Knowing More from Less: How the Information Environment Increases Knowledge of Party Positions

Abstract

ArticleKnowing more from less: how the information environment increases knowledge of party positions

Intra-Campaign Changes in Voting Preferences: The Impact of Media and Party Communication

“…Furthermore, it appears that the tabloid media have no impact, even though they are frequently ascribed increased power to change public opinion. We were unable to identify an effect of the visibility or tone of party evaluations in the tabloid media on changes in voting preferences whatsoever, which previous studies also suggest (e.g., Banducci et al, 2017). Although our research design did not allow us to explicitly test for different levels of cognitive processing, our findings are in line with dual processing theories, such as the elaboration likelihood model (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986).…”

“…Each respondent needs to be represented multiple times in the analysis, once for each of the parties analyzed (e.g., Banducci et al, 2017; Barabas & Jerit, 2009; van der Eijk, Franklin, & Oppenhuis, 1996; van der Eijk, van der Brug, Kroh, & Franklin, 2006). We achieve this by stacking the data in a way that respondents are represented for the respective parties, in our case four times.…”

“…By doing so, we are able to assess for each individual how different levels of media and party communication about the respective parties influence the likelihood of changing their voting preferences. Such a within-subject design allows us to compare for the same individual how variations in news information about all parties influence changes in party preferences (Banducci et al, 2017). The dependent variable equals 1 if voters have changed their voting preferences in favor of a particular party and 0 for all the other parties 11 …”

“…The news media provide citizens with information on politics, political events, political candidates, and political parties’ policy positions, especially during electoral campaigns (e.g., Aalberg, van Aelst, & Curran, 2010; Banducci, Giebler, & Kritzinger, 2017; Barabas & Jerit, 2009; Kleinnijenhuis et al, 2007; Druckman, 2004, 2005; Norris, 2002). However, not all political parties or candidates will be treated in the same way by all media outlets: Some will receive more attention than others (visibility bias); others will be criticized more severely for their actions and plans (tonality bias; see Eberl, Boomgaarden, & Wagner, 2015; Hopmann, van Aelst, & Legnante, 2011).…”

Political communication in a high-choice media environment: a challenge for democracy?

“…Aside from longitudinal studies, several comparative studies argue that the impact of choice and the commercialization of media on news media use and knowledge can be studied by investigating countries with different types of media system and political information environments, and thereby how levels of commercialization influence knowledge gaps Banducci et al, 2016;Curran et al, 2009;Fraile & Iyengar, 2014;Soroka et al, 2013). In addition, several studies investigate how exposure to commercial versus public service news may influence learning and knowledge gaps (Aarts & Semetko, 2003;Shehata et al, 2015;Strömbäck, 2016).…”