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General political knowledge is a central variable in American politics research. Individuals with high political knowledge exhibit behaviors that are consequential to a well-functioning democracy, including holding more stable political opinions, exhibiting greater ideological constraint, knowing more about political candidates, and being more likely to vote correctly. In this paper, we examine whether the internet revolution, enabling citizens to look up anything at any time, has changed the relative importance of political knowledge in American politics. We show that important generational differences exist between Americans raised during the broadcast era and Americans raised with the presence and accessibility of the internet. Internet access can be a substitute for political knowledge stored in long-term memory, particularly among this younger generation, who may be relying on the internet to store knowledge for them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates the influence of online news consumption on attitudes toward the European Union in a context of protracted economic crisis. Using data from the 2011 Irish National Election Study, we combine location-specific information on broadband availability with respondent geo-location data, which facilitates causal inference about the effects of online news consumption via instrumental variable models. Results show that Irish citizens who source political information online are more prone to blame the EU for the poor state of the economy than those who do not. There is evidence of preference reinforcement among those with negative predispositions toward the EU, but not among pro-EU citizens. We complement this analysis with a study of voting behavior in the European Fiscal Compact Referendum, employing a similar methodological approach. The results from this second survey confirm the anti-EU influence of online news consumption among Irish citizens, although evidence suggests a pro-EU effect among voters who browsed the website of the politically neutral Irish Referendum Commission. Our paper contributes to the literature on public opinion, the EU, and political attitudes in times of crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is the relationship between party polarization, media fragmentation, and partisan-ideological sorting? The growth and availability of partisan media--afforded through the expansion of cable, satellite, and Internet penetration--is often linked to the consistency and extremity of individuals' political attitudes and partisan identities. At the same time, the literature on mass audiences and media choice suggests that the effects of choice and partisan media should be differential according to levels of political interest. This debate has yet to fully articulate a role for elite party polarization, which has been identified as a primary cue to facilitate mass partisanship and sorting. Synthesizing these bodies of scholarship, we utilize a variety of data to assess the influence of elite polarization, media fragmentation, and political interest on partisan- ideological sorting. We find that sorting is consistently connected to perceptions of polarization and qualified evidence that media fragmentation is related to partisan-ideological sorting. The expansion of cable and satellite programming is positively related to sorting, but this effect is isolated to individuals highly interested in news and politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]