Political Communication Division
Main Paper Competition
Affective Polarization and Political Engagement in the United States: What Factors Matter? • Mohammad Ali, S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Syracuse University; Abdulaziz Altawil • This paper examines the factors that influence affective polarization and political engagement in the United States. Using an original survey dataset (N=606), this study found several insights influencing affective polarization and political engagement. The findings would be helpful to further study affective polarization, which is reportedly affecting democracy and the country’s greater interest as well. Insights found in this paper could also be utilized in devising political communication strategies related to people’s polarized political views. Future research is encouraged to combine survey data and social media data for a more refined outcome.
Role of Traditional Media in Influencing Presidential Election Outcomes in Ghana • Elinam Amevor, University of Oregon • The traditional roles of the media in informing and educating the public are emphasized. But research into other critical functions of the media in a democracy such as public opinion formation and power alternation in presidential elections in Africa are less researched. This paper analyzes the role of the traditional news media in influencing presidential election outcomes in Ghana and makes a case for media effects research in analyzing voting behavior in African elections.
Between authoritarianism and democracy: Rethinking old and new media roles for political re-socialization in forced migration contexts • Rana Arafat, University of Lugano • While political scholars study news media as agents of political learning, the processes of political re-socialization of a conflict-generated diaspora moving from authoritarian to democratic regimes pose significant theoretical challenges that remain insufficiently researched. To this end, this study investigates the importance of traditional and digital media sources from the homeland and host country in fostering refugees’ understanding of the democratic norms and values, and political opportunities offered by the receiving country. Further, it investigates the role of online diaspora communities as agents for political re-socialization and tools for information acquisition about Arabic, Swiss and international politics. 60 semi-structured interviews with Arabs from refugee origins in Switzerland were analyzed. Findings show the influence of the early-life political socialization, received prior to forced migration, on the purposive consumption of media from various sources. As Facebook started to lose its value as a source of political information, participants shift to producing and consuming news distributed by strong ties on private WhatsApp groups as a counter-strategy to acquire trustworthy information. Further insights on the impact of perceived media credibility and individual trust in news on the consumption behavior and political learning are discussed.
The News Expectations Predicament: Comparing and Explaining what Muslims and Members of the Mainstream Society Expect from Journalists’ Roles and Reporting Practices • Philip Baugut; Sebastian Scherr • Media coverage of right-wing extremism pertains to the media’s information and watchdog function in a democratic political system. However, little is known about the audience’s expectations of journalists regarding their role for society and their reporting practices in order to fulfil their democratic function. To bridge this gap, a quota sample representative of the general German population (n = 1314) and an independent sample of Muslims living in Germany (n = 248) demonstrates that Muslims expect from journalists a more active role and accept more controversial reporting practices to combat right-wing extremism. More liberal individuals were found to show heightened expectations; however, these were reduced when more liberal individuals were afraid of right-wing extremism. In a country particularly sensitive toward right-wing terror, we found strong value-oriented views in that fears of right-wing extremism should not make a democratic society give up its core principles–including the professional autonomy of journalists.
* Extended Abstract * “You are a disgrace and traitor to our country”: Uncivil rhetoric against the ‘squad’ on Twitter • Porismita Borah; Itai Himelboim, University of Georgia; Bryan Trude, University of Georgia; Matthew Binford, University of Georgia; Kate Keib, Oglethorpe University • Scholars have highlighted the negative consequences and implications of excessive uncivil discourses. Incivility on twitter is a rising trend. We conducted a content analysis of the replies to the tweets of four congresswomen known as the “squad” and examined the different types of uncivil rhetoric targeted against these congresswomen. Our findings show that name calling, aspersion, and stereotype were the most common types of incivility.
“It’s all yellow journalism now”: How White evangelical Christian women’s contempt of mainstream media contributes to their support of politician Donald J. Trump • Gayle Jansen Brisbane, California State University Fullerton • This paper will examine connections between White evangelical Christian women’s presumably paradoxical allegiance for Donald Trump and their cynicism towards mainstream media. This preliminary qualitative study employed focus groups composed of White women who support Donald J. Trump as president and also identify themselves as evangelical Christian women. Endeavoring to understand the extreme divisiveness in the current political climate between liberal and conservative and between secular and religious citizens should be undertaken often. This paper will present a brief recap of the relationship between Christianity and politics in modern times, then review why the media is regarded as having a “liberal bias” and finally explore the theory of selective processes and how these may be operating among evangelical women as they encounter discordant information about Trump. Through discourse analysis, it will also examine these focus group interviews of White evangelical Christian women’s points of views on politics and the media in order to shed light on their contradictory support of President Donald J. Trump. The research questions endeavor to clarify the participants’ most important political issues, how they justify Trump’s misogynist lifestyle vis-a’-vis their moral standards, their assessment of mainstream media, what news outlets they trust and whether they seek to verify their news consumption.
Indexing, Source Hierarchy, and Cultural Congruence: Op-Ed Coverage of Nuclear Negotiations with Iran • Bill Cassidy, Northern Illinois University; Mehrnaz Khanjani, University of Iowa; Mehdi Semati, Northern Illinois University • This paper utilizes indexing theory to examine op-ed coverage of nuclear negotiations with Iran in the New York Times and Washington Post from August 2013-June 2016. Results show that while U.S. presidential administration sources were most prominent in the 211 articles examined, the official perspective did not control the valence of coverage. Oppositional sources remained prominent and negative statements from op-ed authors significantly increased even after a deal with Iran was reached.
Partisan News Repertoire and Echo Chamber in High-Choice Media Environment • ching chun chen, National Defense University and National Chiao Tung University; Chen-Chao Tao, National Chiao Tung University • Although echo chamber phenomenon has attracted considerable attention, the measurement of echo chambers has been inconsistent and insufficient. Using a nationally representative panel survey from Taiwan (N = 1,926), the current study introduced the Partisan News Repertoire Index to explore the presence of echo chambers in high-choice media environment, and found support for polarization in echo chambers by integrating news repertoire approach and biased assimilation theory. Results showed that two of five news repertoires were mainly driven by political ideology, indicating stronger partisan news repertoire. Moreover, people with strong partisan news repertoires tended to be polarized by self-confirming process when encountering consistent partisan media; and also strengthen their prior attitudes through motivated reasoning when exposed to inconsistent partisan media.
Analysis of Campaign Issue Dynamics: Case Study of Taiwan’s 2020 Presidential Election • Yi-Ning Chen, National Chengchi University; CHIA-HO RYAN WEN • The dynamics of issue emphases is thought of as the key to candidates’ chance of winning or losing an election. By analyzing Taiwan’s presidential election held on January 11 2020, our research goals are to characterize how media attention converged or diverged from the issue attention of the two principal candidates, Tsai Ing-Wen and Han Kuo-Yu, respectively representing the Democratic Progressive Party and the Kuomintang, as well as delineate what strategies were employed between them in response to each other’s campaigns. Separately retrieving 8,531,207 posts from the mass media, 55,080 from Tsai Ing-Wen’s official social media and 132,323 from Han Kuo-Yu’s official social media, we first find that the election day was the foremost factor for the issue emphases by the candidates and the mass media to converge. Second, mass media coverage was more convergent with Tsai’s issue emphases rather than Han’s, in particular on Taiwan’s anti-infiltration bill, although Han’s number of posts was twice that of Tsai’s. Third, as the incumbent candidate, Tsai used a divergence strategy to neglect Han and not share popularity with him despite his intensive posting from November 11 to early December 2019. However, as the election day got closer, Tsai Ing-Wen’s campaign went aggressive and brought public attention to agendas that best embodied her values and performance as the incumbent (e.g. green energy, marriage equality, labor reforms) while continuing to neglect Han’s attacks. Finally, both of them, as well as their supporters, discredited the other side by labelling the counterpart’s speech as fake news.
White Democratic Candidate Outreach and Exposure to Black Voters: A Black Press Analysis • George Daniels, The University of Alabama • In January 2020, Democratic presidential hopeful Michael Bloomberg made a $3.5 million advertising buy with Black-owned newspapers, the largest investment of its kind in the 193-year history of the Black Press. Based on a review of three months of issues of 15 different black-owned newspapers in eight states and exit poll data, this paper assessed the impact of Democratic hopefuls’ financial investments in black press on voters’ decisions in early presidential primaries.
How Do People Learn About Public Affairs When Incidentally Exposed to News? Clarifying Political Knowledge Paradoxical Direct and Indirect Effects • Homero Gil de Zúñiga; Porismita Borah; Manuel Goyanes, Carlos III University • Citizens’ political knowledge is regarded as a vital element for well-functioning democracies. Accordingly, there is a burgeoning literature assessing the link between individuals’ news seeking behavior and learning about public affairs. There are, however, more limited efforts devoted to clarify how incidental news exposure may facilitate political learning. So far, inconclusive research findings have offered positive, null or even negative effects, emphasizing an urge for scholars to further explore this relationship. Drawing upon U.S. representative survey data, this study seeks to explicate and further advance the paradoxical paths that connect citizens’ incidental news exposure and political knowledge, both directly and indirectly. Our analysis first shows either null or mild negative direct associations between incidental news exposure and political knowledge. However, relying on a two serial mediators’ model, when citizens thoroughly engage with and cognitively elaborate on the information they unintentionally stumble upon, incidental news exposure yields positive mediated effects on political learning. This study contributes to a better understanding over the potential direct and indirect mechanisms that both facilitate and hinders political knowledge acquisition through inadvertent news consumption.
Is Facebook-Based Political Talk Associated with Political Knowledge? • Toby Hopp, University of Colorado Boulder; Patrick Ferrucci, U of Colorado-Boulder; Chris Vargo, University of Colorado Boulder; Luna Liu, University of Colorado Boulder • Prior research has shown that talking about politics can help facilitate political knowledge obtainment. However, such research has not addressed the extent to which specifically online political talk—which is often structurally and mechanistically different than offline talk—may or may not be associated with political knowledge. Accordingly, this study explored the association between text-based political commentary on Facebook and performance on a political knowledge quiz. Moreover, we investigated the degree to which a basic indicator of talk-apparent elaborative thinking (the inclusion of a testable proposition) was differentially associated with political knowledge levels. Finally, we assessed the extent to which different patterns of Facebook use moderated the relationship between political talk and knowledge. These questions were addressed using a novel method that paired behavioral Facebook data with self-reported survey data. The results indicated that political talk frequency on Facebook was positively and significantly associated with political knowledge. We observed similar associations between knowledge scores and political talk that featured high and low levels of elaborative thinking. Finally, we found tentative evidence that the relationship between Facebook-based political talk and political knowledge was strongest among those who regularly use Facebook for political learning.
* Extended Abstract * Morally Covering Politics: A Case Study of the New York Times’ Reporting on Clinton and Trump During the 2016 U.S. Election • Qihao Ji, Marist College • Focusing on the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, this study aims to address how Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were covered by the country’s leading news outlet—the New York Times. To that end, more 1,000 highly transmitted NYT stories regarding Trump and Clinton were collected before the election and subsequently subjected to computerized textual analysis. Results indicated that highly transmitted stories on Trump were much more morally charged and negatively valenced compared with Clinton’s.
Emotions and Political Participation: The Impacts of Discrete Emotions on Citizens’ Voting Likelihood • Yangzhi Jiang, Louisiana State University • This study investigated the effects of different emotions (i.e., anger, disgust, anxiety, hope, and pride) on Americans’ voting likelihood. The 2016 American National Election Studies (ANES) data were adopted. Results showed that only pride functioned as a significant predictor of citizens’ voting likelihood. However, anger did not influence Americans’ voting willingness in 2016, which was inconsistent with previous studies’ findings. As expected, disgust, hope, and anxiety had little impact on the voting likelihood.
* Extended Abstract * Who’s picking up the tab? The effects of framing taxpayers’ money on citizen oversight • Volha Kananovich, Appalachian State University • This study experimentally tests if various ways to frame government corruption in the news as the misuse of either “government funds” or “taxpayers’ money” can influence motivation for citizen oversight. The findings show that the mere rhetorical changes in describing the funds can encourage people to view the issue of misspending as more personally relevant, which makes them more motivated to hold the government accountable for its spending decisions.
Media Models for Nonviolence: Social media representations of the #womensmarch mass mobilization and Instagram audience engagement • Danielle Kilgo, University of Minnesota – Twin Cities; Samantha Munoz • This research explores the representation of the massive-but-peaceful demonstrations for women’s rights in 2017. Employing the framework provided by the protest paradigm in a content analysis of Instagram posts, results indicate coverage was most often framed with positive emotional behaviors and movement demands and agendas, by mainstream media producers, influencers and other news curators on the site. Findings indicate media account type, rather than content features, may be the most influential engagement factor.
Online keyword activism in political crisis: Moderation roles of like-minded public opinion and proxy control of crisis outcomes • Sora Kim, The Chinese University of Hong Kong; Yingru JI; Hyejoon Rim, University of Minnesota • Through a national online-panel survey, this study examines the underlying psychological mechanism of online keyword activism supporting an in-crisis party (pro-activism hereafter) in a recent Korean political crisis. This work finds decisive boundary conditions in determining pro-activism participation. Like-minded opinion mitigates and even nullifies the effects of perceived majority opinion on crisis blame attribution and pro-activism participation when it is extremely valenced (negative) toward the crisis. Government controllability intensifies and even nullifies the effects of crisis blame attribution on pro-activism when it is extremely low. What makes people to more actively participate in pro-activism is driven by perceived like-minded public opinion through external attribution of crisis blame (e.g., blame-media), whereas the decisive driving factor for people to refrain from participating in the pro-activism is low perceived government controllability over crisis outcomes through internal attribution of crisis blame (e.g., blame-in-crisis party).
Representing Minorities in Deliberative Discussions: The Effects of Minority Presence and Group Identity Salience • Nuri Kim; Zijian Lew; Benjamin Detenber • This study examines how different ways of representing minority members in deliberative discussions can affect the content and tone of discussion. The effects of physical presence of minority members (i.e., present versus absent) and the salience of different group identities (i.e., superordinate identity versus subgroup identity) were experimentally examined for zero-history deliberation groups in a lab setting (N = 236, in 46 discussion groups). The discussions were content analyzed to assess the communicative effects. Results showed that the presence of minority members strongly affected the discussion content and tone in the small groups. Priming common identity also had some impact but in different ways, and to a lesser degree.
Revisiting Nasty Effect: How Do Online Incivility and Emotions toward In-group Interact on Cross-cutting Attention and Political Participation? • Jiyoung Lee; Jihyang Choi, Ewha Womans University; Jiwon Kim • Incivility has been a primary concern of healthy discussions especially in the online environment. Realizing the individual and societal impacts of incivility, much research has examined the role of incivility; however, it still has not reached a consensus on how incivility plays a beneficial role in politics. In the current study which used a two-wave longitudinal survey of 933 Americans in the context of 2016 presidential election, we revisited the role of online incivility in cross-cutting attention and online/offline political participation with a focus on anxiety, outrage, and pride toward the candidate respondents support (i.e., emotions toward in-group). Our results revealed that online incivility was positively associated with cross-cutting attention. When encountering incivility online, people who were anxious about in-group’s incivility paid more attention to cross-cutting opinions. Pride showed a reverse pattern, such that those who felt proud toward ingroup did not pay much attention to cross-cutting opinions when facing incivility online. Such cross-cutting attention ultimately led to online/offline political participation. This study advances current understanding of inter-group emotions theory and nasty effect by suggesting the intervening roles of distinct emotions toward in-group.
What’s Fake News to You?: How Divided Epistemologies Shape Perception of Fake News • Taeyoung Lee; Tom Johnson, University of Texas at Austin; Joao Vicente Seno Ozawa, The University of Texas at Austin • Scant attention has been paid to how the public define fake news. This study addresses how different epistemic worldviews – intuitionism and rationalism – lead to different definitions of fake news. Findings demonstrate that intuitionists tend to agree with Donald Trump’s label of fake news: accurate stories that cast a politician in a negative light. Rationalists tend to agree with the scholarly definition that describes fake news as distorting facts. Simultaneously, both epistemic beliefs see poor journalism as fake news.
* Extended Abstract * Extended Abstract: When the Desert Matters: Contextual Differences in Local News Environment and Polarized Perceptions of Local Economy • Jianing Li; Jiyoun Suk; Josephine Lukito, University of Wisconsin, Madison; Ceri Hughes, Brunel University; Jordan Foley; Lewis Friedland; Chris Wells; Dhavan Shah; Michael Wagner, UW-Madison • Despite abundant research about individual-level partisan polarization we know little about the effects of the meso-level information environment on partisan opinion polarization. Our study reveals the importance of contextual differences in the local news environment, represented by the number of local newspapers a county has, in moderating the effects of individual-level media use patterns in contributing to polarization in partisans’ retrospective evaluations of the local economy.
Wall and Sword: Attitudes towards Two Types of Online Censorship in China • Xining Liao, University of Wisconsin-Madison • Focusing on online censorship in China, this study seeks to answer two important questions: what do Chinese people think of online censorship in China and what factors are related to censorship attitudes? We tested two competing theories: reactance theory and balance theory as they may predict attitudes toward online censorship in China. Furthermore, instead of conceptualizing Chinese online censorship as being a homogenous system, we conducted a survey to investigate attitudes towards two separate censorship policies: the Great Firewall and citizen reporting. The former is a technical tool that blocks domestic online access to overseas websites, and the latter a new form of censorship targeting in Chinese domestic online sphere, by which netizens could report any perceived harmful information to online media platforms, and the information will be deleted by professional censors from online platforms once has been confirmed as “bad information”. The results of this study are congruent with balance theory, suggesting that the Chinese express overall positive attitudes towards censorship policies and the attitudes are influenced by their attitudes towards other agents related to censorship.
Fake News and Cloaked Propaganda: Exploring the Pro-China Facebook Groups in Taiwan • Chao Chen(Caroline) Lin, Graduate Institute of Journalism, National Taiwan University • This research analyzes Facebook groups that spread political propaganda but lack clear user profile identities. Based on the ethnography online method, this research studies a dataset leaked from some security bureau in Taiwan, including 18,933 accounts and 130,839 Facebook group posts. This research explores the active users of pro-China Facebook groups who connect with Taiwanese Facebook groups. Analysis results indicated that pro-China group posts were propaganda either campaigning for mainland China, criticizing Taiwan’s ruling party, or spreading fake news. This article argues that propaganda has happened in an increasingly interactive social media environment, especially when user profiles are vague, cloaked and missing.
Online Political Engagement, Fake News Exposure, and Fake News Sharing in Sub-Saharan Africa • Saifuddin Ahmed, Nanyang Technological University; Dani Madrid-Morales, University of Houston; Melissa Tully, University of Iowa • Using an online survey in Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa, this study explores the association between online political engagement, exposure to fake news, need for cognition, and fake news sharing. The findings suggest that online political engagement is positively associated with both fake news exposure and sharing. In contrast, those who have higher need for cognition were less likely to share fake news. Theoretical implications for misinformation and political engagement research are discussed.
Exposure to Personalized Political Advertising Dampens Trust in Democracy but Increases Political Interest: Evidence from a Panel Study • Joerg Matthes, U of Vienna; Melanie Hirsch; Marlis Stubenvoll; Alice Binder; Sanne Kruikemeier; Sophie Lecheler, U of Vienna; Lukas Otto • There are rising concerns that personalized political advertising (PPA) may be harmful for democracy and democratic representation. However, research has largely ignored potential positive democratic outcomes of PPA. This two-wave panel study revealed that the impression of being exposed to PPA led to a decrease of trust in democracy, but also to an increase in political interest. Therefore, the results suggest that PPA can have harmful and beneficial effects for modern democracy.
* Extended Abstract * Partisanship, news outlet use, and COVID-19 misperceptions • Patrick Meirick, University of Oklahoma • A Pew panel survey from March 2020 (N = 8,914) asked about two false beliefs about the pandemic: that a vaccine will be available in a few months and that the novel coronavirus was created in a lab. Republican party ID and Fox News use predicted both misperceptions, although the apparent effect of Fox News use was greater for Democrats. Facebook use was related to the lab misperception, which was spread widely on the platform.
Trump fatigue: Exploring the relationship between perceived media bias and news exhaustion • Adriana Mucedola, Syracuse University; Shengjie Yao • In today’s highly polarized political climate, media consumers are constantly being bombarded with arguments for and against their views, particularly relating to the high- profile presidency of Donald Trump. The present study was conducted to examine how biased news perceptions (or the hostile media phenomenon) can explain how consuming news about President Trump may be a negative emotional and exhausting experience. Data from a web-based survey (N = 1100) were analyzed. Findings showed that the perceived bias of the media and feelings of being “overloaded” explain some of the variance in negative emotions towards and exhaustion from news about President Trump. However, findings also indicate the perception of a biased media is negatively associated with negative affective outcomes, such as anger or sadness. Implications of these findings for future hostile media phenomenon research in the context of Trump’s presidency are discussed.
Judging “them” by my media use: Adapting the IPI model for a polarized media environment • Youran QIN, Hong Kong Bapist U • Adapting the IPI model to a polarized information environment, this study shows that individuals tend to accept retaliation against antagonists if they perceive the antagonists as heavy users of pro-antagonist media. Furthermore, individuals’ estimation of antagonists’ media use is a projection of their own media habit. The findings demonstrate an indirect effect of selective exposure – polarizing us by letting us believe that our antagonists are using and polarized by media on their side.
Factors Influencing Midwest Farmers’ Attitudes Toward China and US-China Trade Dispute • Lulu Rodriguez; Han Guang; Shuyang Qu, Iowa State University • The trade war between the U.S. and China had Midwest farmers reeling as sales of agricultural products to a major market was cut in half. This study examines the factors that significantly influenced their attitudes toward China and the trade dispute. Based survey data, the findings show that mass media use, credibility of mediated sources, and education predicted attitude toward China. Farmers’ attitude toward China, media exposure, media credibility, and years farming predicted attitudes about the trade dispute.
Meaningfully Entertained: Exploring the Relationship between Exposure to Meaningful Media and Political Engagement • Mian Asim; Muhammad Ehab Rasul; Azmat Rasul, Zayed University • The central objective of this paper is to broaden research on meaningful, inspirational, and prosocial media and its effects on political attitudes. Specifically, this research examines the implications of exposure to meaningful media and the feelings of affective elevation on connectedness with humanity and perceived connectedness among those with differing political affiliations Meaningful media content holds much promise of elevating audiences’ affective states and makes salient the common bonds that we share with others. How these perceptions translate into other domains awaits future investigations. This study suggests that exposure to meaningful media may be one avenue to address divisions among political groups, though the path may be much more difficult.
Social Media and Misinformation: The Impact of Education and Political Affiliation on News Sharing Behavior • Sean R Sadri, University of Alabama; John P Kelsey, University of Alabama; Candice D Roberts, St. John’s University • The present study examines demographics and sourcing as ways to potentially combat the dissemination of misinformation. An experiment using a nationwide sample of U.S. adults (N = 324) helps better understand social media sharing habits and political news credibility. The results provide evidence of educational attainment and political affiliation as predictors of tendency to share news information. The findings also suggest that the combined presence of political affiliation and article sourcing will increase share likelihood.
* Extended Abstract * Extended Abstract: Disconnecting Crises: The Refugee Crisis and the Roma Problem in Official State Discourse • Adina Schneeweis, Oakland University • This article is a study of political discourse about Europe’s reaction to refugees in the mid-2010s in the context of its dealing with another migrant population – the Roma (Gypsies). This study examines governmental and state-affiliated committee reports, research summaries, macroeconomic analyses, country reports, and risk analyses, and concludes that the refugee crisis received consistent attention, whereas issues specific to minorities in general, or related to the Roma in particular, garnered little to no interest.
Agenda-Setting Effects of Fake News on the Public’s Issue Agenda • Joao Vicente Seno Ozawa, The University of Texas at Austin; Hong Tien Vu; Dhiraj Murthy; Maxwell McCombs • This study draws upon the tradition of agenda-setting studies to investigate the impact of fake news in setting the public agenda. Although previous findings suggest that a minority of people are exposed to fake news, we found evidence that this type of information may be indeed having an impact on public opinion. The study was based on data extracted out of the complete historical archive of Twitter from 2012 to 2016. The researchers conducted secondary analysis of four million tweets regarding 2,448 news stories, labelled as fake news and verifiable true news according to six fact checking companies. The Twitter issue agenda was compared with the public issue agenda measured by the Gallup Poll’s open-ended question: “What is the most important problem facing this country today?”. We assembled the results of this question for each month of the five years studied, a total of 60 poll results. Correlations at all levels – monthly, quarterly, annual and five-year – show evidence of correspondence between the Twitter agenda based on fake news and the public agenda expressed in responses to the Gallup MIP question. Results were above the average of the baseline established by two meta-analyses of agenda-setting effects, especially in 2015 and 2016. Explanations of why access to fake news could be concentrated, but in the same time have an important effect on the public agenda, are discussed within the well-established framework of agenda-setting theory.
Partisan Ambivalence, Emotions, and Civic Engagement: Hierarchy Regression Analyses on Online and Offline Civic Engagement • Jian SHI, Syracuse University; Laura Canuelas-Torres, Syracuse University; Catherine Annis, Syracuse University Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs; Zanira Ghulamhussain • American public continues to feel ambivalence towards political issues during the Trump administration. Using an online national survey (N=1,100), this research investigates the impact of partisan ambivalence, media exposure, and emotional reactions toward news about President Trump on online and offline civic engagement. Results show ambivalent Americans are more likely to engage in offline civic engagement. Also, negative emotions had a stronger positive correlation than positive emotions with both online and offline civic engagement.
The Mediating Path to Political Consumerism: Do News Consumption and Interpersonal Communication Count? • Jian SHI, Syracuse University; Lars Willnat, Syracuse University • Although past research has shown that news exposure can promote political consumerism, few studies have investigated the mediating effects of social media communication on political consumerism. Drawing on the communication mediation model, we utilize online survey data gathered in 2019 among U.S. adults (N=1,069). This study suggests that both face-to-face and social media communication act as mediators of media consumption on political consumerism. More importantly, this study provides support for conceptualizing political consumerism from a communicative perspective.
How the Left, Center, and Right Covered the #MeToo Movement: Structural Topic Modeling, Thematic Structure and Language Patterns • Min-Hsin Su, UW-Madison; Jiyoun Suk; Shreenita Ghosh, University of Wisconsin, Madison; Kruthika Kamath; Porismita Borah; Teresa Correa; Christine Garlough; Dhavan Shah • This study explores the thematic structures and linguistic patterns of US news coverage surrounding the #MeToo movement across media spectrum. Using a combination of several automated textual analysis techniques, such as structural topic modeling and TF-IDF scores, we examine a random sample of news articles from nine news outlets during the first five-months after the Harvey Weinstein accusation. The results suggest clear partisan differences both in terms of topical prevalence and language patterns.
Am I with Her or with…Him?: Public and Online Participation in the 2016 US Presidential Election • Jiyoun Suk; Doug McLeod; Dhavan Shah • There is no question that the 2016 presidential election was one of the most memorable campaigns in U.S. history. Using national rolling cross-sectional survey data collected daily throughout the 2016 election, we used three-level multilevel modeling to examine how contextual factors such as the neighborhood-level political climate as well as state-level legislative presentation were associated with online and public participation. Our findings generally reveal asymmetrical patterns of participation between Republicans and Democrats.
* Extended Abstract * The Political Use of Search Engines: Differences in the Information Seeking Habits Between Right-leaning and Left-leaning Users • Chau Tong, University of Wisconsin-Madison • This study explores how political ideology influences information-seeking habits and behaviors regarding the use of Internet search engines for political information. Drawing on the literature of selective exposure, political psychology and customization technologies, this study employs secondary analysis to survey datasets of six democracies. Findings in the US sample show that political liberals and conservatives statistically differ in knowledge of search engine algorithms and attitudes towards human editorial or algorithmic curation of political news.
Politics and Politeness: Analysis of incivility on Twitter during the 2020 Democratic presidential primary • Briana Trifiro, Boston University; Sejin Paik; Zhixin Fang, Boston University; Alexander Rochefort, Boston University; Li Zhang, Boston University • This large-scale computational content analysis examines the amount of uncivil Twitter conversation about Democratic presidential primary candidates. Using the online disinhibition effect as the theoretical basis, this article expands on the prevalence of incivility in tweets in regards to the candidates’ gender, bot accounts, and anonymous users.
Framing COVID-19: A case study of the Chinese translated news behind the U.S.-China blame game • Shiqi Wang, Hong Kong Baptist University • With a framing analysis of the Chinese translations of English news concerning the coronavirus dispute between the largest two superpowers in the world, this paper attempts to show how China is trying to self-present as a responsible leader who triumphed over the coronavirus while the U.S., ex-leader of the world, has stumbled. With the theory of self-presentation, one can see how foreign news is translated to work as an ideological “vaccine” for its people.
Effects of Soft and Hard News Consumption on 2012 and 2016 Presidential Candidate Evaluations • Lewen Wei, Pennsylvania State University; Jinping Wang, Pennsylvania State University • Through an automated content analysis, the present study examined effects of soft news and hard news consumption over both broadcast and digital media on people’s presidential candidate evaluations in 2012 and 2016 election cycles. We found issue-focused evaluations slightly outnumbered character-focused ones, and soft news consumption over different media impacted on the distribution of and affectiveness in candidate evaluations in a different manner compared to hard news consumption.
How sea-level rise is communicated by governments, news media, and social media: An examination of realities shaped by partisan and regional influences and intermedia agenda-setting • Denis Wu; Yiyan Zhang • This study investigates the issue of sea-level rise presented by governmental public announcements, news coverage, and tweets generated in all 50 states of the United States during 2014-2017. Both human and machine codings were conducted to detect the pattern of sea-level rise communication across states with sea shore and landlocked states and between liberal and conservative states. Intermedia agenda-setting among the three distinct sources of information was also executed. Results indicate that patterns of sea-level rise content differ significantly between the groups of states with regard to their geographic location and political inclination. The sea-level rise content generated from the three sources are related significantly. Implications of these findings were provided in the paper.
A Linkage of Traditional and Social Media Use with Political Knowledge and Participation • Masahiro Yamamoto, University at Albany; Fan Yang • This study examines news media use in relation to political knowledge and political participation. Data from a two-wave panel survey indicate that social media use for news is related to increases in subjective political knowledge, whereas traditional news use is related to increases in factual political knowledge. Data also show that factual political knowledge has a negative cross-lagged association with political participation, whereas the influence of subjective political knowledge is positive. Implications are discussed for the role of news consumption in the political process.
Predicting perceived media bias of the mass shooting coverage and intention to participate in discursive activities: Examining the effects of personal involvement and social identities • Xueying Zhang; Mei-Chen Lin • Americans are seeing the most devastating era of mass shootings in modern history. Following each gruesome mass shooting is heated and polarizing political debates in the media, and among the policy makers and the public. News audiences of mass shooting do not passively accept message from the media, but rather make active judgement by relating it to their own lives or interpret it from the lens of their important values and identity. This study examined how predispositions of news audience predict perceived media bias in mass shooting coverage and intention to participate in discursive activities concerning gun issues. A survey among 300 participants recruited from Qualtrics’ research panels highlighted the role of social identity and individuals’ outcome-relevant involvement. The results extend the theoretical discussion of biased media perception and increase understanding of public’s sentiment regarding gun policy discussions.
Muting Opposing Political Opinions on Facebook: The Mediating Role of Emotions on Facebook Muting Behaviors • Bingbing Zhang, Pennsylvania State University; Heather Shoenberger, The Pennsylvania State University • Selective exposure theory posits that individuals prefer information aligned with pre-existing ideologies while avoiding opposing opinions. Using a nationally representative sample of Facebook users recruited via a Qualtrics panel (N = 505), this study explores the ideology strength, political disagreement and adds the context of negative emotions felt when viewing opposing viewpoints on Facebook on three different types of muting those with opposing political opinions. The three muting behaviors examined include “taking a break”, unfollowing, and unfriending others. Results offer insights into the idea that exposure to incongruent opinions are positively related to political muting behaviors. Additionally, the emotions of anger and dread mediate the relationship between exposure to incongruent views on social media and unfriending others with different opinions. Results are discussed through the lens of selective exposure and selective avoidance in understanding social media users’ online behaviors. This study indicates the important role of emotions in the formation of echo chambers on social media.
Investigating the Effects of Pro-attitudinal and Counter-attitudinal Media Exposure on General Political Talks and Cross-cutting Political Talks: Evidence from 2014 and 2018 U • Li Zhang, Boston University; Jacob Groshek • Everyday political talks play an important role in deliberative democracy and should be considered as gateway political behavior. This study examines the effects of selective exposure to pro-attitudinal and counter-attitudinal media on two types of political talks, general political talks and cross-cutting political talks. Drawing on a three-wave panel data during the 2014 U.S. midterm election and a cross-sectional dataset during the 2018 U.S. midterm election, mixed results were reported: in 2014, selective exposure to pro-attitudinal media is positively associated with both types of political talks, while exposure to counter-attitudinal media has no significant effect. However, in 2018, the effects of pro-attitudinal media disappeared and exposure to counter-attitudinal media is shown to be positively associated with cross-cutting political talks. In addition, a possible mediating mechanism proposed by recent literature is tested and found no support. Finally, discussion and explanation is offered.
Special Call for Preregistered Papers – Election 2020
Headline news: A theoretic model to explore the believability and selection of political news • Robin Blom, Ball State University; Tim Huang, Ball State University • Misperceptions could cause people to take positions on political issues that they otherwise would not take. Therefore, it is important that they believe news content that is true and ignore news content that is false. But in reality, many people are skeptical about factual news from distrusted source and much more accepting of misleading news from trusted sources. This study further develops a news believability model and extends it with a news selection model to better predict why people make certain news selections based on content and the context in which the news is presented, namely a combination of news source trust and news content expectancy. Evidence from this overall model could aid attempts to create media literacy modules to teach people about roles of their own cognitive biases and perceptions of expectancy violations in news selection, which could help them avoid misperceptions in the future.
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