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Political knowledge is fundamental to democratic politics. I develop a group-centered theory of political knowledge acquisition in the current media environment, which includes both high- and low-choice media, in this article. I argue that group identity prompts selective exposure to media content, which gives rise to specialized group-relevant political knowledge. This specialized knowledge is deeply relevant to the group and cannot be measured with indicators of general political knowledge. I show that selective exposure is the crucial mechanism facilitating specialized knowledge: Both selective exposure to Black-oriented content and use of high-choice media (the Internet) increase group-relevant knowledge among Black issue publics. This research speaks to scholarship examining the role of digital media in democratic politics and illustrates that the affordances of the Internet, and particularly selective exposure , are crucial to marginalized groups, who do not see their interests represented in mainstream media content, but who can access such information online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Citizens turn increasingly to social media to get their political information. However, it is currently unclear whether using these platforms actually makes them more politically knowledgeable. While some researchers claim that social media play a critical role in the learning of political information within the modern media environment, others posit that the great potential for learning about politics on social media is rarely fulfilled. The current study tests which of these conflicting theoretical claims is supported by the existing empirical literature. A preregistered meta-analysis of 76 studies (N  =   442,136) reveals no evidence of any political learning on social media in observational studies, and statistically significant but substantively small increases in knowledge in experiments. These small-to-nonexistent knowledge gains are observed across social media platforms, types of knowledge, countries, and periods. Our findings suggest that the contribution of social media toward a more politically informed citizenry is minimal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three criteria for political learning are opportunity, ability, and motivation. Models of passive learning call into question whether motivation is a necessary condition for learning about politics. Passive learning contends that incidental, or unintended, exposure to political content can produce learning among those unmotivated to view the content. To date, researchers have not found a way to conclusively test the idea of passive learning. By designing an experiment that gives individuals a choice in media content, we propose one strategy for testing passive learning among the unmotivated. Across four studies, the results illustrate limitations on the circumstances under which passive learning occurs and suggest that learning results from situations where incidental exposure sparks motivation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last two decades, communication research dedicated substantial attention to the effects of incidental exposure (IE) to political information. In this meta-analysis, we analyzed the relationship of IE and five outcomes relevant for democracies. Including 106 distinct samples with more than 100,000 respondents, we observed positive cross-sectional relationships between IE and news use, political knowledge, political participation, expressive engagement, and political discussion. These effects shrink substantially but remain significant for panel studies. While we found a stronger relationship with knowledge for experiments compared to surveys, the relationship between IE and discussion and participation was not significant for experiments. Overall, findings suggest that IE matters, but its effects are smaller and more nuanced than previously thought. Also, the effects of IE are strongest when there is congruence between the exposure setting and the outcome setting. We discuss theoretical and methodological implications for IE research and the field at large. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholarship on audience fragmentation typically takes one of two approaches: The micro-level analysis of individuals' selective exposure to partisan news, or the macro-level analysis of audience overlap. To bridge the gap between these levels of analysis, we introduce the concept of attention centrality as a set of macro-to-micro measures that characterize how individual news media selection is situated within networks of public attention. Relying on an online panel survey conducted in the United States (N = 1,493), we examine the relationship between three indicators of respondents' attention centrality (closeness, betweenness, and reach) and the partisan valence of their news selections. The study finds different patterns of results for the three indicators of attention centrality, indicating that partisan news media are not uniformly isolated to the periphery of public attention. Results are discussed in light of conversations about selective exposure and audience overlap in the United States and around the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last two decades, news-oriented comedy programs have risen to compete with traditional hard news media as sources of information about politics. To the extent that a politically knowledgeable electorate is necessary for a thriving democracy, understanding the mechanisms underlying the extent to which political comedy facilitates or inhibits a well-informed citizenry is critical. Across two studies, we use behavioral experiments and neuroimaging to examine the causal effects of humor on the desire to share and the capacity to remember political information. We find that humor increases the likelihood to share political information with others and enhances people's memory for information. Humor also increases brain response in regions associated with understanding other people's mental states (i.e. mentalizing), which advances a theoretical framework that humor may facilitate considerations of others' views (e.g. how other people will respond to shared political information). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political knowledge and political interest are generally positively influenced by news media exposure. Yet, at the same time, knowledge and interest are among the most important predictors of news media exposure in the first place. We conduct a field experiment ( N = 393) as a test of this dual function of knowledge and interest in a realistic news media choice setting. We examine whether preexisting interest and knowledge predict which individuals can be encouraged to read an unfamiliar information-rich newspaper, and if using this newspaper, in turn, has effects on interest and knowledge. Results show that interest and knowledge are predictors of compliance in the experiment. While political knowledge shows some response to the additional news exposure, interest remains stable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Citizens are frequently misinformed about political issues and candidates but the circumstances under which inaccurate beliefs emerge are not fully understood. This experimental study demonstrates that the independent experience of two emotions, anger and anxiety, in part determines whether citizens consider misinformation in a partisan or open-minded fashion. Anger encourages partisan, motivated evaluation of uncorrected misinformation that results in beliefs consistent with the supported political party, while anxiety at times promotes initial beliefs based less on partisanship and more on the information environment. However, exposure to corrections improves belief accuracy, regardless of emotion or partisanship. The results indicate that the unique experience of anger and anxiety can affect the accuracy of political beliefs by strengthening or attenuating the influence of partisanship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to some recent research, Americans hold a great deal of misinformation about important political issues. However, such investigations treat incorrect answers to quiz questions measuring knowledge as evidence of misinformation. This study instead defines misperceptions as incorrect answers that respondents are confident are correct. Two surveys of representative samples of American adults on the Affordable Care Act reveal that most people were uncertain about the provisions in the law. Confidently held incorrect beliefs were far less common than incorrect answers. Misperceptions were most prevalent on aspects of the law on which elites prominently and persistently made incorrect claims. Furthermore, although Americans appear to have learned about the law between 2010 and 2012, misperceptions on many provisions of the law persisted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do individuals structure their political discussion networks, and what factors systematically shape such patterns? While much research has focused on the effect of personality traits and one's motivations, abilities, and opportunities, network-structural factors present different principles of tie formations. Evidence from an Exponential Family Random Graph Model and the meta-analysis of an Exponential Random Graph Model ( ERGM) from 20 different groups' networks indicated that the pattern of political discussions was shaped by general discussion and network-endogenous structural processes. Results suggest that informal discussions of individuals serve as the important foundations of political behavior, and the processes of citizens' everyday political interactions emerge through complex interactions that cannot be regressed to mere individuals' predispositions or pure social selection processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study reviews problems in the political learning literature, including ambiguous causality and a lack of specificity in linking communication content to learning outcomes. As a partial solution, our study of media and discussion influence incorporates both manipulated and observed aspects of mass and interpersonal communication. Results indicate that beyond (and often more important than) experimental manipulations, selection processes in news use and variations in the content of political discussions within exposure conditions matter for political knowledge. However, findings vary in predictable ways depending on the form of knowledge-overall factual knowledge, issue-specific knowledge, or knowledge structure density. These results suggest that the process of political learning via communication is more complex than it is often treated empirically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines selective exposure to political information, arguing that attraction to proattitudinal information and aversion to counterattitudinal information are distinct phenomena, and that the tendency to engage in these behaviors varies by partisanship. Data collected in a strict online experiment support these predictions. Republicans are significantly more likely to engage in selective avoidance of predominantly counterattitudinal information than those with other partisan affiliations, while non-Republicans are significantly more likely to select a story that includes proattitudinal information, regardless of its counterattitudinal content. Individuals across the political spectrum are receptive to predominantly proattitudinal content and to content that offers a mix of views, but the form these preferences take varies by partisanship. The political significance of these findings is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Media-based fact checking contributes to more accurate political knowledge, but its corrective effects are limited. We argue that biographical information included in a corrective message, which is often unrelated to the inaccurate claim itself, can activate misperception-congruent naïve theories, increasing confidence in a misperception's plausibility and inducing skepticism toward denials. Resistance to corrections occurs regardless of initial belief accuracy, but the effect is strongest among those who find the contextual information objectionable or threatening. We test these claims using an online survey-embedded experiment (N = 750) conducted in the wake of the controversy over the proposed Islamic cultural center in New York City near the site of the 9/11 attacks, and find support for our predictions. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The past 2 decades have seen an increasingly intense debate on how the rise of Internet-mediated communication has impacted politics in (semi)authoritarian regimes. Previous works have adopted a wide array of approaches. Yet, to date no major study has investigated how citizens in these regimes are making sense of political messages they encounter online in the new, more fragmented media environments of the Internet age. In an initial attempt to fill this gap, this explorative study juxtaposes how young Russians make sense of a liberal-democratic blog entry and, by contrast, a news broadcast from state-controlled TV. On the basis of the findings from 20 in-depth interviews, the article discusses promising avenues for future audience research in hybrid regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates media effects on stereotypic attitudes toward immigrants in a political campaign that dealt with the naturalization of immigrants. By combining a content analysis of the campaign coverage with a 2-wave panel survey, the study found that negative news portrayals of immigrants increased stereotypic attitudes in the public in the course of the campaign. Additionally, the frequent exposure to positive news portrayals of immigrants reduced the activation of negative outgroup attitudes. However, these findings are contingent on people's issue-specific knowledge. Only people with low to moderate knowledge were influenced by negative and positive news stories about immigrants in the campaign. Well-informed people were resistant to the effects of positive and news portrayals of immigrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Right before the 2008 U.S. presidential election, this 2-session online field study examined consequences of selective exposure to political messages on accessibility of attitudes and of partisanship. In the first session, participants indicated attitudes toward political issues and their partisanship, which allowed measuring accessibility of attitudes and of partisanship. In the second session, participants browsed articles. Four issues were covered by 8 articles, with 2 articles featuring opposing perspectives. Selective exposure was unobtrusively logged. Finally, participants completed measures for attitudes and partisanship again. Selective exposure to attitude-consistent articles was linked to greater attitude accessibility. The indirect impact of selective exposure on partisanship accessibility through attitude accessibility was significant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing number of studies test the effects of news framing on citizens' understanding of politics. By employing experimental designs, these studies report significant effects for a multitude of issues and frames. However, what happens to the framing effect after initial exposure? Based on a 'classic' framing experiment (n = 625 ), this article traces framing effects across a number of delayed time points: after 1 day, 1 week, and 2 weeks. Our results show that framing effects are surprisingly persistent. The duration of framing effects depended on a person's level of political knowledge, with moderately knowledgeable individuals displaying most persistent framing effects. Effects on individuals with high or low levels of political knowledge dissipated much quicker. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The idea that recipients prefer messages that reinforce preexisting attitudes and self-perceptions has pervaded much communication research, but effects of selective exposure are rarely examined. This 2-session experiment (n = 157) investigates such effects. The first session presented computerized questions on 12 political issue attitudes and political self-concept. Accessibility data were collected based on response times. In the second session, participants browsed through an online magazine including 4 of the 12 issues, each issue being covered by 2 articles featuring opposing viewpoints. Selective exposure was logged and categorized as attitude-consistent or counterattitudinal. Finally, a questionnaire repeated measures for attitudes and self-concept. The results show that participants preferred attitude-consistent over counterattitudinal messages, which strengthened the political self-concept through increased accessibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Various forms of news use not only have independent impacts on political knowledge, but also create interactive effects across different types of news outlets. In the present study, data from 2 surveys conducted in 2004 were used to test hypotheses about the contingent effects of news media use on political knowledge. The results supported the intramedia interaction hypothesis regarding use of multiple similar (in terms of content and form) news outlets. For instance, use of both cable news and network news produces diminishing returns. But, when print news is used in combination with audio–visual news sources, patterns of additive effects were observed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]