Seeing political information online incidentally. Effects of first- and second-level incidental exposure on democratic outcomes

Autor(en)
Andreas Nanz, Jörg Matthes
Abstrakt

Today, the internet and particularly social media offer lots of opportunities to encounter political information incidentally. Motivated by conflicting findings regarding the effects of incidental exposure (IE) on political outcomes, researchers recently developed new theoretical models. Building on the Political Incidental News Exposure (PINE) model, we distinguish two levels of IE to political information, first-level (i.e., mere scanning of IE content) and second-level (i.e., effortful processing of IE content). In one cross-sectional (N

1 = 1660) and three panel surveys (N

2 = 450, N

3 = 524, N

4 = 901), we measure the two levels of IE and investigate their effect on multiple political outcomes. We find null effects on political knowledge for both levels. However, across all three panel studies, second-level IE affects online political participation positively. In Study 4, we find that second-level IE also affects social media use for political information and political expression positively. Implications are discussed.

Organisation(en)
Institut für Publizistik- und Kommunikationswissenschaft
Journal
Computers in Human Behavior
Band
133
Anzahl der Seiten
12
ISSN
0747-5632
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2022.107285
Publikationsdatum
08-2022
Peer-reviewed
Ja
ÖFOS 2012
508007 Kommunikationswissenschaft
Schlagwörter
ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete
Psychology(all), Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous), Human-computer interaction
Link zum Portal
https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/de/publications/seeing-political-information-online-incidentally-effects-of-first-and-secondlevel-incidental-exposure-on-democratic-outcomes(994ff71f-9f93-447f-922b-1d7ed1ffe92f).html