Black issue publics online: securing political knowledge through selective exposure

Abstract

Abstract Political knowledge is fundamental to democratic politics. I develop a group-centered theory of political knowledge acquisition in the current media environment, which includes both high- and low-choice media, in this article. I argue that group identity prompts selective exposure to media content, which gives rise to specialized group-relevant political knowledge. This specialized knowledge is deeply relevant to the group and cannot be measured with indicators of general political knowledge. I show that selective exposure is the crucial mechanism facilitating specialized knowledge: Both selective exposure to Black-oriented content and use of high-choice media (the Internet) increase group-relevant knowledge among Black issue publics. This research speaks to scholarship examining the role of digital media in democratic politics and illustrates that the affordances of the Internet, and particularly selective exposure, are crucial to marginalized groups, who do not see their interests represented in mainstream media content, but who can access such information online.