The online environment offers nearly unlimited sources and information, giving people unprecedented agency over selection. This article offers a test of three factors predicting selective exposure to ...opinionated news online—prior political attitudes, source credibility, and individual social identity based on race (Study 1) and gender (Study 2)—testing their independent and interactive effects. Two original selection studies on samples of adult Americans offered articles that were (1) pro- or counter-attitudinal with regard to individual attitudes on two political issues, (2) from high- versus low-credibility sources conceptualized in two different ways, and (3) featuring participants’ social in-group or out-group. Unobtrusively logged behavioral selection data suggest that prior political attitudes, and their strength and importance in Study 1, more strongly predict pro-attitudinal exposure than both source credibility and the demographically based social identity. Both studies additionally reveal nuanced interactions between the tested factors.
We advance interparty contact as a remedy to affective polarization and examine the processes through which interparty contact attenuates the hostility between Democrats and Republicans. We present ...results from three studies: (1) a survey examining the association between outparty friendships and affective polarization (cross-validated with a representative data from Pew Research Center), and two experiments, testing the effects of (2) vicarious and (3) imagined contact on affective polarization. We find that interparty contact attenuates outparty hostility primarily indirectly, through perceived commonality between the self and the outgroup, and not through the common mediators of contact, anxiety and empathy. We also show that cooperative interparty interactions - whether imagined or vicarious - have limited advantage over simple positive contact (studies 2 and 3), that negative interparty contact exacerbates outgroup hostility by enhancing anxiety and reducing empathy (study 2), and that interactions with one's political in group are not necessarily polarizing (study 3). These results underscore the differences between partisanship and other social group identities, and have important theoretical implications for the intergroup contact literature.
Social media vaccine misinformation can negatively influence vaccine attitudes. It is urgent to develop communication approaches to reduce the misinformation's impact. This study aimed to test the ...effects of fact-checking labels for misinformation on attitudes toward vaccines. An online survey experiment with 1198 participants recruited from a U.S. national sample was conducted in 2018. Participants were randomly assigned to six conditions: misinformation control, or fact-checking label conditions attributed to algorithms, news media, health institutions, research universities, or fact-checking organizations. We analyzed differences in vaccine attitudes between the fact-checking label and control conditions. Further, we compared perceived expertise and trustworthiness of the five categories of fact-checking sources. Fact-checking labels attached to misinformation posts made vaccine attitudes more positive compared to the misinformation control condition (P = .003, Cohen's d= 0.21). Conspiracy ideation moderated the effect of the labels on vaccine attitudes (P = .02). Universities and health institutions were rated significantly higher on source expertise than other sources. Mediation analyses showed labels attributed to universities and health institutions indirectly resulted in more positive attitudes than other sources through perceived expertise. Exposure to fact-checking labels on misinformation can generate more positive attitudes toward vaccines in comparison to exposure to misinformation. Incorporating labels from trusted universities and health institutions on social media platforms is a promising direction for addressing the vaccine misinformation problem. This points to the necessity for closer collaboration between public health and research institutions and social media companies to join efforts in addressing the current misinformation threat.
•An online survey experiment to promote vaccine attitude on social media.•The effects of fact-checking label on vaccine misinformation were tested.•The effects of 5 categories of fact-checking label sources were compared.•Fact-checking label on misinformation made vaccine attitude more positive.•Universities and health institutions were rated of higher source expertise.
To what extent do online discussion spaces expose participants to political talk and to cross‐cutting political views in particular? Drawing on a representative national sample of over 1000 Americans ...reporting participation in chat rooms or message boards, we examine the types of online discussion spaces that create opportunities for cross‐cutting political exchanges. Our findings suggest that the potential for deliberation occurs primarily in online groups where politics comes up only incidentally, but is not the central purpose of the discussion space. We discuss the implications of our findings for the contributions of the Internet to cross‐cutting political discourse.
Resumen
Los Grupos Online y el Discurso Político: ¿Facilitan los Espacios de Discusión online la Exposición a los Desacuerdos Políticos?
¿Hasta qué punto los espacios de discusión online exponen a los participantes a hablar de política y sobre sus visiones en temas relevantes de política? Recurriendo a una muestra nacional representativa de más de 1000 Estadounidenses que reportaron haber participado en salones de conversación ó foros de mensajes, examinamos los tipos de espacios de discusión online que crearon oportunidades para intercambios de temas relevantes de política. Nuestros resultados sugieren que el potencial para la deliberación ocurre primariamente en los grupos online donde los temas políticos aparecen solo en forma incidental, pero no es el propósito central del espacio de discusión. Discutimos las implicancias de nuestros hallazgos para las contribuciones del Internet sobre los temas del discurso político relevante.
ZhaiYao
Yo yak
Abstract
Politicians within the United States and across many Western societies are concerned about the extent to which Muslims are successfully integrating within their countries. The present ...research examined how interpersonal (discrimination) and mediated (negative news coverage of Muslims) social identity threats dynamically change young Muslim Americans’ strength of identification as American and Muslim, as well as their trust in the U.S. government. Data from a three-wave longitudinal survey show that Time 1, negative news coverage of Muslims (but not discrimination), significantly reduced Time 2, strength of identification as an American, which subsequently reduced Time 3, trust in the U.S. government. Muslim identification did not change as a function of interpersonal or mediated social identity threats. These findings suggest that negative media portrayals can have adverse effects on the national identification of some minority groups, and—crucially—that these effects may be stronger than those of personally experienced discrimination.
Minorities often express dissatisfaction and frustration with media depictions of their ingroup motivating them to engage in strategies that can restore a positive group identity. Based on the dual ...model of collective action and relying on two studies, we examined if exposure to negative news media can motivate collective action among Muslim Americans through increases in collective efficacy and group-based anger. Data from a four-wave longitudinal survey revealed that Time 1 self-reported exposure to negative news about Muslims increased Time 4 collective action intentions through increases in Time 3 efficacy, but not anger. Experimental results revealed that perceived news accuracy moderates these effects. Specifically, exposure to negative news about one’s ingroup motivates collective action when the news is perceived as biased but dampens these efforts if perceived to be accurate. These findings reveal how and under what conditions exposure to negative news coverage can lead to collective action among minorities.
Many blame partisan news media for polarization in America. This paper examines the effects of liberal, conservative, and centrist news on affective and attitude polarization. To this end, we rely on ...two studies that combine two-wave panel surveys (N1 = 303, N2 = 904) with twelve months worth of web browsing data submitted by the same participants comprising roughly thirty-eight million visits. We identify news exposure using an extensive list of news domains and develop a machine learning classifier to identify exposure to political news within these domains. The results offer a robust pattern of null findings. Exposure to partisan and centrist news websites—no matter if it is congenial or crosscutting—does not enhance polarization. These null effects also emerge among strong and weak partisans as well as Democrats and Republicans alike. We argue that these null results accurately portray the reality of limited effects of news in the “real world.” Politics and partisan news account for a small fraction of citizens’ online activities, less than 2 percent in our trace data, and are nearly unnoticeable in the overall information and communication ecology of most individuals.
The online environment dramatically expands the number of ways people can encounter news but there remain questions of whether these abundant opportunities facilitate news exposure diversity. This ...project examines key questions regarding how internet users arrive at news and what kinds of news they encounter. We account for a multiplicity of avenues to news online, some of which have never been analyzed: (1) direct access to news websites, (2) social networks, (3) news aggregators, (4) search engines, (5) webmail, and (6) hyperlinks in news. We examine the extent to which each avenue promotes news exposure and also exposes users to news sources that are left leaning, right leaning, and centrist. When combined with information on individual political leanings, we show the extent of dissimilar, centrist, or congenial exposure resulting from each avenue. We rely on web browsing history records from 636 social media users in the US paired with survey self-reports, a unique data set that allows us to examine both aggregate and individual-level exposure. Visits to news websites account for about 2 percent of the total number of visits to URLs and are unevenly distributed among users. The most widespread ways of accessing news are search engines and social media platforms (and hyperlinks within news sites once people arrive at news). The two former avenues also increase dissimilar news exposure, compared to accessing news directly, yet direct news access drives the highest proportion of centrist exposure.
This project differentiates between communication that praises one's political in-group (in-group praise), attacks the opposition (out-group derogation), or focuses on policy details (evidence ...based), testing their effects on network and attitude polarization. We begin with an agent-based model, which shows that congenial evidence-based exchanges polarize the network and the inclusion of identity-driven communications leads to greater polarization. Once out-group derogation reaches a certain threshold, the network of agents splits into two groups, yet the polarizing effects of in-group praise are yet stronger and emerge more rapidly (i.e., a lower threshold of in-group praise is needed to polarize the network). Using an experimental design on a sample of American partisans, we offer a partial validation of the model. In-group praise and out-group derogation polarize attitudes more than balanced evidence-based news, but not more than congenial evidence-based news. Identity-driven news also has no effects on affective polarization. This multidisciplinary evidence shows that the nature of political content matters.
This study (N = 217) explores the potential for virtual reality to decrease social distance toward outgroup members among women. Raising the salience of individuals’ real physical identity through ...avatar customization and common ingroup identity manipulations was theorized to influence social distance. Participants who customized an avatar to resemble their real selves showed increased social distance. However, avatar customization also increased user identifiability, which was linked to reduced social distance. Priming a common ingroup identity increased identity salience but did not influence social distance. In examining heterogeneous effects by prior levels of issue involvement, participants with high and moderate involvement with immigration showed increased social distance after customizing an avatar to resemble their real selves, thus implying boomerang effects. The study discusses how avatar customization, identifiability, and common ingroup primes in virtual encounters may influence outgroup attitudes and intergroup relations.
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