Selective Exposure

Much of the literature on polarization and selective exposure presumes that the internet exacerbates the fragmentation of the media and the citizenry. Yet, this ignores how the widespread use of social media changes news consumption. Social media provide readers a choice of stories from different sources that come recommended from politically heterogeneous individuals, in a context that emphasizes social value over partisan affiliation. Building on existing models of news selectivity to emphasize information utility, we hypothesize that social media’s distinctive feature, social endorsements, trigger several decision heuristics that suggest utility. In two experiments, we demonstrate that stronger social endorsements increase the probability that people select content, and that their presence reduces partisan selective exposure to levels indistinguishable from chance.

Do users tend to consume only like-minded political information online? We point to two problems with the existing knowledge about this debate. First, the measurement of media preferences by the typical means of surveys is less reliable than behavioral data. Second, most studies have analyzed only the extent of online exposure to like-minded content, not the users’ complete web-browsing repertoire. The current study used both survey data and real-life browsing behavior (661,483 URLs from 15,976 websites visited by 402 participants) for the period seven weeks prior to the 2013 Israeli national elections.  The results indicate that 1) self-report measurements of ideological exposure are inflated; 2) exposure to online ideological content accounted for only 3% of total online browsing; 3) the participants’ media repertoires are very diverse with no evidence of echo chambers; and 4) in accordance with the selective exposure hypothesis, individuals on both sides are more exposed to like-minded content. The results are discussed in light of the selective exposure literature.

This study extends past research on news repertoires by examining how individuals combine news exposure across an array of media platforms and content. Results from a national survey reveal 6 distinct news repertoires. While some respondents have clear ideologically driven repertoires, others have repertoires that are best described as medium-centric. A closer look at socio-demographic factors and participation levels among the 6 news repertoires are also explored. Results shed light on the democratic implications of the high-choice media landscape and research on news exposure and effects.

Despite fears that selective exposure and selective avoidance could deepen polarization and negatively affect the democratic process, few studies have directly studied this phenomenon. This study explores whether selective exposure and avoidance to blogs, social network sites, and Twitter directly influence confidence in Congress and the president or more indirectly through polarization. This study suggests that fears of selective exposure, selective avoidance, and polarization infecting the democratic process appear overstated. First, polarization was positively related to confidence in Congress and the president. Second, selective exposure to social media sites strengthens confidence in the president and in Congress. Twitter boosts confidence in Congress. Third, selective avoidance had a negative influence on other measures, which suggests people seek both information that challenges their views as well as ones that supports them. Finally, selective exposure and avoidance proved weak indicators of polarization. Instead, strength of partisanship is the stronger predictor of confidence in Congress and the president.

Social networking sites (SNS) provide opportunities for mood management through selective exposure. This study tested the prediction that negative mood fosters self-enhancing social comparisons to SNS profiles. Participants were induced into positive or negative moods and then browsed manipulated profiles on an experimental SNS. Profiles varied in a 2x2 within-subjects design along two dimensions, ratings of career success and attractiveness, allowing for upward comparisons (high ratings) and downward comparisons (low ratings). Selective exposure was measured in seconds spent viewing profiles. Negative mood led to less exposure to upward comparisons and more to downward comparisons than positive mood. The comparison dimension did not influence selective exposure. Thus, in a negative mood, SNS users prefer self- enhancing social comparisons to manage their mood.

Dijital çağda gelişen teknoloji ile beraber bilginin üretimi, tüketimi ve yayılması noktasında
oldukça önemli değişim ve dönüşümler yaşanmıştır. Dijital sosyal ortamlar veya ağlar, insanlara her
türden bilgi edinmelerini [veya ona maruz kalmalarını] ve kendilerini ifade etmelerine olanak
tanıyarak onları hem birer bilgi tüketicisi hem de üreticisi haline getirmektedir. Nihayetinde, yeni
iletişim teknolojileri insanların bilgi alışverişi yapma imkânlarını artırmıştır. Dolayısıyla, bugünün
dünyasında bireyler gündelik hayatlarında çoğu zaman içeriğine tam odaklanmadıkları bilgi
bombardımanıyla karşı karşıyadırlar. Başka bir deyişle, bugünün özellikle genç bireyleri aşırı bilgi
yüküne maruz kalmaktadırlar. Kuşkusuz, bu dönüşümler bilginin algılanışında ve ona yüklenen
anlamlarda da etkili olmaktadır. Nitekim günümüzde her türden bilginin üretildiği ve tüketildiği
alanlar olarak dijital sosyal ağlarda genç kuşağın bilgiyle olan ilişkisi daha önemli hale gelmektedir.
Dijital teknolojilerin her geçen gün sağladığı yeni olanaklar bilginin çokluğu ve heterojenliği,
alternatif bilgiye erişimin kolaylaşması; bilginin güvenirliği, türdeş (kendi düşüncelerini doğrulayıcı)
bilgiye yönelik arayış; bilginin ticarileşmesi, bilginin fragmanlar halinde üretilmesi-tüketilmesi ve
bilginin itibarsızlaşması ya da değersizleşmesi gibi meseleleri de beraberinde getirmektedir. Bu
temalar ekseninde, tezde dijital çağda genç kuşağın bilgiye nasıl yaklaştığı, ona nasıl bir anlam
yüklediği, bilgi üretim alanı olarak yükseköğretime bakışı ve ayrıca bu sürecin bireysel ve toplumsal
olası sonuçlarının nitel temelli ampirik verilere dayalı olarak tartışılması hedeflenmiştir.
Çalışmanın ampirik verileri, nitel veri toplama tekniklerinden biri olan derinlemesine görüşme
tekniği kullanılarak toplanmıştır. Araştırmanın örneklemini 18-29 yaş arasındaki hâlihazırda lisans ve
lisansüstü öğrenimine devam eden öğrenciler ile lisans ve lisansüstü derecesine sahip olup hâlihazırda
bir işte çalışmakta olan Aydın ilinde ikamet eden genç bireyler oluşturmaktadır.Tezin hedeflerinden hareketle ortaya çıkan temel argümanlara göre, bilgi teknolojisinde her
geçen gün yaşanan gelişmeler temelinde bilginin hızla üretimi, dolaşıma sokulması ve tüketimi söz
konusu olmaktadır. Çoğu zaman ticari alanların bir parçası olarak birbiri içine geçmiş bilgi dolaşım
alanlarında bireyler çaresiz kalmakta ve bununla başa çıkabilme stratejileri geliştirmek zorunda
hissedebilmektedirler. Bu başa çıkma stratejileri arasında bilginin paketlenmiş, kısa ve öz, hızlı
tüketilebilir ve fragmanlar halinde sunulma biçimine yönelik derin bir kabulün ve ayak uydurma
çabasının varlığı dikkat çekmektedir. Tüm bu yaşanan sürecin sonucunda nitelikli bilginin ve bilgi
üretim mecralarının ya da aktörlerinin değersizleşmesi, itibarsızlaşması, sıradanlaşması ve anlam
kaybı/yitimi kaçınılmaz bir süreç olarak ortaya çıkmaktadır. Aynı zamanda bilginin nicel olarak artışı
ve kalite olarak zayıflaması bireylerin bilgi ile pasif ve pragmatik temelli bir ilişkilerinin doğmasına
sebep olmaktadır.

Today, people can easily select media outlets sharing their political predispositions, a behavior known as partisan selective exposure. Additional research is needed, however, to better understand the causes and consequences of partisan selective exposure. This study investigates the relationship between partisan selective exposure and political polarization using data from the National Annenberg Election Survey. Cross-sectional results show strong evidence that partisan selective exposure is related to polarization. Over-time analyses document that partisan selective exposure leads to polarization. Some evidence supports the reverse causal direction, namely that polarization leads to partisan selective exposure. Implications for the study of media effects and normative implications-both positive and negative-are discussed.

Using large Twitter datasets collected during the 2012 U.S. presidential election, we examined how partisanship shapes patterns of sharing and commenting on candidate fact-check rulings. Our results indicate that partisans selectively share fact-checking messages that cheerlead their own candidate and denigrate the opposing party's candidate, resulting in an ideologically narrow flow of fact checks to their followers. We also find evidence of hostile media perception in users' public accusations of bias on the part of fact-checking organizations. Additionally, Republicans showed stronger outgroup negativity and hostility toward fact checkers than Democrats. These findings help us understand " selective sharing " as a complementary process to selective exposure, as well as identifying asymmetries between partisans in their sharing practices.

Spiral-of-silence theory assumes that a monolithic stream of messages from mainstream media, leaving little ability for audiences to seek ideologically congruent news, affects people’s perceptions of the distribution of opinion in society. While these assumptions may have been valid when Noelle-Neumann developed her theory forty years ago, the new media landscape, characterized by the proliferation of ideological media outlets, makes them seem outdated. Do audiences of conservative-leaning media perceive a conservative opinion climate while audiences of liberal-leaning media perceive a more liberal distribution of opinion? And if so, what are the consequences? We examine these questions using two data sets collected in extremely different contexts (Study 1 in the context of the 2005 Israeli disengagement from Gaza, n = 519; Study 2, in the context of the 2004 U.S. presidential elections using the National Annenberg Election Survey, n = 9,058). In both studies, selective exposure to ideological media outlets was associated with opinion climate perceptions that were biased in the direction of the media outlets’ ideologies. In Study 2, we also demonstrated that partisan selective exposure indirectly contributes to political polarization, and that this effect is mediated by opinion climate perceptions.

Breaking from the dominant hypodermic needle tradition of media effects research that populated the early twentieth century, mass media scholars recognized as early as the 1940s that media selection and exposure was a decidedly purposeful process—that media audiences were active agents in the messages they chose to expose themselves to rather than passive recipients of symbolic bullets of mass information. In the 1940s, noted sociologist Harold Lasswell recognized that mass media plays several discrete functions, including surveillance (to keep audiences informed), correlation (to interpret events), and transmission (to reflect larger cultural values), with entertainment, mobilization, and socialization functions recommended by later scholars who adopted a less prescriptive perspective. This functional perspective of the mass media—that media are tools used by people to achieve particular goals—was a key notion to scholars such Joseph Klapper and Wilbur Schramm, who argued that media effects can hardly be understood in terms of mere exposure given that media consumption is largely a purposeful endeavor: that is, we actively choose (with or without conscious awareness) the media we consume. This entry outlines basic explicit and implicit selective exposure processes before recommending areas of extension in hopes of better understanding media effects—broadly and in relation to emerging interactive media technologies.

The changes to our socio-technological media environment over the past 30 years have heightened the interest in identity across the social sciences. The spread of networked digital communication technologies and mobile media have increased the urgency for media scholars to better understand how and why individuals consume media as they do. Several media choice scholars have recently started considering how individuals’ identity and self-concept relate to media choice, but have not yet systematically addressed how identity might be related. This dissertation takes the first steps toward advancing an identity-based approach to understanding individual media choice in the 21st century by: 1) Providing a thorough theoretical and conceptual review of identity theory (Burke & Stets, 2009) and the identity process; 2) By discussing media research in the context of identity theory and applying identity theory directly to media research, and; 3) By empirically testing multiple elements of identity theory in two original experimental designs. Results indicate that identity not only affects media choice, it also affects how individuals ascribe meaning to media content.

The concept of Need for Orientation introduced in the early years of agenda-setting research provided a psychological explanation for why agenda-setting effects occur in terms of what individuals bring to the media experience that determines the strength of these effects. Until recently, there had been no significant additions to our knowledge about the psychology of agenda-setting effects. However, the concept of Need for Orientation is only one part of the answer to the question about why agenda setting occurs. Recent research outlines a second way to answer the why question by describing the psychological process through which these effects occur. In this review, we integrate four contemporary studies that explicate dual psychological paths that lead to agenda-setting effects at the first and second levels. We then examine how information preferences and selective exposure can be profitably included in the agenda-setting framework. Complementing these new models of information processing and varying attention to media content and presentation cues, an expanded concept of psychological relevance, motivated reasoning goals (accuracy versus directional goals), and issue publics are discussed.

Selective exposure has been studied for more than half a century, but little research has systematically analyzed the implications of various methodological choices inherent in these designs. We examine how four choices affect results in studies of selectivity in political contexts: including an entertainment option, including or excluding moderates, post-hoc adjustment of the subjects through a question about likelihood of selecting content in the real world, and assessing selectivity on the basis of issue attitudes or political ideology. Relying on a large experimental survey (N = 2,300), we compare the effects of these choices on two results: probability of selective exposure to like-minded political news and predictors of selective exposure (attitude strength, political interest, knowledge, and participation). Our findings show that probability estimates and, to a lesser extent, predictors of selective exposure are sensitive to methodological choices. These findings provide guidance about how methodological choices may affect researchers' assessments and conclusions. Selective exposure has been studied using a variety of research designs for more than 50 years, but little systematic effort has been applied to analyzing the implications of the myriad methodological choices inherent in these designs. Early survey-based studies noted a correlation between the information people selected and their attitudes (see, e.g., . Namely, people reported a higher likelihood of encountering pro-attitudinal information than counter-attitudinal information. This pattern found theoretical grounding in Lauren Feldman is now affiliated with Rutgers University. Magdalena Wojcieszak is now affiliated with Amsterdam

One of the main lines of reasoning in the contemporary debate on media effects is the notion that selective exposure to congruent information can lead to political polarization. Most studies are correlational, and as a result are potentially plagued with self-report biases and cannot demonstrate time order. Even less is known about the mechanisms behind such an effect. We conducted an online quasi-experiment with a sample matching the characteristics of the Dutch population closely (N = 501), and investigate how selective exposure can lead to polarized attitudes and which role frames, facts, and public opinion cues play. While we find that facts learned can help explaining attitude change and that selectivity can influence the perception of public opinion, we cannot confirm that people generally polarize.

The literature on selective exposure has made inestimable advances in our understanding of media and
its effect on politics and the general public. However, much of the research on this topic has relied
on potentially inaccurate assumptions. In our paper we apply an open-source, publicly available,
high-dimensional measurement of meaning through word co-occurrence context (Shaoul &Westbury,
2010), which has historically been applied to questions of semantic relationships between words.
This method allows scholars to avoid pitfalls from previous assumptions and determine previously
unknown ideological positions of previously unknown sources.We demonstrate the validity and range
of this method and provide a series of best practices for scholars who wish to employ this tool in their
own research. Our method will ultimately expand the variety of research questions available as well
as improving inferences, opening up new lines of research for scholars studying media consumption
and political behavior.

Guided by the reinforcing spirals model, this study examines whether exposure to cable news is associated with policy preferences, particularly those aimed at immigrants and refugees. Analyses of two sets of survey data (N = 200, N = 4,271) show that, after controlling for demographics, other news use, and political ideology, consuming Fox News has a unique relationship with Americans' policy preferences. Respondents who reported consuming Fox News (online or on TV) preferred stricter policies aimed at immigrants and refugees; however, use of MSNBC and CNN was not related to these policy preferences. A content analysis revealed that FoxNews.com published far fewer stories (N = 123) about immigrants and refugees in the time periods immediately preceding the surveys than did CNN.com (N = 211). However, these FoxNews.com stories provided a different contextualization by emphasizing authority and subversion and deemphasizing care. These findings suggest that Fox News is creating/reinforcing its consumers' migration-related policy preferences, whereas no such relationship exists for MSNBC and CNN consumers.

The study suggests that media consumers favor certain websites not only due to their content but also due to their audience. A new concept is introduced: " audience homophily, " which describes one's preference for partisan media websites catering to a homogeneous, likeminded consumership. This attraction is explained in terms of the need for self-consistency, and I suggest that over time such behavior will polarize political identity through a spiral of reinforcement. Based on both a survey-experiment (N = 300) and a panel study combined with web-tracking technology that recorded online-exposure behavior (N = 397), it was found that individuals with more extreme ideology present higher levels of audience homophily and that, longitudinally, audience homophily is somewhat associated with ideological polarization, intolerance, and accessibility of political self-definition.

Drawing on the 2012 American National Election Studies (ANES) panel data, this study explores the influence of the consumption of partisan information sources on affective polarization and investigates the mechanism underlying this relationship. The results show that exposure to pro-party television sources strengthens affective polarization among partisans. The polarizing effects of pro-party sources are mediated by the discrete negative emotions (i.e., anger and fear) toward presidential candidates. The study discusses the impact of selective exposure on deliberative and participatory democracies.

The bulk of current literature on partisan media explores its various detrimental influences on the democratic sphere. This study highlights a possible positive outcome of partisan media consumption: enhanced political participation. It is hypothesized that consumption of congruent partisan media will tilt perceptions of opinion climate so that it is viewed as more supportive of one's views, while consumption of incongruent partisan media is viewed as less supportive. Consequently, consumers of congruent partisan media will participate more, and vice versa. The hypotheses are tested using two panel studies: the first conducted during the 2012 U.S. presidential elections (N = 377) whereas the second, during the 2013 Israeli election (N = 340). In the Israeli case, survey data are supplemented with behavioral measures. All hypotheses are supported except the one regarding the effects of incongruent partisan media exposure. The results are discussed in light of the spiral of silence theory and the selective exposure hypothesis.

Drawing on the phenomenological tradition, this article focuses on the “lay media theories” that ordinary people rely on to orient their media use. Existing scholarship on certain perceptions users hold about media and their behavioral consequences tends to assume that these perceptions by default rest on a sense of self that is pre-existing and immune to media. My empirical research troubles this theoretical assumption. Analyzing interviews and ethnography in China, I investigate the media practices of certain individuals under the influence of “brainwashing paranoia.” Through their engagements with the information abundance on the Chinese Internet, these individuals had, over time, revamped rather than enhanced their established political beliefs. I argue that, in today’s high-choice environments, users’ lay media theories, especially their conceptions about media in relation to the self, should be taken into account as one major sociocultural factor that moderates or mediates the age-old tendency for selective exposure.

While an empirical association between exposure to ideologically congruent media sources and polarization has been substantiated in various studies, recent criticisms suggest that perhaps it is biased reports of ideological exposure that may account for the association. In addition, our understanding of the mechanism underlying the relationship between selective exposure (SE) and polarization is still limited. The present investigation addresses the first problem by using an unobtrusive indicator of SE and the second problem by exploring two possible mediators: the use of arguments from ideological media in political conversations and perceptions about the climate of public opinion. Respondents were recruited using advertisements published in mainstream, right-wing, and left-wing news outlets in Israel, and completed a survey tapping the constructs under investigation. Three different indicators of SE-the online news outlet from which the respondents were recruited (ideological/mainstream), self-reported frequency of exposure to predefined congruent ideological media, and the tendency to prefer congruent political materials-were significantly related to polarization. Results also demonstrated that the effect of SE on polarization is mediated through opinion climate perceptions, but the use of arguments from media in conversations did not mediate between SE and polarization.

Strong attitudes exert greater influence on social perceptions, judgments, and behaviors. Some research indicates that strong attitudes are associated with exposure to attitude-confirming information. However, we believe that uncertain attitudes might produce strong selective exposure to attitude-consistent information, perhaps especially when available information is unfamiliar. In three experiments, participants reported attitude favorability, reported attitude confidence (Study 1A and 2) or completed a doubt priming manipulation (Study 1B), and selected information supporting or opposing an issue. When chosen information was relatively unfamiliar (in Studies 1A, 1B, and Study 2), uncertainty led to more attitude-consistent exposure than certainty. However, when chosen information was more familiar (in Study 2), the pattern of effects was significantly reversed. Certainty led to more attitude-consistent exposure than uncertainty. This suggests that under certain conditions, uncertainty can motivate people to seek attitude-confirming information, thereby creating a motivational basis for “weak” attitudes to have strong influences on information seeking.

If the individuals who are most likely to perceive media bias no longer encounter, via selective exposure, media content they might consider biased, why are perceptions of media bias so pervasive? We argue that many people who engage in politically motivated selective exposure also perceive " the media " in general to be biased. Relying on a survey of adults in the U.S. state of Wisconsin, which has witnessed particularly contentious and divisive political events since 2011, this study examines self-reported patterns of selective exposure to partisan media while accounting for the role of the local communication ecology in encouraging or discouraging partisan media selectivity. It also tests the idea that selective exposure is related to a generalized perception of media bias—the idea that " the media " in general are biased while self-selected media are not. Finally, the study tests a moderated mediation model showing the structure of relationships among political opinion extremity, selective exposure, and perceived media bias. Results suggest (a) a positive relationship between political opinion extremity and selective exposure, (b) opposite patterns of relationships between selective exposure and perceived media bias about self-selected and general media, respectively, and (c) evidence of moderated mediation among political opinion extremity, selective exposure, and perceived media bias.

This study analyzes the predictors of two types of media selectivity: interest-based (i.e., choice of entertainment over politics) and partisan (i.e., choice of pro-attitudinal over counter-attitudinal or balanced news). Relying on a large survey-based experiment, we find that issue-specific engagement variables, including perceived issue understanding, issue importance, and issue attitude strength, predict interest-based and partisan selectivity above and beyond the influence of general political knowledge, news interest, and strength of political leanings. These results show that the drivers of selectivity are more complex than general political attributes; rather, they are contextual and reflect people’s engagement with particular issues

Much extant political communication research has documented the tendency for American partisans to selectively expose themselves to ideologically congruent media. Moreover, there is evidence this pattern is not symmetric across the political spectrum: Liberals are more likely to have a politically heterogeneous media diet compared to conservatives. While audience studies have examined a host of constructs in an attempt to explain why people choose certain media, this body of literature is largely silent on why partisans engage in selective exposure above and beyond core party identification. While Republicans and Democrats have clear partisan media preferences in general, why some partisans engage in cross-cutting exposure has not been easily explained. The present study uses data from the 2006 Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES) to examine whether differences in fundamental political values not only discriminate between users of different news sources, but also news users within the same political party. It tests the hypothesis that partisans who report cross-cutting exposure have relatively stronger value preferences that are “owned” by the opposite party.

The American electorate is characterized by political polarization, and especially by increasingly negative affective responses toward opposing party members. To what extent might this be attributed to exposure to information reinforcing individuals' partisan identity versus information representing the views of partisan opponents? And is this a uniquely American phenomenon? This study uses survey data collected immediately following recent national elections in two countries, the United States and Israel, to address these questions. Results across the two nations are generally consistent, and indicate that pro-and counterattitudinal information exposure has distinct influences on perceptions of and attitudes toward members of opposing parties, despite numerous cross-cultural differences. We discuss implications in light of recent evidence about partisans' tendency to engage in selective exposure.

With increasing media choice and diverse media outlets, people have more opportunities to engage in selective exposure. The present study investigates this phenomenon by looking at the widely viewed anti-President George W. Bush documentary Fahrenheit 9/11. Using survey data gathered from a national sample before and after the opening of Fahrenheit 9/11, this study investigates the degree of selective exposure and the potential media effects occurring as a result of exposure to the film. The data provide evidence that selective exposure occurred-the audience for the film held more negative attitudes toward President George W. Bush. This study then turns to evaluating whether the film had political effects. Results suggest that those who viewed the film had significantly more negative attitudes toward Bush compared to those who intended to view the film, even after controlling for demographic, political, and media use differences between the groups. Results also suggest that political discussion with friends and family did not moderate the movie's effect, but that viewing the film may have inspired people to engage in more political discussion. Those viewing the film had higher levels of political discussion compared to those intending to view the film, even after controlling for a battery of other variables. Discussion of the results provides insight into the relationship between theories of media effects and selective exposure.

According to the selective exposure theory, individuals are exposed to the media based on their ideological orientations, and they seek messages that match their convictions. This paper proposes to expand the study of selective exposure beyond the left-right cleavage. It does so by exploring the importance of positions on the centre-periphery axis as predictors of media preferences through a logistic regression using data from the latest post-election survey conducted in Catalonia by the Spanish Centre for Sociological Research (CIS). The results underscore that there was a clear segmentation of audiences according to national identities: whereas citizens with nationalist inclinations preferred to consume Catalan media, non-nationalists preferred Spanish media. In addition, national identity was the most important explanatory factor for radio and television preferences, as opposed to the written press.

Según la hipótesis de la exposición selectiva, los individuos se exponen a los medios en función de sus orientaciones ideológicas, buscando mensajes que concuerden con sus convicciones. Este artículo propone expandir el estudio de la exposición selectiva más allá del cleavage izquierda-derecha explorando la importancia de las posiciones en el eje centro-periferia como predictores de preferencias mediáticas mediante una regresión logística aplicada a los datos del último estudio postelectoral del CIS en Cataluña. Los resultados subrayan que existe una clara segmentación de las audiencias según identidades nacionales, de forma que los ciudadanos con inclinaciones nacionalistas prefieren consumir medios autonómicos, y los no nacionalistas, medios de alcance estatal. Además, la identidad nacional se erige como factor explicativo más importante de las preferencias de radio y televisión, frente a la prensa escrita.

Digital tools have become a central component of almost any movement supported by non-governmental agencies, governments, politicians and others. Referred to as digital advocacy, digital technology is used to contact, inform and mobilize a group of people around an issue or cause to take action. In this course, students will develop a critical perspective on how these tools are changing society and a deeper understanding of how to use new media tools for advocacy. Topics include the changing media environment, netroots advocacy groups, civic engagement, and theories of advocacy. The pedagogical focus of the course will be on discussion, interaction, and learning-through-practice. This course should be of interest to students in political science, communication, sociology, marketing and business, among other disciplines.

This paper explores Facebook unfriending during the Israel-Gaza conflict of 2014. We suggest that politically-motivated unfriending is a new kind of political gesture. We present an analysis of a survey of 1,013 Jewish Israeli Facebook users. 16% of users unfriended or unfollowed a Facebook friend during the fighting. Unfriending was more prevalent among more ideologically extreme and more politically active Facebook users. Weak ties were those most likely to be broken, and respondents mostly unfriended people because they took offense at what they had posted or disagreed with it. While social network sites may expose people to diverse opinions, precisely by virtue of the many weak ties users have on them, our
findings show these ties to be susceptible to dissolution.

It is argued that computer game play has great potential to intervene in noxious mood states because it is a more demanding task than consuming other forms of media. From mood management theory, this increased intervention potential should make computer games particularly adept mood repair agents. To test this assertion, a study was conducted that varied levels of task demand (our operationalization of intervention potential) in a computer game to examine mood repair for bored and stressed individuals. Results show that increasing the amount of control an individual has over a mediated environment significantly increases that medium’s intervention potential. This increase in intervention potential results in an enhanced ability to relieve boredom and stress, but too much task demand is detrimental to mood repair.

The fundamental motivation which makes individuals tend towards social networks underlies in their subconscious. In general, being admired, appreciated, applauded, considered and in its fullest sense “followed” appeals to many people’s inner child. Along with the effect of the fiction, individuals may surrender themselves to discourses which can be nationalist or gendered. The dosage of the behaviours of exposure and surveillance may vary from person to person, and furthermore, this detection may not be binding for everyone using social networks. Nonetheless, quite the opposite is also valid. In other words, just because one does not use social networks, he cannot be under the assumption of being eluded from the needs listed. Social networks have not changed the individuals but instigated some existing tendencies and accelerated the transformation of our sense of privacy or social norms. This set up accompanies the “dystopian” parts of social networks along with the political and commercial controlling, by instigating exposure. 

* This paper was presented at Kocaeli University New Media Congress on 7 May 2013. The paper is based on author’s feature series at BBC Turkish radio – produced back in 2009 and aired in early 2010.

Literature suggests that while without doubt people engage in selective exposure to information, this does not entail that they also engage in selective avoidance of opinion-challenging information. However, cross-cutting exposure does not always lead to dispassionate deliberation. In this commentary I explore psychological conditions as they apply to attitude-based selection and make an argument that selectivity does not stop at exposure but continues as audiences engage with information they encounter and incorporate in their decision-making. I propose the theory of motivated reasoning as a rich theoretical underpinning that helps us understand selective exposure and selective information processing.

A recent study showed that choice of advertisement content affected attention for female but not male viewers (Nettelhorst & Brannon, 2012). This study extended that work by assessing the effect of choice difficulty and the moderation of viewers’ need for cognition (Cacioppo & Petty, 1982) on attention. Participants were either allowed or not allowed to choose which advertisement to watch after watching a television skit. Next, participants watched an advertisement and rated their amount of attention towards
it. Results showed that males were not influenced by the choice manipulation, but females had significantly greater attention after making the difficult choice. Similarly, high need for cognition individuals were not influenced by the choice manipulation, but low need for cognition individuals had significantly greater attention after making the difficult choice. These results suggest that choice in of itself is not a sufficient means of increasing viewer attention towards an advertisement. Instead the choice must be
between options which are attractive to the viewer. In addition, advertisement choice should be an effective marketing tool particularly for female viewers or those with low need for cognition in general.

The purpose of this study was to assess the effect of advertisement choice on individuals’ subsequent attention towards the advertisement. Participants in this study decided which type of advertisement to watch or they were not given a choice. Results of the study showed that advertisement choice significantly influenced female participants’ subsequent attention towards the advertisement but not males’. This effect suggests that this marketing technique should be used in specific situations to target women predominately. These include marketing products predominately or universally used by females or during shows which are viewed by a large number of females.

The effect of Internet use on political information exposure is investigated using representative survey data from Japan and the USA. Internet users can simply choose political information that is consistent with their political attitudes. This selectivity in information exposure via the Internet might have serious consequences on the democratic social system, such as fragmentation of shared information and a decrease in political tolerance. Three research questions were empirically investigated as to the presence of selective exposure in political web browsing, the effect of political web browsing on political tolerance, and the contingencies on which selective exposure occurs. Multivariate quantitative analyses show that web browsing, as a form of Internet use for seeking political information, facilitates exposure to arguments that are consistent with one’s attitudes. However, selective avoidance, which suppresses exposure to heterogeneous arguments, is not empirically supported. Moreover, although Internet use as a source of information facilitates exposure to homogeneous arguments under certain conditions, it does not have a negative effect on political tolerance. This is because selective exposure to homogeneous arguments takes place if and only if the perceived issue’s importance is high. That is, even if selective exposure has an effect on a few issues perceived as highly important, there is no such bias in other less-important issues, which attenuates the effect of selective exposure on the homogeneity of the information environment surrounding each person. It is concluded that the fear of a fragmented society due to selectivity in using the Internet seems to be empirically groundless.

This study explores the intersection of media use, political discussion, and exposure to polit- ical difference through a focus on how Internet use might affect the overall heterogeneity of people’s political discussion networks. Advanced and tested herein is the inadvertency the- sis, which theorizes that limitations of selective exposure processes combined with weakened social boundaries found in the online environment suggest that people may be exposed to at least some additional political difference online, if only inadvertently. Hierarchical regression and mediation analyses confirm that online political discussion (directly) and online news (directly and indirectly) bear small yet significant relationships to the overall hetero- geneity of political discussion networks, and that partisanship moderates the relationship between online political discussion and political discussion network heterogeneity.

This study proposes a three-way interaction model that examines how (1) partisan selective exposure to political information on social media, (2) information processing, and (3) ideology influenced support for Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump for president. Findings indicate that processing election information systematically affected support for Clinton among those who were exposed to diverse information; otherwise, heuristics were the main cue to process political information. Conservatives supporting Trump relied on heuristic processing and avoided information that challenged their beliefs. Liberals, in contrast, were more likely to systematically process election information, but the effect was significant only for those who exposed themselves to diverse information. As such, systematic processing might not make a difference in highly polarized environments, where strong partisans are unlikely to engage with different viewpoints and expose themselves to diverse information.

The current study investigated the role of interhemispheric communication in selective exposure to information. Participants (N = 241) reported their attitude and attitude strength toward a controversial social topic, engaged in a selective exposure task, and completed the Poffenberger paradigm. As expected, participants demonstrated a moderate (d = 0.50) preference for attitude consistent information on the selective exposure task and attitude strength was a significant predictor of participants' information search tendencies. Furthermore, faster right-to-left interhemispheric transfer was also significantly associated with an increased preference for attitude consistent information. These findings highlight the potential role of the right hemispheric processes in the detection of cognitive inconsistency and in the implementation of dissonance reduction strategies.

Using the Syrian war as a case study, this article examines the theoretical frameworks of media dependency and selective exposure during the war. Through a survey of 2,192 Syrians living in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey during the conflict, the study examined the media needs and trust of four groups of Syrians: non-displaced, internally displaced, externally displaced living inside refugee camps, and externally displaced living outside refugee camps. The study aimed to understand how these four groups trust and rely on different media sources to meet their information needs.