NFM) phenomenon, which refers to the belief that direct news engagement is unnecessary because exposure to news through ones' peers and platforms is sufficient (Toff and Nielsen, 2018). It is composed of three factors: a belief that one is adequately informed about public issues; a reliance on peers and platforms for news updates; and a corresponding belief that one has little need for active news engagement (Skurka et al., 2023b;Song et al., 2020). NFM is on the rise -recent research shows roughly over 1/3 of Americans hold the perception, and it has been studied as a form of IA Toff and Nielsen, 2018). ...
Information avoidance (IA) is a prevalent information behavior that is used by people to understand and act on environmental issues, yet is understudied in the environmental field, leaving us with an incomplete picture of environmental communication processes and outcomes. Compounding this partial knowledge is a lack of research into people’s own conceptions of IA. Considering these issues together calls for exploratory research into people’s lived experiences of environmental IA. To do so, we focused on a factor that drives behaviors like IA: motives. We investigated environmental IA motives among those living in the US and used the pre-theoretical planned risk information avoidance (PRIA) model to compare and contrast our findings. To undertake this work, we developed a short questionnaire; research company YouGov administered the project. They recruited our participants, who were panel members from their US panel, n = 200. We analyzed open-ended data on participants’ IA motives with a framework thematic analysis, identifying seven motives: information credibility and exposure; interpersonal relationship frames; emotional arousal; agency; hazard perceptions; and environmental topics. These findings provide three contributions to environmental IA research. First, three of these motives have been under and/or unexplored in IA studies to date, and we suggest their inclusion in an expanded PRIA model to forward model development. Three other motives indicate boundary conditions associated with environmental issues and IA: scale, timeframe, and referents. Boundary conditions represent how well a theory or model fits into a research context and can sharpen future IA investigations within environmental contexts to increase predictive and explanatory power. Lastly, we also identified the top environmental issues our participants wanted to avoid. Our results provide an initial base to continue developing environmental IA research.
... Information technology, especially with increasingly sophisticated social media platforms, makes it easier and faster for everyone to find information and news, such as political information. Added online social contact, including offline social contact, diversify contribution to society's cynical or negative attitude toward political constellations even though the level of perception of each person is different from one another (Kazun, 2023;Park & Kaye, 2020;Song et al., 2020). ...
State-managed debt has always been a polemic in every country, including Indonesia. Some people's perceptions did not align with the Government's debt policy, including some college students'students' perceptions. Therefore, this study, which is of significant importance, aims to determine the public's understanding, especially college students, of state-managed debt. The Government values the insights of college students, as their perceptions are crucial in shaping public learning regarding debt management. The research was conducted using a qualitative approach through in-depth interviews with five informants outside Jabodetabek (Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, Tangerang, and Bekasi) in Indonesia. The five informants represent the college student community with different educational backgrounds and genders. Based on the in-depth interviews, the results found that all informants' perceptions described the terminology of state-managed debt sufficiently. Likewise, when they described what the investment was. Despite differences in educational backgrounds, each college student could articulate their perceptions of state-managed debt. The study found that the literature on public finance was still limited. Therefore, this research underscores the potential for growth in public finance literacy among college students, highlighting the crucial and reassuring role of the Government in providing comprehensive lessons and accurate information to the younger generation about the benefits of prudent state-managed debt.
... El desarrollo de plataformas orientadas al consumo on demand de contenidos ocupa un lugar central en la manera como nos relacionamos con los medios para estos fines (Peret et al., 2022). En relación con la información, diversos estudios confirman la tendencia hacia un consumo pasivo de noticias (Boczkowski et al., 2018;Heiss & Matthes, 2019;Song et al., 2020). Es decir, informarse de modo incidental -fenómeno conocido como «news finds me»sin necesidad de una búsqueda activa o a través de la información recibida por pares y el apoyo de algoritmos (Gil de Zúñiga & Cheng, 2021). ...
Este estudio explora las prácticas mediáticas de usuarios de Internet peruanos según el nivel educativo autopercibido. La finalidad es aportar una mirada teórica original sobre la conformación de ensambles mediáticos, configurados a partir de los usos e interacciones de determinados grupos sociales con los medios de comunicación. A partir de un cuestionario ad-hoc, basado en una actualización de la Teoría de Usos y Gratificaciones, aplicado a una muestra (n=465) de usuarios de distintos grupos etarios y niveles socioeconómicos, exploramos las semejanzas y diferencias en estos ensambles mediáticos y el impacto en su agencia como usuarios críticos de medios. Los resultados revelan que el contexto nacional, marcado por brechas tecnológicas y la pandemia de COVID-19, ha influido en las prácticas de consumo. El smartphone destaca como el dispositivo más utilizado, valorado por su inmediatez y diversidad de contenidos. Tanto los grupos poco educados como los muy educados recurren a él para informarse, educarse y entretenerse. La televisión también juega un papel importante, siendo el medio de entretenimiento para las generaciones mayores y una fuente de información para los niveles socioeconómicos más altos. La elección de servicios de streaming en grupos de alto poder adquisitivo refleja la influencia de la conectividad y el ancho de banda. El consumo de información está motivado por la curiosidad, mientras que se apela al entretenimiento para aprender y seguir tendencias. Se observa, además, poca planificación en el consumo de entretenimiento e información, aunque los contenidos educativos son más planificados en el grupo muy educado.
... Kepentingan literasi media dalam konteks politik dilaporkan mampu membentuk komuniti sivik yang berintegriti (Hassan, 2020), meningkatkan minat politik (Shehata & Amnå, 2019), memperkukuhkan struktur pengetahuan politik dan sekaligus mendorong penyertaan politik terutama dalam kalangan golongan muda (Ganduri et al., 2020). Namun, kelebihan kemahiran literasi media dalam konteks politik kurang mendapat perhatian penyelidik komunikasi politik sedangkan kemahiran literasi media adalah benteng dan perisai kepada kebanyakkan isu maklumat (Sachdeva & Tripathi, 2019) seperti maklumat palsu (Pérez-Escoda et al., 2021), kecelaruan maklumat (UNESCO, 2018) dan maklumat sinikal (Song et al., 2020) yang tersebar luas di media terutama media sosial. Ini bermakna golongan muda yang aktif di media sosial turut terdedah dengan kecelaruan maklumat terutama maklumat politik. ...
: Ledakan teknologi komunikasi dan maklumat pada hari ini membuka platform kepada golongan muda terutama pengundi muda (Undi18) untuk mendapat akses maklumat politik. Hal ini mendorong kepada pelaksanaan polisi penurunan had umur mengundi daripada 21 tahun kepada 18 tahun di Malaysia. Objektif kajian ini untuk mengkaji tahap kemahiran literasi media dan tahap kesediaan penyertaan politik dalam kalangan pengundi muda di Malaysia. Kaedah survei digunakan ke atas 547 responden dalam kalangan pengundi muda (18-26 tahun) di Malaysia. Soal selidik telah melalui proses kesahan pakar dan kesahan bersemuka yang menjadikan nilai Alpha Cronbach bagi setiap item adalah melebihi 0.07 yang membawa maksud mempunyai aras kesahan yang baik. Pekali alfa untuk semua item ialah 0.95. Dapatan kajian menunjukkan tahap kemahiran literasi media dalam kalangan pengundi muda adalah sederhana (min=3.93) dan tahap kesediaan penyertaan politik dalam kalangan pengundi muda adalah rendah (min=2.56). Namun, responden dilaporkan mempunyai tahap pengetahuan politik yang tinggi dan menjadikan media sosial merupakan platform popular untuk mendapatkan maklumat politik. Kajian ini melaporkan ibu bapa, sekolah serta media sosial merupakan agen yang mempengaruhi minat politik. Kajian ini membawa implikasi sosial bahawa Kerajaan perlu mempergiat kempen kemahiran literasi media di peringkat sekolah hingga ke Institusi Pengajian Tinggi. Kepentingan kemahiran literasi media meningkatkan tahap kesediaan penyertaan politik dalam kalangan pengundi muda. Kajian ini turut membantu negara mencapai matlamat dasar Wawasan Kemakmuran Bersama 2030 di bawah Teras 5, iaitu Transformasi Modal Insan melalui Program Pembangunan Literasi Media dan Politik bagi melahirkan pemimpin berintegriti dalam kalangan golongan muda.
... Thus, recurring incidental, yet unmotivated encounters with politics might lead to more general negative emotions and politics fatigue (Marcinkowski & Došenović, 2021;Song et al., 2020;Yamamoto et al., 2017). We consider whether the relationship between levels of political information reception and SM politics fatigue is stronger for those with lower political interest. ...
... On the one hand, these findings suggest a potentially positive contribution of the intensified affective polarization to participatory democracy. While there have been growing concerns regarding indifference or cynicism toward politics (Adams et al., 2006;Lee and Jones-Jang, 2022;Song et al., 2020), these findings show that an increased affective polarization can be a driver for citizens to stay engaged in the political process. These findings are also consistent with the results obtained in the previous research, which have demonstrated partisanship's constructive role in promoting one's political involvement (Huddy et al., 2015). ...
Political participation has long been considered a cornerstone of democracy. While most studies on political participation have been grounded on a normative approach, which assumes that political participation is driven by positive civic actions, recent studies suggest that political participation is also driven by negative forces such as overconfidence in knowledge and partisan communication flows. This article builds on the latter line of research by exploring the role of affective polarization on political participation. While this line of research is not new, it suffers from a lack of clear causal order. This study relies on three-wave panel data collected during the 2022 Korean presidential election. To ensure methodological rigor, we utilized both cross-lagged and fixed-effects panel analyses. Our findings show that affective polarization stimulates political participation rather than the reverse path. In addition, we did not observe a reciprocal relationship. Implications for democracy are discussed.
... The interplay between media and political practices is not actively examined. In this context, special mention must be made of attempts to investigate the association between social networking and political participation [27,28] and polarization [29,30], to identify the impact of social media use on political attitudes [31,32], to analyze anti-Russian propaganda in the Internet communications of modern Ukraine within the framework of various student groups' media literacy education [33], and to assess contribution of media criticism to the development of media competence of citizens, their rational and critical attitude to political discourses formed by the media [34]. ...
According to social surveys, the majority of Russian society as a whole supported the President’s decision to hold the special military operation (in what follows, the SMO). However, the level of this support appeared to be different for different social groups. It turned out, for example, that, compared with society in general, young people perceived the outbreak of hostilities more skeptical and critical. In this regard, this article is devoted to the analysis of the features and factors of formation of such an attitude of young people towards the SMO. Among other things, the views of young people about the causes of the outbreak of the conflict, its perpetrators and possible solutions are considered; the reaction of young citizens of the country to the entry into Russia of four new subjects, partial mobilization, as well as those who evade it is presented. Patterns are indicated according to which people’s media preferences affect the nature of their assessments of events within the framework of SMO. Probable reasons for the more skeptical attitude of the younger generation to what is happening are identified, and possible options for its further transformation in the short and long terms are indicated.
... NFM is typically measured by items such as "I rely on information from my friends based on what they like or follow through social media" and "I don't worry about keeping up with the news because I know news will find me." This concept comprises three dimensions: reliance on peers for information needs, lack of motivation for seeking news, and a self-confirmation bias (believing to be informed even if this is not the case) (Song et al., 2020). Although items measuring NFM do not explicitly mention algorithms, we argue that these dimensions cannot be detached from algorithmic experiences, as young people engage with news via platforms, where information is de facto algorithmically curated. ...
Previous research has highlighted the ambiguous experience of algorithmic news curation whereby people are simultaneously comfortable with algorithms, but also concerned about the underlying data collection practices. The present article builds on media dependency theory and news-finds-me (NFM) perceptions to explore this tension. Empirically, we analyze original survey data from six European countries (Germany, Sweden, France, Greece, Poland, and Italy, n = 2,899) to investigate how young Europeans’ privacy concerns and attitudes toward algorithms affect NFM. We find that a more positive attitude toward algorithms and more privacy concerns are related to stronger NFM. The study highlights power asymmetries in platformized news use and suggests that the ambivalent experiences might be a result of algorithm dependency, whereby individuals rely on algorithms in platformized news use to meet their information needs, despite accompanying risks and concerns.
... That is, they believe they can be indirectly informed about public affairs without having to actively seek out news (Gil de Zúñiga, Weeks, and Ardèvol-Abreu 2017). Research finds that audiences with such perceptions are less likely to use traditional news sources (Gil de Zúñiga, Weeks, and Ardèvol-Abreu 2017) and are more likely to possess political cynicism (Song, Gil de Zúñiga, and Boomgaarden 2020). Similarly, those who avoid exposure to news tend to have cynical attitudes toward politicians, modest civic literacy, and less knowledge about politics (Schroder 2019). ...
... In the age of populism, ideologically polarized individuals are more skeptics towards traditional media (Krämer, 2017). In turn, media skeptics and political cynics are less likely to actively seek traditional news (Song et al., 2020), and more likely to trust citizen media news as opposed to traditional media (Carr et al., 2014). Indeed, more polarized and fragmented audiences are less likely to think professional news editors perform well in selecting news publication (Steppat et al., 2021), and while trust in traditional media does not directly predict the creation and sharing of UGC, trust in citizen and social media news is positively associated with UGC (Ardèvol-Abreu et al., 2018). ...
... This emancipatory image of cyberspace, as the contemporary return-of-the-state approaches argue, was no doubt a misconception and blind optimism; it was even "deliberately promoted by states in order to distract from the reality" (Mainwaring, 2020, p. 215). Here, citizen and public cynicism, as factors encouraging states to disregard the cries against increasing state control in the digital space, also need to be addressed as a limiting factor in the practice and robustness of transnational opposition (see Song et al., 2020). ...
The historical practice of citizen participation in politics was confined to elections, yet in the digital era, increasing digitalisation in everyday life has opened windows of opportunities for alternative civilian participation in the political processes, oppositionary activities being foremost among them. Individual or collective opposition parties thus today also confidently carry out political activities against governmental politics through cyber and digital spaces, and thanks to digital advances, oppositionary political participation can no longer be confined to national borders. Hence, in forms of digital transnationalism and transnational dissidence, irrespective of the connection of the articulator to the target country, people around the world criticise governmental politics and shape public perceptions in one country from abroad. Nevertheless, governments, as well, make use of digital space in taking part in transnational practices in both shaping domestic and international public opinion and challenging overseas or domestic dissident digital transnationalism with an aim to increase its control over the narrative of its politics. This paper elaborates on this paradoxical relationship – the nexus of digital transnationalism, transnational opposition and state control. The paper examines how and why cyberspace turns into a domain for transnational political opposition and, in a related way, examines state endeavours to regulate and govern digital areas as a means of overseeing the digital transnationalism of (trans)local and transnational dissidence groups. Particularly with reference to the latter, the paper deliberates on the limits of digital transnationalism against state control.
... As a result of parasocial interactions (i.e., one-sided, pseudo-intimate bonds) between followers and a liked YouTuber (Rasmussen, 2018), these content creators are given a 'trust-advantage' over legacy media (Lewis, 2020). Consequently, low-involved news users make use of heuristic evaluation criteria when evaluating political statements by YouTube personalities (Song et al., 2020). In short: For the sake of ease, the perceived sympathy, attractiveness, or ascribed ability of a YouTuber in other, non-news areas (i.e., beauty, gaming, etc.) is transferred to her competence in conveying political knowledge and opinion through heuristic "mental shortcut[s]" (Pjesivac et al. 2018, p. 27). ...
With more young adults turning to YouTube for up-to-date news, this development raises questions about their news usage patterns and, more precisely, their perception of News-YouTubers as a crucial source for opinion-forming. Drawing on concepts of social media information behavior and the heuristic-systematic model, this study provides initial insights into the role of YouTube and especially News-YouTubers in young adults’ involvement with the news. Taking their general interest and information behavior in their daily lives into account, we identified high- and low-involved news users based on qualitative interviews with German-speaking young adults. While both types of news users appreciate News-YouTubers for similar reasons - namely, comprehension, entertainment, and identification - they differ in their opinion-forming processes. Those highly involved in news use News-YouTubers solely to support opinion formation, whereas those with low involvement tend to heuristically process and adopt News-YouTubers’ perceptions and opinions. We conclude that low-involved users not only perceive that news-finds-me but also opinion-finds-me.
... In the context of China's transition and relationship-oriented social structure, the political connections of private enterprises are widespread. Political connections constitute an important part of the external environment of Chinese private enterprises [2]. A good relationship with the government is an important prerequisite for the success of some businesses. ...
Based on fractional differential equations, this paper focuses on the internal mechanism of college ideological and political learning. We also elaborate on its microstructure, channel characteristics, and competitive field. We put forward Gauss's theorem and the loop theorem of the related field of ideological and political learning in colleges and universities. At the same time, the convexity theorem of the information entropy of the competitive field and the principle of maximum entropy are proved. Research shows that college students can change the relationship between student learning and society by adapting, functioning, and coordinating. We need to help students develop more effective political learning strategies.
... This optimistic vision is strongly contested today. Even if doubt has been cast on the echo chamber or cognitive bubble theses (Barberá et al. 2015), Song et al. (2020) have shown that social media users are often subject to the "news finds me" illusion. Convinced that "ambience news" (Song et al. 2020, p. 65), e.g., reposts of articles on their social media wall, are keeping them updated, they tend to consume news more superficially and are ultimately far less knowledgeable than people who actively seek news. ...
Do media influence policy making? To what extent can governments or other actors manipulate this influence? Our understanding of the relationship between media and policy making remains limited, as separate research agendas look at parts of the puzzle in public policy, political communication, and related fields. This article tries to bridge these divides, to show how knowledge from different fields may be complementary, and to point to shortcomings and blind spots in existing research. By bringing different strands together, I show that media, old and new, are the main arena for the battle over the scope of policy conflict. The review discusses different factors determining or influencing media coverage of and influence on policy making, before looking at how governments and administrations deal with media coverage of policy making. I explore how ongoing changes in the media landscape are likely to affect the media–policy making nexus. The final section presents future research directions.
Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Political Science, Volume 25 is May 2022. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.
This article examines a model positing that overconfidence in political understanding resulting from social media use for news and politics hampers traditional media use. It confirms a positive relationship between Facebook political information experiences and overconfidence in political understanding. However, contrary to expectations, there is a positive relationship between overconfidence and traditional media use. An exploratory post hoc analysis, viewed through the lens of truth vs. false-default orientations, suggests overconfident users might use traditional news outlets to confirm their sense of knowledge, thereby exhibiting a false-default orientation on social media political information.
Human behavior in cyber space is extremely complex. Change is the only constant as technologies and social contexts evolve rapidly. This leads to new behaviors in cybersecurity, Facebook use, smartphone habits, social networking, and many more. Scientific research in this area is becoming an established field and has already generated a broad range of social impacts. Alongside the four key elements (users, technologies, activities, and effects), the text covers cyber law, business, health, governance, education, and many other fields. Written by international scholars from a wide range of disciplines, this handbook brings all these aspects together in a clear, user-friendly format. After introducing the history and development of the field, each chapter synthesizes the most recent advances in key topics, highlights leading scholars and their major achievements, and identifies core future directions. It is the ideal overview of the field for researchers, scholars, and students alike.
Research revolving social media and democracy has exploded. For almost two decades, scholarship has offered new theories, revisited some old ones, and provided empirical evidence that helped cast a strong light on social media effects over people’s social life, and democracy at large. Thanks to social media, citizens consume news, express their political views, discuss political matters, and participate in political activities. However, social media also cultivates the dissemination of fake news and misinformation, exposure to hate speech, media fragmentation, and political polarization. In short, social media seems to simultaneously be a springboard for encouraging and undesirable outcomes that foster and challenge democracies alike. One of these phenomena that stems from social media news use is the News Finds Me (NFM) perception, which takes place when individuals feel they do not have to actively seeks news any more to be well informed about public affairs, as they expect to receive relevant news and information by relying on their peers in social media. This chapter traces back the origin of the theory, its evolution, and the set of effects found in the literature. It also presents guidelines for future research and potential challenges as the scholarship centering on NFM continues to grow.
Political cynicism is rising in many democracies throughout the world. At the same time, people increasingly use social media to access news and political information. However, much of the political content people see on these platforms is hostile, uncivil, and attacking. This study examines whether exposure to these political attacks on social media is associated with political cynicism and, if so, whether negative emotions like anger and anxiety play a mediating role in this process. Using data from a panel survey of American adults ( N = 1,800) collected during the 2020 U.S. presidential election, this study examines whether exposure to political attacks on social media is related to both emotions about the state of the country and political cynicism. Data indicate that people who were exposed to more political attacks on social media were more politically cynical. Further, perceived exposure to political attacks on social media was associated with more anger about the state of the United States, which was subsequently related to greater levels of political cynicism. The results provide evidence that exposure to political attacks on social media might contribute to both negative emotions about the country and political cynicism.
In an ambient news environment, people often believe that they can be well-informed without actively seeking news, resulting in the “news-finds-me” (NFM) perception. Leveraging a two-wave panel survey in China (W1N = 1,465; W2N = 1,015), we examined the impact of the NFM perception on climate change knowledge. Findings showed that NFM did not influence climate change knowledge, while algorithmic news attitude (ANA) played a mediating role. Specifically, NFM was positively associated with ANA, which in turn facilitated knowledge. Furthermore, this relationship was moderated by discussion network heterogeneity. The positive effect of ANA and the positive indirect effect of NFM on climate change knowledge were stronger among those with a more heterogeneous discussion network. Implications are discussed.
As citizens are faced with an overabundance of information, their reliance on intuitive sorting strategies and platform-enabled content selection and delivery increases correspondingly. Under such circumstances, political action tends to be based on haphazard encounters with opinion-congruent content than on anything else, giving rise to so-called post-truth condition and, in turn, opening up conditions for manipulating such information encounters as part of information warfare operations. In particular, this novel environment necessitates a rethinking of informational agency, locating it within interactions between humans and technological artefacts, whereby humans as generators of data and algorithms as tools that structure the information domain based on such data co-construct political and social spaces. The impact of digital technologies is further amplified by the advent of synthetic (Artificial Intelligence-generated) media, which is foreseen to bring about epistemic confusion, that is, increasing inability to separate between reality and fiction. Under such conditions, and in any situations of actual or perceived crisis and tension, audiences are inclined to rely on narratives as coping strategies, which is where information warfare operations come to the fore. Either capitalising on the existing fertile ground or having manufactured a condition of crisis and distrust, such operations are geared towards hijacking audience cognitive processes with narratives that suit their perpetrators.
Human behavior in cyber space is extremely complex. Change is the only constant as technologies and social contexts evolve rapidly. This leads to new behaviors in cybersecurity, Facebook use, smartphone habits, social networking, and many more. Scientific research in this area is becoming an established field and has already generated a broad range of social impacts. Alongside the four key elements (users, technologies, activities, and effects), the text covers cyber law, business, health, governance, education, and many other fields. Written by international scholars from a wide range of disciplines, this handbook brings all these aspects together in a clear, user-friendly format. After introducing the history and development of the field, each chapter synthesizes the most recent advances in key topics, highlights leading scholars and their major achievements, and identifies core future directions. It is the ideal overview of the field for researchers, scholars, and students alike.
The article presents the results of a study of the influence of social media on the information privileges of political elites. In the ―Introduction‖ section, the author substantiates the relevance of the topic and problem of his research. In his opinion, it is determined by the rapid development of social media, which have become a tool of various political actors who use them to achieve various goals. With the development of social media, political elites face new difficulties in exercising information privileges, but at the same time receive new opportunities for information dominance. The study of the information privileges of political elites is becoming even more relevant in the context of an information war. In the section ―Materials and research methods‖ the author characterizes the empirical and methodological bases of his research. The first includes reports and reports from various research organizations, regulations, etc. The second includes the classical theory of elites, the modern theory of political communication and the modern theory of mediatization of politics. In the ―Literature Review,‖ the author systematizes publications related to the topic and problem of their research. He identifies three groups of works: 1) works that examine the interaction of elites with the mass media, their communication activity and strategies for mastering the information space; 2) works whose authors analyze the influence of social media on the political process; 3) works in which social media are correlated with such an important political science category as the political regime. In the ―Research results and their discussion‖ section, the author formulates a definition of information privileges, understanding them as priority access to the media space, which provides significant opportunities in the field of information dominance. He argues that, firstly, social media acts as a factor preventing political elites from exercising information privileges, because imply practices that contradict elite models of managing society, and secondly, that in order to realize information privileges and maintain their socio-political status in general, political elites are currently using two ―reactive‖ and one ―proactive‖ strategies. The author emphasizes that in conditions of political crises, through social media, the opposition is trying to eliminate the communication monopoly of political elites. The authors also point out that in the ―post-truth‖world, political elites receive new opportunities to exercise their information privileges. However, ―post-truth‖ circulating in the space of social media also determines the formation of opposition centers of information gravity. Using the latest data, he comes to the conclusion that the hybrid war unleashed against Russia involves the involvement of existing and the formation of new hostile centers of information gravity, the key task of which is precisely to undermine the information dominance of the Russian elite, and then to create and manage internal crises, in destabilizing the political regime in the country. In the ―Conclusion‖ section, the author summarizes his research, briefly listing the results obtained.
While numerous studies have explored the participatory benefits of social media use for political participation, the empirical literature on the mobilizing role of political memes is nearly absent. In addition, most of the attention has been on Western democratic contexts. By employing survey data from an Asian context—Singapore—this study scrutinizes the impact of exposure to political memes in the interplay between political use of social media and online political participation. In addition, it investigates the contingent role of political cynicism. First, the results show that political social media use is associated with online political participation and that association is mediated by exposure to political memes. Further, moderation analyses indicate that social media use provides participatory gains only for individuals exhibiting low political cynicism. However, when such social media use facilitates exposure to political memes, it primarily mobilizes those with high political cynicism into active online political participation. The results suggest that memes can mobilize disengaged groups into active participation.
Post-truth tends to be framed as an aberration—a supposed loss of human capacity to adhere to truth and factuality, with core decision-making criteria allegedly being replaced by emotionality, biases, and opinion-congruence. The effects of technological change, such as cognitive overload and algorithmic content governance, are conflated with a postulated increase in human vulnerability and gullibility to produce a toxic mix of what is seen as complete disregard to facts and traditional criteria for veracity. Against this nostalgic narrative of supposedly lost rationality and autonomy, this chapter redirects attention towards the primacy of narratives and other sense-making structures over strict factuality. It transpires that what post-truth, with its technological underpinnings, actually signifies is not a loss of truth but, instead, an unmasking of Cartesian fiction.
In the media convergence landscape, consumption of traditional, well-established media is increasingly combined with newer digital and online platforms such as blogs, podcasts, and social media, which has changed the way news users engage with media content. This study examines the relationship between hybrid media use-specifically, second screening-and trust in both professional and alternative media. Drawing on a two-wave U.S. panel data, first, we find that the second screening positively predicts individuals' belief in the media's ability to help them comprehend complex political matters, known in the literature as media efficacy. Furthermore, second screening is positively associated with alternative media trust but is not significantly related to trust in professional media. However, media efficacy positively mediates the connection between second screening and trust in both alternative and professional media. By delivering valuable information to help the public understand intricate political topics, the second screening promotes news media trust.
Political communication observers and researchers recognise that the field is undergoing deep and multidimensional transformations. Numerous recent works presented and analysed the characteristics of the changes taking place and refer to the media, political actors or citizens. However, attempts at a multidimensional analysis of changes in the political communication ecosystem are much less frequent. This article aims to identify trends in contemporary political communication. A trend is a sequence of changes forming a certain regularity, showing strength and continuity over time, and the direction of development existing at a given moment. The research in this article identifies and analyses these trends, which should be understood as an interpretation of reality requiring an interdisciplinary and open heuristic approach. This approach will provide a broader view of the processes and changes taking place in the political communication ecosystem, allowing for further analyses and the formulation of hypotheses about the consequences and possible directions of the changes taking place, particularly those relating to trust in the media and politicians.
As the boundaries between our online and offline lives are increasingly blurred, it is important to attend to the ways in which online behaviors shape our offline perceptions and actions. While a great deal of health communication research has examined the effects of exposure to specific social media content, it is also important to investigate how broader patterns of everyday social media use may affect perceptions of health norms and behaviors in different ways. In this panel survey, we explored how using social media for informational, connection, and aspirational purposes affected perceptions of COVID-19 vaccination norms and changes in vaccine intentions between December 2020 and March 2021 in the US Using social media to seek information and to connect with others positively influenced vaccine intentions via strengthening perceptions of offline social norms supporting vaccination. These findings highlight how social media use is integrated with and informs our offline lives, as well as the important role apolitical social media use plays in shaping attitudes toward politicized science.
The article considers the problem of political cynicism. The content of the relevant construct and its components, as well as potential factors of the spread of political cynicism, were analyzed. An analysis of social, political (political system, ideology, political activity of the population and its attitude to politics and power) and media (distribution of scandalous, conflict-causing information about politicians, moving the focus to the affective component, nature of dissemination and consumption of such information by voters, etc.) was carried out. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of psychological factors in the formation of political cynicism (the presence of certain cognitive attitudes and prejudices regarding politics, the level of political activity, individual psychological characteristics of voters). The results of the own research of socio-psychological factors in the formation of political cynicism are presented. The general indicators of the sample were analyzed according to the scales that most represent the construct "political cynicism": interest in politics, level of trust in politicians, level of political knowledge, personal cynicism and cynical attitude towards political objects, and it was found that the sample is generally characterized by average level of political cynicism (tendency to oppose politicians to a certain extent, show distrust and disdain for them). The results of the analysis of the sample according to other psychological indicators (a measure of political participation, political identification and motivational component in politics, the ratio of external and internal locus of control, conformity and dominance) are presented, as well as the results of the analysis of the intensity and manner of the respondents' consumption of political information disseminated in the media. The relevant indicators were reflected in the regression model, which demonstrates the most likely factors in the formation of political cynicism, the most significant of which are: specifics of political and ideological self-determination (low level of authoritative self-affirmation, predominance of normative intransigence and positional competitiveness), intense, indiscriminate and uncritical consumption of political news (mainly televised), features of political activity (developed verbal-communicative component of political participation and political interest with a low behavioral-volitional component), conformism and external locus of control.
Introduction
Assessing the effect of different media sources on political trust provides an overall picture of the role of the current media landscape in influencing the legitimacy of political institutions.
Methods
A cross-lagged model was developed and tested by applying it to a three-wave dataset obtained by surveying young people in Hong Kong in order to evaluate the unique impact of intention to consume news via personal social media network on political trust.
Results
After controlling for the impact of other news channels and respondents’ prior political interest, we found their political trust was most significantly affected by information intentionally obtained from friends and family through their personal social media network.
Discussion
Media exhibits a relatively weak effect on political trust, which is primarily influenced by selection, indicating that policymakers do not have to be concerned with online exchange of information that is critical of the government. Moreover, this evidence from Hong Kong suggests that, when it comes to developing political trust throughout the society, conflicts resulting from opposing views are better than ignorance.
Despite widespread concerns that misinformation is rampant on social media, little systematic and empirical research has been conducted on whether and how news consumption via social media affects people's accurate knowledge about COVID-19. Against this background, this study examines the causal effects of social media use on COVID-19 knowledge (i.e., both in the form of factual knowledge and misinformation detection) as well as the underlying mechanisms through which such effects occur. Based on original panel survey data across six weeks (W1 N = 1,363, W2 N = 752) in the U.S., we found that consuming news from social media fostered the perception that one need not actively seek news anymore because it would reach them anyway through their social connections (i.e., “news-finds-me” perception). This, in turn, can make one both uninformed and misinformed about COVID-19 issues. Furthermore, this mediated relationship is stronger among those who experience higher levels of information overload while on social media.
Политическое доверие и политический цинизм – ключевые показатели, которые отражают отношение людей к существующей политической системе. Анализ исследований показывает, что доверие к политикам рассматривается как результат приписывания им позитивных деятельностных и коммунальных особенностей, а цинизм к политикам – как результат приписывания им негативных деятельностных и коммунальных качеств. Цель данного исследования – создать русскоязычные методики для измерения доверия и цинизма по отношению к политикам. Исследование проходило в два этапа, в которых приняли участие 920 и 396 респондентов, проживающих в России. Во время первого этапа они заполняли длинные версии методик для измерения политического доверия и цинизма, а во время второго – короткие версии методик, а также методики для измерения социального доверия, социального цинизма, оправдания системы, доверия институтам, политической самоэффективности и готовности к участию в различных формах политического поведения. Результаты показали, что четырехфакторная структура опросников с общим фактором хорошо соответствует данным и одинаково работает в разных половых и возрастных группах, но методика для измерения политического доверия требует дополнительного внимания.
Despite the agreement on the importance of transparency in pandemic management, few studies have provided empirical evidence to answer the question of how governmental leadership and management teams can communicate strategically in a transparent manner. Integrating public relations, strategic communication and health communication literature, this study examines the effectiveness of CDC’s transparent communication in shaping individuals’ cynicism, self-efficacy beliefs as well as their cooperation during a pandemic, while taking the moderating role of media exposure and political ideology into consideration. A quantitative online survey was conducted with 502 participants who were living in the United States in early April 2020. Results indicated that effective transparent communication could reduce public cynicism and increase public self-efficacy to fight the pandemic, which subsequently leads to more cooperative precautions. Moreover, the relationship between CDC’s transparent communication practices and perceived cynicism toward the institution was moderated by media exposure (i.e., mass media and social media) and political ideology. The findings contribute to the theoretical understanding of pandemic communication and provide implications for practitioners in pandemic management, suggesting that health institutions should guarantee high transparency levels in their communication to encourage public precautionary cooperation.
This article contributes to the debate on the effect of social media usage on political attitudes. Our research question is: Does the use of social media affect citizens’ political trust? We test this research question using Egypt’s Arab Barometer Wave V country data (2018–2019). We expect social media usage to increase political distrust among citizens through the three mediating variables: corruption perceptions, perceptions of poor government performance, and perceptions of missing guaranteed freedoms. Our quantitative study results confirm these mediating relationships; that is, social media usage significantly increases political distrust among Egyptian citizens by increasing corruption perception, perceptions of poor government performance, and perceptions of a lack of guaranteed freedoms.
Social media influencers promote not only products and brands but also their opinions on serious topics like party politics or climate change. These so-called digital opinion leaders may exert a powerful impact on their followers’ political attitudes. Accordingly, we explore new directions to explain how influencers’ communication is related to political outcomes by proposing the concept of perceived simplification of politics (PSP). We argue that PSP may fuel political cynicism but also stimulate youth's interest in politics. We also explore important boundary conditions of these associations. We use data from three studies, a two-wave panel survey of adolescents ( N T2 = 294), a cross-sectional survey of young adults ( N = 632), and a two-wave panel survey of young adults ( N T2 = 496) in Germany between 2019 and 2020. Findings of all three studies show that the frequency of exposure to social media influencers’ content increases PSP. In Studies 1 and 2, PSP is related to higher political cynicism, while in Study 3, this relationship is restricted to influencers’ communication about environmental topics and gender equality. Furthermore, Studies 2 and 3 suggest that PSP also increases political interest—yet this association requires a certain level of parasocial interaction (PSI) with the influencer and is contingent on specific political topics.
In an already attention-intensive environment characterised by ‘chaos and disorder’ as well as ‘a blurring of work and home zones, spurred by notions of temporal excess, absorption, immersion and a squandering of time’ (Chambers, 2019, p. 3), it comes as no surprise that individuals aim to minimise their cognitive load whenever possible. Indeed, according to the cognitive bottleneck theory, even when as few as two cognitive tasks need to be performed simultaneously, there will already be ‘a decrease in performance in at least one of the tasks’, necessitating a strategic balancing and distribution of attention (Tanner, 2020, p. 66; an identical point, albeit expressed in different terms, is also stressed by Citton, 2017, pp. 31–32 as well as Hendricks & Vestergaard, 2019, p. 3). Notably, information acquisition transpires to be one such area where savings are being made. It is, therefore, not accidental that this juncture of object selection and attention allocation is exactly the weak spot that disinformation agents increasingly seem to target (Till, 2021, pp. 1364–1365). Under such circumstances, reliance on substitutes to cognition, such as ‘emotional cues, experience, and existing beliefs’ ultimately ‘saves time and cognitive energy and leads to quicker but more biased decisions than using rational cues’ (Park & Kaye, 2019, p. 6; see also Kim, 2018, p. 4819). In this way, fake content already has as advantage in the very fact that it can be manufactured and refashioned in any way that the audience will find appealing.
Recent scholarship suggests that overreliance on social networks for news and public affairs is associated with the belief that one no longer needs to actively seek information. Instead, individuals perceive that the “news will find me” (NFM) and detach from the regular habit of traditional news consumption. This study examines effects of the NFM perception on political knowledge, political interest, and electoral participation. Drawing on a nationally representative panel survey from the United States (N = 997), this study finds that the NFM perception is negatively associated with both political knowledge and political interest across two time periods. The NFM perception also leads to negative, indirect effects on voting as the relationship is mediated through lower reported levels of political knowledge and interest in politics. The findings add to current conversations about the ability of personalized information networks to adequately inform and engage the public.
A significant minority of people do not follow news regularly, and a growing number rely on distributed discovery (especially social media and search engines) to stay informed. Here, we analyze folk theories of news consumption. On the basis of an inductive analysis of 43 in-depth interviews with infrequent users of conventional news, we identify three complementary folk theories (“news finds me,” “the information is out there,” and “I don’t know what to believe”) that consumers draw on when making sense of their information environment. We show that the notion of folk theories help unpack the different, complementary, sometimes contradictory cultural resources people rely on as they navigate digital media and public affairs, and we argue that studying those who rarely engage directly with news media but do access information via social media and search provides a critical case study of the dynamics of an environment increasingly defined by platforms.
Second screening is a relatively new set of media practices that arguably empower audiences to shape public narratives alongside news organizations and political elites. But in developing countries such as Colombia, it is important to examine who participates in this process, as substantial inequalities in both access to and use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) persist. This study examines how socioeconomic status (SES) relates to the adoption of second screening practices in Colombia, a country in which the technological access and literacy necessary to engage in these practices are becoming widespread but are not yet ubiquitous. Based on a random sample of face-to-face interviews, results show evidence of persistent digital divides in Colombia in terms of ICT access, ICT use, and second screening for news. Additionally, results indicate that the relationship between SES and second screening for news is indirect, mediated through technological access and public affairs engagement.
Political information sharing in social media offers citizens opportunities to engage with news and express their political views, but how do different patterns of online political information exposure, including both incidental and selective exposure, affect sharing? Using two-wave panel survey data collected in the United States, we examine the relationship between incidental and selective exposure and their consequent links to political information sharing, across different levels of strength of political party affiliation. Our results demonstrate that incidental exposure to counter-attitudinal information drives stronger partisans to more actively seek out like-minded political content, which subsequently encourages political information sharing on social media. The results highlight the need to consider both types of political information exposure when modeling citizens' political behavior online.
Scholars have questioned the potential for incidental exposure in high-choice media environments. We use online survey data to examine incidental exposure to news on social media (Facebook, YouTube, Twitter) in four countries (Italy, Australia, United Kingdom, United States). Leaving aside those who say they intentionally use social media for news, we compare the number of online news sources used by social media users who do not see it as a news platform, but may come across news while using it (the incidentally exposed), with people who do not use social media at all (non-users). We find that (a) the incidentally exposed users use significantly more online news sources than non-users, (b) the effect of incidental exposure is stronger for younger people and those with low interest in news and (c) stronger for users of YouTube and Twitter than for users of Facebook.
We investigate how news values differ between online and print news articles. We hypothesize that print and online articles differ in terms of news values because of differences in the routines used to produce them. Based on a quantitative automated content analysis of N = 762,095 Dutch news items, we show that online news items are more likely to be follow-up items than print items, and that there are further differences regarding news values like references to persons, the power elite, negativity, and positivity. In order to conduct this large-scale analysis, we developed innovative methods to automatically code a wide range of news values. In particular, this article demonstrates how techniques such as sentiment analysis, named entity recognition, supervised machine learning, and automated queries of external databases can be combined and used to study journalistic content. Possible explanations for the difference found between online and offline news are discussed.
The pervasive use of multiple technological tools to engage with media and political content (i.e., TV sets, laptops, tablets, smartphones, etc.) has deeply altered the way citizens around the world consume information and discuss public affair issues. Many are using 2, or even several “screens” at the same time to do so, a phenomenon known as second or dual screening.
The goal of this article is twofold. First, it introduces a set of novel studies published as a special section devoted to second screening. Second, based on nationally representative original survey data collected in twenty societies (N = 22.033), the study depicts a snapshot of second screening habits for news and politics around the world. Findings reveal that young people tend to second screen more than older counterparts. Similarly, there are also differences in political behaviors between groups of high and low frequency second screen users. More intensive users tend to politically express themselves in social media, and participate more often in offline political activities. On the other hand, results indicate little or no differences between these two groups in terms of their voting behavior.
With social media at the forefront of today’s media context, citizens may perceive they don’t need to actively seek news because they will be exposed to news and remain well-informed through their peers and social networks. We label this the “news-finds-me perception,” and test its implications for news seeking and political knowledge: “news-finds-me effects.” U.S. panel-survey data show that individuals who perceive news will find them are less likely to use traditional news sources and are less knowledgeable about politics over time. Although the news-finds-me perception is positively associated with news exposure on social media, this behavior doesn’t facilitate political learning. These results suggest news continues to enhance political knowledge best when actively sought.
While social networking sites (SNSs) have become popular news platforms where people receive and post news, little is known about why some people are relatively more active in receiving and posting news on SNSs. Based on the uses and gratification perspective, this study investigates (a) the direct and indirect effects of online news seeking on SNS news posting, through SNS news exposure, (b) the role of technology adoption as a moderator between online news seeking and SNS news exposure, and (c) the role of media bias perceptions and partisanship strength as moderators between SNS news exposure and SNS news posting. Analysis of 2010 Pew Research Center Media Consumption Survey data (N = 2,259) reveal that online news seeking significantly predicts SNS news posting, both directly and indirectly. While technology adoption was not a significant moderator, media bias perception and partisanship strength significantly interacted with SNS news exposure in predicting SNS news posting.
This year's report reveals new insights about digital news consumption based on a YouGov survey of over 20,000 online news consumers in the US, UK, Ireland, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Denmark, Finland, Brazil, Japan and Australia. This year's data shows a quickening of the pace towards social media platforms as routes to audiences, together with a surge in the use of mobile for news, a decline in the desktop internet and significant growth in video news consumption online.
Scholars have emphasized the importance of an informed citizenry for a healthy democracy. As a result, research has examined whether campaign information fosters positive or negative democratic outcomes. This article examines the relationship between information seeking and skepticism. We also examine whether skepticism leads to democratically beneficial outcomes. We examine these relationships using survey data collected during the course of the 2012 Presidential Election. We found an over-time relationship between campaign information seeking and skepticism. We also found that skepticism leads to increased knowledge at the end of the election through information seeking.
We assess whether and how accidental exposure to political information on social media contributes to citizens’ online political participation in comparative perspective. Based on three online surveys of samples representative of German, Italian, and British Internet users in the aftermath of the 2014 European Parliament elections, we find that accidental exposure to political information on social media is positively and significantly correlated with online participation in all three countries, particularly so in Germany where overall levels of participation were lower. We also find that interest in politics moderates this relationship so that the correlation is stronger among the less interested than among the highly interested. These findings suggest that inadvertent encounters with political content on social media are likely to reduce the gap in online engagement between citizens with high and low interest in politics, potentially broadening the range of voices that make themselves heard.
In this article, we study the causal inference problem with a continuous treatment variable using propensity score-based methods. For a continuous treatment, the generalized propensity score is defined as the conditional density of the treatment-level given covariates (confounders). The dose–response function is then estimated by inverse probability weighting, where the weights are calculated from the estimated propensity scores. When the dimension of the covariates is large, the traditional nonparametric density estimation suffers from the curse of dimensionality. Some researchers have suggested a two-step estimation procedure by first modeling the mean function. In this study, we suggest a boosting algorithm to estimate the mean function of the treatment given covariates. In boosting, an important tuning parameter is the number of trees to be generated, which essentially determines the trade-off between bias and variance of the causal estimator. We propose a criterion called average absolute correlation coefficient (AACC) to determine the optimal number of trees. Simulation results show that the proposed approach performs better than a simple linear approximation or L2 boosting. The proposed methodology is also illustrated through the Early Dieting in Girls study, which examines the influence of mothers’ overall weight concern on daughters’ dieting behavior.
What are the consequences of globalization for the structure of political conflicts in Western Europe? How are political conflicts organized and articulated in the twenty-first century? And how does the transformation of territorial boundaries affect the scope and content of political conflicts? This book sets out to answer these questions by analyzing the results of a study of national and European electoral campaigns, protest events and public debates in six West European countries. While the mobilization of the losers of the processes of globalization by new right populist parties is seen to be the driving force of the restructuring of West European politics, the book goes beyond party politics. It attempts to show how the cleavage coalitions that are shaping up under the impact of globalization extend to state actors, interest groups and social movement organizations, and how the new conflicts are framed by the various actors involved.
The possibly detrimental consequences of soft news are subject of popular and academic debate. This study investigates how watching particular news genres—soft versus hard—relates to cynicism about politics among Dutch citizens. A nuanced and novel scale measuring relative exposure to soft versus hard news is introduced using nonparametric unidimensional unfolding. The analysis of three public opinion surveys demonstrates a strong relationship between people’s position on this hard versus soft news exposure scale and political cynicism. People who watched relatively more soft news were more cynical about politics than people who watched relatively more hard news. This relationship was not conditional on individuals’ level of political knowledge and interest.
Previous research suggests that the news media's reporting about politics in terms of strategy fosters political cynicism. The question remains, however, what individual and contextual factors facilitate or inhibit this effect. In this study, we draw on a unique multimethod and comparative cross-country design, combining a media content analysis (N = 48,892) with a 2-wave panel survey conducted in 21 countries (N = 22,791) during the 2009 European Parliamentary elections. Our findings show that citizens who are less aware of the election campaign become more cynical. Furthermore, strategy news has an effect on cynicism in countries in which quality of governance is higher. Overall, our study provides the first comprehensive overview over the conditional impact of election news on political cynicism in comparative perspective.
Structural equation modeling (SEM) is a vast field and widely used by many applied researchers in the social and behavioral sciences. Over the years, many software pack-ages for structural equation modeling have been developed, both free and commercial. However, perhaps the best state-of-the-art software packages in this field are still closed-source and/or commercial. The R package lavaan has been developed to provide applied researchers, teachers, and statisticians, a free, fully open-source, but commercial-quality package for latent variable modeling. This paper explains the aims behind the develop-ment of the package, gives an overview of its most important features, and provides some examples to illustrate how lavaan works in practice.
This study examines the effects of generic strategy news, self-referential press news, and “spin” spotlighting publicity coverage on political cynicism, against the backdrop of governance and policy. Drawing on data from two experiments allowing for replication within a single study, the authors demonstrate that exposure to both generic and publicity strategy news aroused political cynicism relative to issue-based news. In addition, the authors found positive interactions between political knowledge and strategic press and publicity news exposure, showing that more knowledgeable individuals were more strongly affected by these frames. The findings are discussed in the light of extant knowledge about framing effects and the media's increasing use of metareporting.
This study investigated the effects of strategic television news coverage of a routine political issue in a nonelectoral context on political cynicism, issue evaluation, and policy support. An experimentally manipulated television news story about the en- largement of the European Union was produced in a strategy version and an is- sue-framed version, which were embedded in an experimental bulletin of a national news program. Results showed that exposure to strategic news fuelled political cyni- cism and activated negative associations with the enlargement issue. Politically knowledgeable participants displayed higher levels of cynicism and were more nega- tive in their evaluation. Strategic news did not suppress policy support. A 2-wave ex- perimental design with a second posttest was employed to test the longevity of effects. The effects of exposure to strategic news on political cynicism muted between the im- mediate and delayed posttest. These findings suggest that effects may not persist un- less participants are exposed to additional news framed in a similar way. News is the key source of information about politics and the economy for a major- ity of citizens in Western democracies. Previous studies of the impact of news on public perceptions of and engagement in politics have produced mixed results. These studies are characterized by a number of features, such as a strong focus on American politics during elections and often-assumed long-term effects on demo-
The overall focus of this paper is on developing a framework to explain support for alternative politics of a populist type. It has often been argued that the increasing focus on scandals and corruption has done much to alienate voters from traditional politics and that this alienation has, in turn, been reflected in what might be termed a ‘soap‐operatisation’ of politics, with an attendant diminution of trust in political institutions. We contend that, while reducing political events to variants of soap‐operas (with the demystification and banalisation of politics to which this gives rise) has had profound effects on the public perception of the political and political institutions, the result may not be simply a lack of, or diminution of, trust in politicians and political institutions, but rather a parallel growth in cynicism. The paper argues that while cynicism is often assumed to be a component of the decline in trust in institutions the two are, in fact, different and can give rise to different manifestations. We address the difference between the two concepts and develop a hypothesis that contends that supporters of populist alternatives can be located within two attitudinal clusters. We argue that, with respect to populist politicians and populist political parties, a cynical view of politics and political institutions will tend to produce individuals who support what we term ‘political entrepreneurs’, while a real distrust in institutions will translate into support for a more traditional populism of the radical right.
Much of the literature on polarization and selective exposure presumes that the internet exacerbates the fragmentation of the media and the citizenry. Yet this ignores how the widespread use of social media changes news consumption. Social media provide readers a choice of stories from different sources that come recommended from politically heterogeneous individuals, in a context that emphasizes social value over partisan affiliation. Building on existing models of news selectivity to emphasize information utility, we hypothesize that social media’s distinctive feature, social endorsements, trigger several decision heuristics that suggest utility. In two experiments, we demonstrate that stronger social endorsements increase the probability that people select content and that their presence reduces partisan selective exposure to levels indistinguishable from chance.
This study examines patterns of news consumption across multiple media platforms and relates them to civic participation. Analyzing a national sample of close to 25,000 respondents, nearly half the adult population in America is classified as news “Avoiders,” and the other half as “News-seekers.” Testing the relationship between civic participation and news consumption for each of 6 media platforms individually, and to an overall index combining those sources into 1 measure, the results show a positive relationship with civic participation, but the influence of Total News Consumption on civic participation is greater for Avoiders than for News-seekers.
The concept of news media use1 has been at the center of political communication research during the past several decades. Historically, scholars have employed measures of exposure to news (Atkin, Galloway, & Nayman, 1976), attention to news (Chaffee & Schleuder, 1986; McLeod & McDonald, 1985), and reliance on news (Culbertson & Stempel, 1986) to tap this concept. Moreover, they have been interested in determining the influence of the use of news on various political outcomes, including political knowledge, political participation, and public opinion. Despite a massive accumulation of literature on these topics, what is missing is a consistent and validated survey measure of news use (Chaffee, 2001). Given the centrality of this concept and its measurement to the field, it seems appropriate that efforts to better understand the implication of various conceptualizations and measurement approaches be undertaken. Some research on this topic, with an exclusive emphasis on exposure measures, has appeared in recent years (e.g., Althaus & Tewksbury, 2007; Chang & Krosnick, 2003), but more is needed, particularly given the heavy use of both exposure and attention measures in the extant literature. In this study, we focus on the internal consistency, dimensional structure, and some aspects of validity of measures of frequency of exposure and attention to various news media sources as predictors of political knowledge. We also address analysis issues that follow from the measurement issues. Following prior research (e.g., Price & Zaller, 1993), we focus on political knowledge as an important validity criterion, although we certainly acknowledge that other criteria, such as political participation, may be equally important.
Decades of research suggest that social interaction influences opinion formation and affects voting behavior. However, recent work concerning the nexus between deliberation and democratic practice--particularly in the American context--has re-focused attention on the normative consequences of socially-driven political behavior. Among the most common criticisms of interpersonal networks are that most people have very insular social circles, and that when they do not they are unlikely to engage in politics. In this paper we provide evidence that such pessimistic assessments are unwarranted, though for somewhat unexpected reasons. Using data from the American Component of the 1992 Cross-National Election Project and the 2000 American National Election Study, we examine whether and under what conditions social networks facilitate interest-based voting. Our findings indicate that when networks provide unambiguous signals regarding candidates, that they serve as potentially useful information shortcuts, facilitating connections between individuals' vote decisions and their underlying preferences. And, because many Americans reside in reasonably supportive social environments, networks often help citizens make ``correct'' voting decisions (Lau and Redlawsk 1997). In the end, social networks appear to help shoulder the demands of democratic theory, but not by helping people learn about politics in any traditional sense.
Propensity score matching and weighting are popular methods when estimating causal effects in observational studies. Beyond the assumption of unconfoundedness, however, these methods also require the model for the propensity score to be correctly specified. The recently proposed covariate balancing propensity score (CBPS) methodology increases the robustness to model misspecification by directly optimizing sample covariate balance between the treatment and control groups. In this paper, we extend the CBPS to a continuous treatment. We propose the covariate balancing generalized propensity score (CBGPS) methodology, which minimizes the association between covariates and the treatment. We develop both parametric and nonparametric approaches and show their superior performance over the standard maximum likelihood estimation in a simulation study. The CBGPS methodology is applied to an observational study, whose goal is to estimate the causal effects of political advertisements on campaign contributions. We also provide open-source software that implements the proposed methods.
Dual screening during televised election debates is a new domain in which political elites and journalists seek to influence audience attitudes and behavior. But to what extent do non-elite dual screeners seek to influence others, particularly their social media followers, social media users in general, and even politicians and journalists? And how does this behavior affect short- and longer-term engagement with election campaigns? Using unique, event-based, panel survey data from the main 2015 UK general election debate (Wave 1 = 2,351; Wave 2 = 1,168) we reveal the conditions under which people experience agency, empowerment, and engagement now that social media have reconfigured broadcast political television.
People increasingly visit online news sites not directly, but by following links on social network sites. Drawing on news value theory and integrating theories about online identities and self-representation, we develop a concept of shareworthiness, with which we seek to understand how the number of shares an article receives on such sites can be predicted. Findings suggest that traditional criteria of newsworthiness indeed play a role in predicting the number of shares, and that further development of a theory of shareworthiness based on the foundations of newsworthiness can offer fruitful insights in news dissemination processes.
What is the relationship between Internet usage and political trust? To answer this question, we performed a cross-sectional analysis of Eurobarometer survey data related to 27 countries and a supervised sentiment analysis of online political information broadcast during the Italian debate on the reform of public funding of parties. The results disclose the differences between Web 1.0 websites and Web 2.0 social media, showing that consumption of news from information/news websites is positively associated with higher trust, while access to information available on social media is linked with lower trust. This has implications for the debate on social media as a public sphere and for the tension between professional and citizen journalism.
Polls show a strong decline in public trust of traditional news outlets; however, social media offers new avenues for receiving news content. This experiment used the Facebook API to manipulate whether a news story appeared to have been posted on Facebook by one of the respondent's real-life Facebook friends. Results show that social media recommendations improve levels of media trust, and also make people want to follow more news from that particular media outlet in the future. Moreover, these effects are amplified when the real-life friend sharing the story on social media is perceived as an opinion leader. Implications for democracy and the news business are discussed.
This study combines a media content analysis (N = 1158) and panel survey data (N = 1612) conducted during the Swedish 2010 national election campaign, to analyze the effects of both game-framed and issue-framed news on political cynicism, institutional trust, and political interest. The findings show that news framing matters. Whereas game-framed news increases cynicism and depresses interest, issue-framed news has mobilizing effects. Furthermore, by conceptually and empirically distinguishing frame exposure from motivated news attention as two different modes of news media use, the results show that the effects of exposure to game-framed and issue-framed news are distinct from motivated news attention. These findings suggest two different mechanisms behind media effects and shine new light on the spiral of cynicism-virtuous circle controversy.
Representative democracy requires that citizens know the facts about political performance, and if more such facts are available in the media, citizens have more opportunity to acquire them. In view of increasing media choice, such an opportunity may vary from one individual media environment to another. However, it remains unclear how differences in information acquisition correspond with differences in the information available specifically in those sources that citizens choose to use on a routine basis. Drawing on data from a two-wave panel survey and media content analysis, this article examines if greater availability of performance-relevant information in the media facilitates acquisition of such information among those reliant on these media. It also examines when and how strongly this effect differs for people with different levels of learning motivation. Using a multilevel model, we find that citizens are more likely to learn facts about political performance when their preferred sources offer a greater quantity of performance-relevant information. We also find that motivation moderates the influence of availability, such that strongly motivated individuals gain comparatively the most from a greater supply of information. The implications of our findings for representative democracy are considered.
The propensity score plays a central role in a variety of causal inference settings. In particular, matching and weighting methods based on the estimated propensity score have become increasingly common in the analysis of observational data. Despite their popularity and theoretical appeal, the main practical difficulty of these methods is that the propensity score must be estimated. Researchers have found that slight misspecification of the propensity score model can result in substantial bias of estimated treatment effects. We introduce covariate balancing propensity score (CBPS) methodology, which models treatment assignment while optimizing the covariate balance. The CBPS exploits the dual characteristics of the propensity score as a covariate balancing score and the conditional probability of treatment assignment. The estimation of the CBPS is done within the generalized method-of-moments or empirical likelihood framework. We find that the CBPS dramatically improves the poor empirical performance of propensity score matching and weighting methods reported in the literature. We also show that the CBPS can be extended to other important settings, including the estimation of the generalized propensity score for non-binary treatments and the generalization of experimental estimates to a target population. Open source software is available for implementing the methods proposed.
Monte Carlo simulation is a useful but underutilized method of constructing confidence intervals for indirect effects in mediation analysis. The Monte Carlo confidence interval method has several distinct advantages over rival methods. Its performance is comparable to other widely accepted methods of interval construction, it can be used when only summary data are available, it can be used in situations where rival methods (e.g., bootstrapping and distribution of the product methods) are difficult or impossible, and it is not as computer-intensive as some other methods. In this study we discuss Monte Carlo confidence intervals for indirect effects, report the results of a simulation study comparing their performance to that of competing methods, demonstrate the method in applied examples, and discuss several software options for implementation in applied settings.
Public confidence in Congress, the government, and social institutions has reached new lows. Healthy skepticism may have given way to corrosive cynicism. Some media watchers and critics blame the media for their preoccupation with the game and strategy of politics rather than social problems and their solution. Others deny that changes in news have affected the quality of democracy or the depth of political alienation. Studies that we have conducted over the past four years show that subtle changes in the way news stories are framed can affect consumers' responses, activating their cynicism when strategic or conflict-oriented frames are used. The studies directly implicate media framing of political news in activating, if not creating, cynicism about campaigns, policy, and governance and imply that cynicism about the news media may be an indirect consequence.
Despite dramatic increases in available political information through cable television and the Internet, political knowledge and turnout have not changed noticeably. To explain this seeming paradox, I argue that greater media choice makes it easier for people to find their preferred content. People who like news take advantage of abundant political information to become more knowledgeable and more likely to turn out. In contrast, people who prefer entertainment abandon the news and become less likely to learn about politics and go to the polls. To test this proposition, I develop a measure of people's media content preference and include it in a representative opinion survey of 2,358 U.S. residents. Results show that content preference indeed becomes a better predictor of political knowledge and turnout as media choice increases. Cable TV and the Internet increase gaps in knowledge and turnout between people who prefer news and people who prefer entertainment.
Inner Meaning and Practical Politics - KimSung Ho: Max Weber's Politics of Civil Society. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Pp. ix, 214. $60.00.) - Volume 67 Issue 4 - Leonard Seabrooke
The ability of citizens to make discriminating judgments regarding the political expertise of other individuals is centrally related to the potential for !deliberative democracy. If people are unable to render such judgments - if the communication of political expertise is, for example, fundamentally compromised by political bias - then the purposeful basis of political communication and deliberation among citizens is called into question. This article focuses on (1) the criteria that people employ in making judgments with respect to the political competence of other individuals, (2) the consequences of these judgments for the pattern and frequency of political communication, and (3) the implications for the effectiveness of collective deliberation among citizens. The database is taken from a study of political communication in the 1996 election, built on interviews with registered voters and their discussants in the Indianapolis and St. Louis metropolitan areas.
The results of a telephone survey of registered voters in Washington state explored the ways in which citizens' media exposure, perceptions of media importance, and media performance satisfaction associate with political disaffection and efficacy. The study tested 2 alternate models, 1 that included media satisfaction measures to predict citizens' levels of political disaffection and efficacy, and 1 that included only media use frequency and perceived media importance. Satisfaction measures were more useful predictors of cynicism and of negativism toward the media than were media use frequency or perceived media importance measures. Media use frequency and importance measures predicted only negativism, primarily toward campaigns. The findings indicate that social scientists should focus on citizens' satisfaction with media performance to understand the role of the media in political decision making.
In this study we explore the mediating role of emotions in the process of becoming a politically informed citizen. Contrary to previous studies, we expect that anger and anxiety will have much different effects on this process. We suspect the role of anxiety is somewhat unique even among negative emotions as mediator of the causal effect of political threats on information seeking and learning. In addition, we speculate that anxiety should improve the quality of information seeking, not just its quantity. In one experiment, we induce emotions directly and find that while anger, enthusiasm, and anxiety can lead people to claim they will pay attention to the campaign, anger actually depresses total information seeking. In a second experiment, we examine the impact of realistic political threats and find that exposure triggers several emotions but that only anxiety boosts information seeking and learning.
This paper critically analyzes the survey literature on trust in government and confidence in institutions. It highlights the gap between theoretical understandings of trust which encompass trust, lack of trust, and distrust, next to empirical realizations which fail to consider active distrust of government. Using a specially tailored survey designed for this project, the paper is the first which directly compares competing operationalizations of trust and distrust. The most frequently used measures, both from the National Election Studies and the General Social Survey, tend to exaggerate the level of disaffection compared to a new measure especially designed to run from active trust, which anticipates that the government will do the right thing, to active distrust, the expectation that it will do the wrong thing. Multivariate analyses reveal statistically significant differences in the underlying determinants of these measures. The conventional NES measure in particular is more influenced by short-term evaluations of political events and leaders; our new measure of active trust/distrust taps a more deeply seated orientation toward government.
Recent events indicate that sharing news in social media has become a phenomenon of increasing social, economic and political importance because individuals can now participate in news production and diffusion in large global virtual communities. Yet, knowledge about factors influencing news sharing in social media remains limited. Drawing from the uses and gratifications (U&G) and social cognitive theories (SCT), this study explored the influences of information seeking, socializing, entertainment, status seeking and prior social media sharing experience on news sharing intention. A survey was designed and administered to 203 students in a large local university. Results from structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis revealed that respondents who were driven by gratifications of information seeking, socializing, and status seeking were more likely to share news in social media platforms. Prior experience with social media was also a significant determinant of news sharing intention. Implications and directions for future work are discussed.
We define self-censorship as the withholding of one’s true opinion from an audience perceived to disagree with that opinion. Willingness to self-censor can be conceptualized as an individual difference, and we introduce here an 8-item self-report
instrument to measure this construct. The instrument yields reliable data in both student and nonstudent populations and can
be easily administered in no more than a few minutes in written or oral format. Evidence of the validity of the measure comes
from findings that self-censorers (i.e. those scoring relatively high on the measure) tend to be relatively more anxious about
social interaction and communication, more concerned about how other people evaluate them, less argumentative, and lower in
self-esteem. Although correlated with measures of these related constructs, confirmatory factor analyses indicate that the
willingness to self-censor scale is statistically distinguishable from these measures. The measure can serve as a useful research
tool for investigators interested in public opinion expression, political participation, media effects, interpersonal discussion,
group decision making, and other areas.