Selectivity & Fragmentation

Question 1

Paul Lazarsfeld (1948)

Answer 1

• Political predisposition –> Selective Exposure –> Candidate Preference

Question 2

Partisan Selective Exposure

Answer 2

• Obama came into office saying he would end partisan politics.
• Effect: intensification of Partisan politics
• Result: polarization of the electorate (voting population)
• Selecting certain partisan media outlets due to your ‘partisan lens’ may cause you to get inaccurate info.

Question 3

The central question: What accounts for the congruence between a person’s prior belief and the media (content type and/or media outlet) he/she consumes?

Answer 3

• Availability effect: affordance of one’s environment.
• Active choice: Motivated info seeking
  
  • Clear partisan predisposition
  • Tendency under equal ability is to be guided by one’s accessible concepts (approach) or by one’s effect (avoidance).
  • (We look for info. congruent with our partisan beliefs.)

Question 4

Iyengar & Hahn Study Set-up (2009)

Answer 4

• Randomly assigned people 1 of these: Fox, NPR, CNN, BBC
• Given real stories in real time, hard & soft news
• Task: click the logo you’d most like to read.

Question 5

Results of Iyengar & Hahn

Answer 5

• Democrats preferred CNN/NPR
• Republicans prefer Fox News
• Effect of outlet label
  
  • Self-identified democrats are less selective in choosing media outlets than Republicans.

Question 6

Natalie Stroud Study Set-up (2008)

Answer 6

• How is selectivity stable across media types?
• Habitual exposure pattern: is partisanship self-perpetuated by motivated selectivity?
• Is the pattern the same across media types?
• Campaigns: do they intensify habitual tendency?
• Took into account political predisposition: ideological orientation & party affiliation.

Question 7

Natalie Stroud (2008) Findings

Answer 7

• Basic patterns:
  
  • Liberals chose liberal media; whereas conservatives chose conservative media.
  • Likely causal relationship.
• Newspaper: Availability vs. motivated choices
  
  • Living in a red or blue congressional distract
  • Beyond where one lives, political predisposition–> reading ideologically congenial newspapers
• Campaign: partisan intensification
  
  • Liberals (Democrats) more toward MSNBC, conservatives away from it.
  • Conservatives toward fox news, liberals away from it.

Question 8

Why does the Selectivity & Fragmentation matter?

Answer 8

Partisan media (functions)

• Political mobilization & participation.
• Echo chambers, increased multiplicity of channels (Increase in choice potentials leads to a decrease in diversity of information)
• Niche media <–> Public segmentation/polarization