A Turn Toward Avoidance? Selective Exposure to Online Political Information, 2004–2008

Leveraging scientific credibility about Arctic sea ice trends in a polarized political environment

“…Indeed, in one study of internet news users, exposure to attitude-discrepant information not only did not reduce the likelihood that a news item would be read but was associated with an increase in time spent reading it (51,52). The proposed effort to contextualize is worth making in venues that attract conservatives and aspire to the journalistic norms reflected in the message structure offered here, because the audience for partisan media still consumes a substantial amount of mainstream news and public interest programming (53) and because the more credible a news source, the more likely it is to be able to prime and frame the public's agenda (54,55).…”

Challenging Selective Exposure

“…Nevertheless, pessimists' positions that fear an extensive fragmentation of the audience along lines of thematic interests and political viewpoints might exaggerate matters. A number of studies suggest more complex relationships (Holbert, Garrett, and Gleason 2010): While there is a long tradition of research that confirms that people seem to select information according to their political predispositions (Frey 1986;Lazarsfeld, Berelson, and Gaudet 1944;Sears and Freedman 1967;Zillmann and Bryant 1985), newer studies have nuanced this picture and provided evidence that conflicting sources are not eschewed completely (Garrett, Carnahan, and Lynch 2011;Garrett 2009aGarrett , 2009bJohnson, Zhang, and Bichard 2010;Kobayashi and Ikeda 2009;Stroud 2008;Webster 2011).…”

Social change and public engagement with policy and evidence

“…115 See Preston / The Guardian (2016); Hansen / Aftenposten (2016) 116 See for example Flaxman et al (2016). Garrett et al (2013), for example, indicates use of partisan online news may be positively correlated with consumption of opposing opinions. 117 Boulianne (2015).…”