The relationship between incidental news exposure and political participation: A cross-country, multilevel analysis
- Author(s)
- Jörg Matthes, Alon Zoizner, Andreas Nanz, David Nicolas Hopmann, Yannis Theocharis, Selina Noetzel
- Abstract
In the modern, networked information environment, incidental exposure (IE) to political news is often theorized to benefit democracy, particularly by fueling political participation. Using cross-national survey data with more than 28,000 respondents from seventeen countries, we distinguished between first-level IE (i.e., the mere scanning of incidentally encountered information) and second-level IE (i.e., effortful processing of incidentally encountered information). We found that first-level IE was negatively related to political participation carried out through social media, while second-level IE was positively associated to both social media-based and offline participation. Furthermore, we found that the association between first-level IE and offline participation turned significantly positive for the healthiest democracies. Overall, findings suggest that the participatory role of first-level IE depend on the current quality state of a democracy.
- Organisation(s)
- Department of Communication
- External organisation(s)
- University of Haifa, Technische Universität München, University of Southern Denmark (SDU)
- Journal
- Digital Journalism
- ISSN
- 2167-0811
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2024.2436548
- Publication date
- 11-2024
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 508007 Communication science
- Keywords
- ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Communication
- Portal url
- https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/919f1c5c-1186-4d73-81b2-649e72d51c95