(7) (Stroud) Media Use and Political Predispositions: Revisiting the Concept of Selective Exposure

Panel Analyses

- For talk radio, cable news, Internet, and reading newspapers endorsing Kerry, respondent political beliefs are signif predictors of selecting certain outlets. However, ideology/partisan isn't signif in predicting reading newspapers endorsing Bush (but the coefficient is in the expected direction) - Some evidence that partisan media use contributes to stronger ideology/partisanship

The different conclusions about selective exposure and the democratic implications of partisan selective also justify further research

- Public may develop more polarized political attitudes and impressions of which issues should be prioritized by govt may diverge: stunt ability of govt to create policies that are responsive to public needs - People may use diverse options to learn different views but world without selective exposure might make people less energized to political participate

Experiment

- Research question: Is partisan selective exposure contingent on media type? - Method: 1) Rolling cross-sectional design: on the first night that each replicate is released into the field, all numbers within the replicate are dialed. On subsequent nights, telephone numbers where no one responded to the survey are re-dialed in an attempt to secure a survey respondent. 2) Panel survey conducted around general election

Limitations to this study

- The extent to which partisan selective exposure persists in other contexts outside 2004 US presidential election should be studied - Panel analyses relied only on two waves of data - Measures of media exposure impose some limitations (ex. cable news question asked respondents for most watched station, not all)

More results

64% of conservatives consume at least one conservative media outlet vs 26% of liberal democrats. 43% of conservatives vs 76% of liberals consume at least one liberal outlet

Dependent variable measurement

Outlets were classified based on their political leanings. Four different media types were investigated: newspapers, political talk radio, cable news, and political websites - Newspapers: Respondents were asked which newspaper they read most often. Political leanings of newspapers were determined based on presidential candidate endorsed by newspaper in 2004 election. Of those able to be classified, 35% endorsed Bush and 46% Kerry - Political talk radio: asked to identify radio shows and hosts to which they listened and were coded as liberal or conservative based on self-ids of hosts, ideological affiliations ascribed by trade magazines, or how prior research classified the program. Of those who listened to poli radio, 28% listened conservative, 25% liberal - Cable news: 34% watched Fox, 45% CNN, 12% MSNBC - Political websites: 35% had accessed campaign info online in past week. Of these, 12% accessed candidate website, 60% accessed news org, 32% another poli website. 72% were categorized as nonpartisan or nonpolitical, 12% conservative, 14% liberal

Selective exposure

Selection of media outlets that match their beliefs. However, the mere opportunity to engage in selective exposure in the modern media environment does not mean the people necessarily will seek out congenial media

Use of TV and radio for gathering political info has remained fairly constant since 1992

but people are moving away from newspapers as a source of poli info and toward the Internet so it's important to understand whether patterns of selective exposure differ across media types and over time as media consumption changes - Possibility of de-facto selectivity that people were not motivated to select like-minded newspapers but that the political make-up of their community was correlated with their political predispositions and that their local newspaper's poli outlook was responsive to political leanings of the community

Cross-sectional analysis

- Ideology/partisanship is significantly related to consuming each media type and people's newspapers choices are not based on location more than poli inclinations. Provide support for H1 so evidence of partisan selective exposure across outlets - For predicting exposure to newspapers, talk radio, and websites, interactions btwn time and ideology/partisanship were not significant. Over course of campaign, Repubs became more likely to name Fox and Demos to name CNN or MSNBC as preferred cable news. SO partial H2 support that partisan selective exposure increases over course of campaign

Reasons why people's cable news selections were increasingly related to their political beliefs and not for any other considered media types

- Partisanship of cable news was highlighted during the 2004 general election and people may have learned from this attn - Cable news may be particularly likely to inspire partisan selective exposure bc are widely avail (unlike diverse newspapers) and identify as objective outlets (in contrast to some talk radio programs and websites) - Newspaper endorsements may not be perfect indicator of newspapers political leaning, so as measurement less prone to error, cable news viewing may exhibit stronger relationships

Some beliefs must be more likely than others to guide exposure decisions

- Personally relevant beliefs are more likely to influence exposure decisions bc more readily activated from memory so more likely to guide our thoughts - People may adjust their exposure to political info in order to obtain/maintain desired emotional state or as response to distinct emotion - Hypothesis 1: People with more strongly held political predispositions will be more likely to select politically congenial media outlets

Past research helped to understand factors that influenced single-exposure decisions but limited insight into factors influencing habitual exposure decisions and how people's media exposure patterns change over time

Hypothesis 2: Partisan selective exposure will increase over presidential campaign period

Independent variable

Political predispositions (larger values indicating strong liberal Democratic leanings and smaller values indicating strong conservative Republican leanings. Controls: demographic, media use, media attn, political orientation