Need for Orientation,Selective Exposure,and Attribute Agenda-Setting Effects

This study explores the ability of an interaction between need for orientation (NFO) and selective exposure to explain citizen's motivations to seek information from specific media sources and the consequences of this behavior for attribute agenda-setting effects. It draws important conceptual distinctions between the two moderate NFO categories, distinguishing active involvement NFO (high relevance and low uncertainty) from passive involvement NFO (low relevance and high uncertainty). The results suggest that in a political context, people with active involvement NFO are more likely to seek ideologically congruent media sources and more likely to adopt the media's attribute agenda. This study implies that at the second-level agenda setting, the salience of issue or object attributes on the media agenda is more likely to strengthen preexisting attitudes for people with high political interest and strong partisan identity.     

群体规模对属性议程设置的影响——基于议程融合假设的实验研究

本研究基于议程融合的假设,通过实验的方法对受众在不同媒介信息获取渠道中产生的属性议程设置进行探讨,验证了不同大小的群体规模对属性议程设置效果的不同影响,以及在议程融合过程中群体规模对受众的不同信息依赖程度的倾向的影响。该实验研究对议程融合假设做出了一定的修正并提出了一些值得进一步研究的问题。     

Agenda-Setting,Priming, and Framing Revisited: Another Look at Cognitive Effects of Political Communication

Agenda-setting, priming, and framing research generally has been examined under the broad category of cognitive media effects. As a result, studies often either examine all 3 approaches in a single study or employ very similar research designs, paying little attention to conceptual differences or differences in the levels of analysis under which each approach is operating. In this article, I revisit agenda-setting, priming, and framing as distinctively different approaches to effects of political communication. Specifically, I argue against more recent attempts to subsume all 3 approaches under the broad concept of agenda-setting and for a more careful explication of the concepts and of their theoretical premises and roots in social psychology and political psychology. Consequently, it calls for a reformulation of relevant research questions and a systematic categorization of research on agenda-setting, priming, and framing. An analytic model is developed that should serve as a guideline for future research in these areas.     

Social Network Sites and Political Engagement: Exploring the Impact of Facebook Connections and Uses on Political Protest and Participation

Past studies have shown positive relationships between use of social network sites (SNSs) and political engagement, but an understanding of the mechanisms underlying the relationship is limited because the studies often did not take into account the diverse affordances of SNSs that can influence participation in different ways. Adopting the O-S-R-O-R (Orientation–Stimulus–Reasoning–Orientation–Response) model of political communication effects, this study examined the roles of Facebook network size, connections with public political actors, use for news, and political expression on political attitudes, protest, and participation. Structural equation analyses were conducted based on data from a national sample in Hong Kong, a city-state with one of the world’s highest Facebook penetration rates. Results showed that Facebook network size and connections with public political actors exhibit both direct and indirect effects on participation through Facebook news, expression, and efficacy. Facebook news exhibited indirect effects primarily though political expression. A discriminant function analysis also showed that age, education, and online news exposure were the most influential variables for distinguishing Facebook users and nonusers. Implications of the findings are discussed.     

The Effects of News and Entertainment on Interpersonal Trust: Political TalkRadio,Newspapers, and Television

In a now-famous article, Robert Putnam traced changes in interpersonal (IP) trust, civic engagement, and political trust in the United States during the past 3 decades. Although trust in government has declined, so have IP trust and civic engagement. Putnam places the blame for the loss of the various components of so-called civic or social capital squarely on television as a medium. We analyze 4 data sets to explain IP trust. Education, newspaper readership, and age are consistent and strong associates of trusting attitudes and behaviors. Reported political talk radio listening and elite electronic news use also are linked to trust. Those high in social trust, however, are not consistently heavier or lighter consumers of television. Putnam's hypothesis, in other words, is not confirmed in these data. Implications, as well as some reasons to continue to entertain the hypothesis, are explored.     

Attribute Priming Effects and Presidential Candidate Evaluation: The Conditionality of Political Sophistication

Traditionally, two competing claims have arisen that attempt to explain the role of political sophistication in media effectiveness. I reassess the positive versus negative impacts of political sophistication on media priming effects by considering a curvilinear approach. I combine public opinion data (National Election Studies) on candidate selection criteria in 1992 and 2000 presidential elections with content analyses of campaign news coverage to see which segment of voters at different sophistication levels is most susceptible to media agendas. Quadratic regression analyses reveal that an inverted U-shaped relationship exists between voters' susceptibility to campaign news and their level of political sophistication. Such a curvilinear relationship means that the moderately sophisticated are more likely to accept news agendas than the least or most sophisticated. The findings illuminate the long-standing debate about the inconsistent linear relationships between the two variables, providing a more cogent explanation underlying media priming effects.     

Internal,External, and Government Political Efficacy: Effects on News Use,Discussion, and Political Participation

News use and political discussion are often studied as important factors in understanding the effects of political efficacy on participation. However, measurements of external efficacy often blur distinctions between personal ability and government responsiveness. This study establishes a measure for perceptions of competence in the institutions of democratic government—government efficacy (GE). Drawing on panel survey data from the United States, confirmatory factor analysis introduces GE as a unique construct. Political efficacy dimensions are tested for their impact on news consumption, discussion, and political participation. Results add to the extant literature revolving the role of political efficacy on news use, discussion, and participation.     

Ambivalent Social Networks and Their Consequences for Participation

Does perceived disagreement in political discussion help orhinder citizens’ political participation? Some argue thatdisagreement prompts reflection, perspective-taking, and tolerance.Challengers argue that disagreement fosters ambivalence andhinders participatory activities and turnout. One seminal studythat tackled this dilemma formulated the ‘cross-pressures’hypothesis (Lazarsfeld, Berelson, & Gaudet, 1944/1968),which posited that the more individuals are betwixt and betweenconflicting social positions, the longer the time for theirvote intention to crystallize (and the lower the likelihoodthey would vote). This paper offers a critique and refinementof the cross-pressures hypothesis. First, previous studies confoundedintra-individual and structural sources of cross-pressures.Second, past operationalizations of exposure to disagreementfocused on the sheer amount of opposition to the individual’spoint of view, rather than his or her exposure to two conflictingpoints of view. A new measure—network ambivalence—isproposed to capture the latter dynamic. Conceptual and methodologicalrefinements of the cross-pressures hypothesis are tested ona representative sample of voting-age respondents in the UnitedStates, interviewed on the American National Election Study2000 panel (N=1,555). Results suggest that not only were thesepressures hardly detrimental to participation, but they alsofacilitated the formation of considered electoral preferences.     

The Affect Effect of Political Satire: Sarcastic Humor,Negative Emotions,and Political Participation

Building on the Orientation-Stimulus-Orientation-Response (O-S-O-R) framework, the current study proposes a mediation model wherein negative emotions serve as a second O. An online experiment using a representative sample demonstrated that consuming sarcastic political humor can indirectly increase the likelihood of political participation by eliciting negative emotions toward a government policy. In addition, we introduced education as a first O, illustrating that the indirect mobilizing effect of the viewing of sarcastic humor through negative emotions is stronger for political sophisticates. The proposed model suggests avenues for exploring the role of emerging media genres that are presumably less enlightening yet are more emotionally provocative.     

The Effects of Mass Media Use and Social Capital on Civic and Political Participation

More recently, many scholars have lamented the decline of social capital, civic and political participation in American society. This study attempts to clarify the concept of social capital and its major components. We differentiate two dimensions of social capital: trust and social connectedness. In addition, we investigate the differential effects of a full range of media use on civic and political participation.

Analysis of data from a telephone survey in Clarksville, Tennessee in 2002 showed that people's social connectedness enhances both civic and political participation. Time spent in reading newspaper and watching public affairs on television was positively correlated with political participation whereas frequency of Internet use and entertainment TV viewing was not. The results also showed no correlation between media use and civic participation. Implications of the findings for future research on democratic citizenship were discussed.     

Pathways to Expressive and Collective Participation: Usage Patterns,Political Efficacy,and Political Participation in Social Networking Sites

This study assesses differences in use of social networking sites (SNSs) and relates them to different patterns of political participation, media use motivations, and political efficacy. Based on a Web survey of 1,230 South Korean voters, it finds that informational uses of SNSs are positively associated with expressive participation both online and offline, but not with collective participation. The use of SNSs for social interaction purposes was associated only with online expressive participation. Recreational uses had a negative or insignificant relationship with expressive and collective participation. Political efficacy moderated the impact of social interaction uses of SNSs on expressive participation both online and offline. The findings suggest that the political impact of SNSs is mostly limited to expressive participation and dependent upon users' motivations.     

The Mediating Role of Knowledge and Efficacy in the Effects of Communication on Political Participation

This study explicates the indirect process through which news media use influences political participation. Specifically, it investigates the role of political knowledge and efficacy as mediators between communication and online/offline political participation within the framework of an O-S-R-O-R (Orientation-Stimulus-Reasoning-Orientation-Response) model of communication effects. Results from structural equation modeling analysis support the idea that political knowledge and efficacy function as significant mediators. In addition, results expound the increasing importance of the Internet in facilitating political participation. Implications of findings, limitations of this study, and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

Collective Efficacy, Support for Democratization, and Political Participation in Hong Kong

Public opinion studies have conventionally treated politicalefficacy as a two-dimensional concept involving internal andexternal efficacy. The former refers to people’s beliefsabout their individual abilities to understand politics, andthe latter refers to people’s beliefs about governmentresponsiveness. The present study reexamines and goes beyondthis two-dimensional view. It proposes that collective efficacy,defined as a citizen’s belief in the capabilities of thepublic as a collective actor to achieve social and politicaloutcomes, can be considered as a third dimension of politicalefficacy. Based on this three-dimensional view, the relationshipbetween political efficacy, support for democratization, andpolitical participation in Hong Kong is examined. Analysis ofa representative survey (N = 800) shows that both support fordemocratization and political participation are positively relatedto collective efficacy and negatively related to external efficacy.Internal efficacy, on the other hand, has only a limited relationshipwith the dependent variables, though high levels of internalefficacy are found to be a condition for collective and externalefficacy to exert stronger impact on political attitudes andbehavior. It is argued that two characteristics of the HongKong society—as a transitional society and a collectivistculture—contribute to the significance of collective efficacyin the public opinion process. But the relevance of collectiveefficacy to other contexts is also discussed.     

Online Media and Political Participation: The Case of Malaysia

This study is based on a survey of 526 adult Malaysians who were interviewed shortly before the 2008 national election about online media use, levels of political participation, and voting intentions. The goal was to document the role of online media in a society that controls political information in traditional media and, in turn, compels citizens to seek alternative news sources online. As predicted, the findings indicated that online media use was positively associated with higher levels of political participation among Malaysian voters. The use of and exposure to social networking sites, political blogs, political online videos, party websites, and political ads on cell phones showed strong associations with political activism. However, the use of political online media did not predict voters’ likelihood of voting.     

Political Discussion,Political News,and Internet Use: Factors of Media Trust in South Korea

This study examines political and communicative factors predicting trust in mainstream newspapers and television by analyzing a set of survey data collected in South Korea. The results show that supporters of the opposition party are less likely to trust the mainstream news media than supporters of the ruling party. Daily Internet use negatively predicted trust in media only for nonpartisans. However, for supporters of the opposition party, daily Internet use moderated the interaction effect between political discussion and exposure to political news on trust in media.     

Political Participation,Efficacy and the 2008 Minnesota Presidential Caucuses

The purpose of this study was to learn why Minnesota residents participated in the presidential caucus on Super Tuesday, February 5, 2008. The research team interviewed a total of 37 registered Republican (n = 15) and Democrat (n = 22) Minnesota voters from a mid-sized Midwestern community on caucus night. Open-ended, semi-structured interviews elicited the reasons voters said they participated in the caucus. Using grounded theory, several categories of responses emerged from data including duty and responsibility, making a difference, special election, participation, supporting a candidate, and concern for the country. The results show the majority of participants were motivated to take part because they viewed it as a duty and a responsibility as citizens of a democracy. Participants did not use the caucus as a forum for discussion and dialogue surrounding the election, but as an outlet to achieve political efficacy.     

Neutralizing Protest: The Construction of War,Chaos, and National Identity through US Television News on Abortion-Related Protest, 1991

This paper examines how US TV news on abortion-related protest forecloses possibilities for democracy and political action. Representing abortion-related activism as a battle, news segments portray activists, correspondents, and viewers as villains, witnesses, and victims in a tale of a nation decimated by civil war. While activists describe their work militaristically, the news's war is not the war that activists describe. News discourse represents activists as threatening the American family/community/nation. Applying Hannah Arendt's and Mary Douglas's work shows how the news eclipses public spheres by mapping a pollution narrative onto those who threaten myths of national homogeneity and proper citizenship.     

Perceptions of the Media and the Public and their Effects on Political Participation in Colombia

This study investigates whether perceptions of the media and the public are related to political participation in Colombia. Communication researchers have built a large body of literature on hostile media perceptions and the projection effect, respectively. This study links these perceptual effects with each other and with political participation. Analyzing survey data from a representative sample of Colombian adults in urban areas, we show a direct relationship between hostile media perceptions and participation but no direct relationship between projection and participation. Hostile media perceptions and projection are negatively related. Results suggest that perceived media bias attenuates projection but increases political engagement.