In an era of news abundance, people increasingly feel uncertain as to whether they possess adequate information to participate in politics. However, previous research has not paid attention to the issue of such efficacy. To fill the gap, this study examines (a) how different types of news repertoire are associated with political information efficacy and (b) how perceived news overload mediates the relationship. The findings show that people have three distinct types of news repertoires, such as commentary-oriented, TV, and social media news repertoires, and those who consume news via a commentary-oriented news repertoire tend to have a higher level of political information efficacy, while the use of TV and social media news repertoires does not show significant effects on political information efficacy. In addition to that, the perceived news overload negatively mediates the link between all three types of news repertoires and political information efficacy. Two-wave original survey data were used for analyses.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.