Can information literacy increase political accountability? Linking information evaluation with obstinate partisanship via social media political homophily.

Scholars have recently sought to explain why some voters remain loyal to "their" parties or candidates "no matter what they do" – an attitude that has been labeled as obstinate partisanship (OP) and limits electoral accountability. We argue that the development of OP may have to do, at least partly, with people's (in)ability to critically evaluate political information and their tendency to isolate themselves in online bubbles of congenial information and interactions. Building on this framework, we use two-wave panel survey data (NW1 = 1,259; NW2 = 982) to explore direct and indirect associations between information evaluation – a key component of information literacy – and OP. We find that information evaluation is negatively associated with OP in cross-sectional and autoregressive regression models. Analyses also support an indirect relationship between information evaluation and OP through political homophily in social media and online. We discuss possible implications for democracy and information literacy initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]