The distraction effect. Political and entertainment-oriented content on social media, political participation, interest, and knowledge

Abstract

There are grounds to assume that the use of nonpolitical, entertainment-oriented Social Media (SM) may dampen democratically relevant outcomes. However, research has largely ignored the political effects of such entertainment-oriented SM content as well as its interaction with exposure to political SM content. Based on the distinction between political and entertainment-oriented SM use, we developed a fourfold theoretical typology, “the Inactive”, “the News Avoiders”, “the Distracted”, and “the Focused”. Using data from a two-wave panel study (N = 559), we found that “the Focused” scored highest while the “the Inactive” and the “the News Avoiders” scored lowest on democratically relevant outcomes. Autoregressive panel analyses further revealed a positive effect of political SM exposure on low-effort political participation, but not on high-effort participation, political interest, and knowledge over time. Exposure to entertainment-oriented content on SM was associated with a decrease in high-effort political participation over time. For low-effort participation and political interest, the over-time effect of political SM exposure was dampened with rising levels of entertainment-oriented SM exposure, suggesting a distraction effect. Implications are discussed.