Factual Political Knowledge Research Articles

Uninformed or Misinformed in the Digital News Environment? How Social Media News Use Affects Two Dimensions of Political Knowledge

ABSTRACT This article examines how the use of social media for news affects citizens’ knowledge about politics and current affairs. We employ a two-dimensional perspective on political knowledge and investigate how factual political knowledge, confidence in that knowledge, and misinformation, understood as the mismatch between factual political knowledge and confidence in knowledge, are related to social media news consumption. While earlier studies have suggested a negative relationship between social media news consumption and factual knowledge, there are indications that social media use may give people a general sense of being informed, even when they are not. Such general subjective knowledge might, however, differ from confidence in retrieved facts. Drawing on a two-wave panel study from Norway, we find evidence of a negative relationship between social media news consumption and both dimensions of knowledge. Notably, however, we do not find that social media news use leads to confidence in incorrect beliefs, suggesting that the digital media environment produces an uninformed, but not an overconfident, misinformed news audience.

Does news help us become knowledgeable or think we are knowledgeable? Examining a linkage of traditional and social media use with political knowledge

ABSTRACT This study examines traditional and social media news use in relation to political knowledge from the perspective of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Data from a two-wave panel survey show that social media use for news is positively related to knowledge miscalibration, or a mismatch between subjective and factual political knowledge. That is, respondents who use social media for news often tend to overestimate their levels of knowledge. In contrast, traditional news use is negatively associated with knowledge miscalibration. These results seem attributable to the role of social media news use in fostering subjective political knowledge and traditional news use in facilitating factual learning. Implications are discussed for the role of news consumption in the political process.

Do Interviewers Affect Measures of Factual Political Knowledge? Evidence from Austria and Germany

AbstractThis study examines how interviewers’ gender and education affect the measured level of factual political knowledge by drawing on competing theoretical frameworks: stereotype threat theory and interviewer noncompliance with the instructions. Testing these mechanisms using survey data from the Austrian National Election Study (AUTNES) and the German Longitudinal Election Study (GLES), we find no evidence for a stereotype threat effect, but seem to observe interviewer effects resulting from interviewer non-compliance. In Germany, respondents’ measured level of knowledge was significantly higher when a male interviewer, regardless of his education, conducted the interview, compared with low educated female interviewers. This finding has implications for survey-based studies, which measure factual political knowledge, for example attempts to limit such effects should be made during the interviewer briefing.

‘I saw it on Facebook’: an experimental analysis of political learning through social media

ABSTRACT The maldistribution of political knowledge in society has important consequences for individual-level political behavior and the representativeness of governmental policies. Increased media selectivity threatens to widen the gap between the politically well-informed and the less-informed by decreasing chance encounters with incidental political information. This study asks: Does exposure to incidental political information through social media promote political learning among users? We conduct two longitudinal, controlled experiments administered through the Facebook platform, and find no statistical difference in the levels of factual political knowledge among participants exposed to political information compared to those who were not. However, those in the treatment group with low political interest may be more likely to venture an incorrect guess than those in the control group, suggesting that exposure to incidental political information through social media may lead to an increase in self-perceived knowledge among some.

Media Multitasking, Second Screening, and Political Knowledge: Task-Relevant and Task-Irrelevant Second Screening during Election News Consumption

This study tests the role of second screening during election news consumption in factual political knowledge. Data from an online survey conducted before the 2016 U.S. presidential election show that task-irrelevant second screening during election news consumption on television is negatively related to factual political knowledge, whereas the influence of task-relevant second screening is positive. Data also show that the relationships between task-relevant and task-irrelevant second screening and factual political knowledge are moderated by how much attention one pays to election news on television.

Knowing and distrusting: how political trust and knowledge shape direct-democratic participation

ABSTRACTThis article examines how factual political knowledge and political trust shape direct-democratic involvement in the form of supporting citizens’ initiatives in Finland. Previous studies have debated the relative merits of cognitive mobilization and political dissatisfaction as predictors of support for direct democracy. This study builds on these efforts, but it extends the scope of analysis to examine reported participation in rather than support for direct democracy. The study relies on data from the most recent round of the Finnish National Election Study from 2015 (FNES2015) to study these questions with binary logistic regression analyses. The results suggest that both factual political knowledge and political trust have the expected relationships with direct-democratic involvement. However, their effects are stronger when they interact and pull in the same direction to shape the propensity of involvement. This indicates that proposals for citizens’ initiatives are generally the work of knowledgeable, but critical, citizens.

Cross-National Gender Gaps in Political Knowledge

Although the majority of studies on political knowledge document lingering gender-based differences in advanced industrial democracies, most contributors have drawn such conclusions from a single or a handful of countries, using limited batteries of political information items. Exploiting a pooled data set of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems encompassing 106 post-election surveys in forty-seven countries between 1996 and 2011, this article demonstrates that survey instrument–related factors, such as question format and content, as well as the overall difficulty of questions, are more consequential in shaping the size of gender gaps in political knowledge than institutional factors, such as electoral rules or opportunity structures. The research design of this article draws from almost three hundred different items measuring factual political knowledge using the broadest country coverage and most comprehensive approach to measurement to date.

Clicking vs. sharing: The relationship between online news behaviors and political knowledge

Online news and social media are transforming the process of news production and reading. While research has shown that news media play an important role in providing information to the public in democratic societies, research investigating the impact of sharing news online on the process of public opinion formation is in a nascent stage. This study examines the impact of viewing and sharing online news on two dimensions of political knowledge: factual knowledge and structural knowledge. Results from survey data collected over 3-waves during the 2012 US Presidential Election from an online panel of 403 US adult Internet users show that reading online news is positively related to factual political knowledge. Sharing online news, in contrast, is related to structural knowledge. We discuss these findings and their implications for future research investigating the role of online news.

Media multitasking during political news consumption: A relationship with factual and subjective political knowledge

Growth of digital, social, and mobile media has enabled engagement with multiple media activities during news consumption in a more efficient and synchronous fashion than before. This study investigates whether media multitasking activities while consuming political news affects individuals' levels of subjective and factual political knowledge. Results from a Web survey of online panel members show that on the whole, pairwise and bundled forms of media multitasking are negatively related to factual political knowledge. Also, those who engage in media multitasking are more likely to report that they are politically knowledgeable but they do not know about politics as much as they think they do. Implications are discussed for media multitasking and an informed citizenry.

POLITINIS IŠPRUSIMAS IR JĮ LEMIANTYS VEIKSNIAI: LIETUVOS ATVEJIS

Straipsnyje analizuojami keli politinio piliečių išprusimo aspektai: politinio išprusimo kontekste vartojamos sąvokos, skirtingos paties politinio išprusimo sampratos, tyrimams naudojami politinio išprusimo matavimo kintamieji ir politinį išprusimą galintys lemti veiksniai. Dauguma politinio išprusimo tyrimų buvo atlikta užsienio valstybėse, tad kitų šalių autorių įžvalgas su tam tikromis išlygomis bandoma taikyti Lietuvai. Straipsnyje pateikiami statistinės analizės, atliktos remiantis 2008 m. reprezentatyvios Lietuvos gyventojų apklausos duomenimis, rezultatai: sukonstruotas Lietuvos gyventojų politinio išprusimo indeksas ir išskirti veiksniai, lemiantys piliečių politinio išprusimo lygį. Politinis išprusimas straipsnyje traktuojamas kaip individo turimos politinės žinios ir domėjimasis politika. Politinį išprusimą galinčių lemti individualaus lygmens veiksnių tyrimas leidžia daryti išvadą, kad svarbiausias veiksnys yra piliečių amžius. Santykinai labiau politiškai išprusę yra vyresni, geresnį išsilavinimą turintys, daugiau su aplinkiniais apie politiką diskutuojantys, daugiau informacijos priemonių naudojantys ir didesnes pajamas gaunantys individai.

Testing Our Quasi-Statistical Sense: News Use, Political Knowledge, and False Projection

Although widely studied, previous research of projection in the context of public opinion did not incorporate the distinction between adequate and false projection developed in the cognitive studies: Adequate projection contributes to accurate perceptions of public opinion while false projection impairs it. The analysis presented in this study includes the above distinction, building on two case studies: (1) a dataset comprised of 25 surveys conducted over a period of 10 years (N = 11,313) and (2) a panel study of the 2013 Israeli general election. Relying on the assumptions of the Bayesian model, we tested if frequent news exposure and factual political knowledge reduce false projection. We found that false projection is a highly persistent psychological tendency with little variance. Although news exposure and political knowledge did contribute to a more accurate perception of public opinion, they did not reduce false projection. Conversely, knowledge increased false projection among moderates and had no effect in this respect among proponents of a more extreme ideology. These findings align better with the motivated reasoning model than with the Bayesian model.

Not All News Sources Are Equally Informative

Across a sample of twenty-seven European nations, we examine variation in the level of factual political knowledge in relation to self-reported exposure to news programs aired by public or commercial channels, and to broadsheet or tabloid newspapers. Unlike previous studies, we estimate the effects of exposure to these news outlets while controlling for self-selection into the audience. Our results show that the positive effects of exposure to broadsheets and public broadcasting on knowledge remain robust. Finally, we show that only exposure to broadsheets (and not to public broadcasting) narrows the knowledge gap within nations; relatively apathetic individuals who read broadsheet newspapers are able to “catch up” with their more attentive counterparts.

Self-reported cheating in web surveys on political knowledge

Measuring citizens’ political knowledge is important for understanding public opinion formation. In view of the increasing popularity of Web surveys, this paper examines the limitations of this interviewing facility when measuring factual political knowledge. We show that Web surveys contain a source of measurement error as respondents can “Google” the correct answers. This cheating activity is our principal concern. Past efforts are extended by: (1) offering a self-reported estimate of the share of Googling cheaters, (2) showing that the positive effect of education on factual political knowledge is most probably underestimated when cheating occurs, and (3) showing that self-reported cheating activity is inversely related to actual response time. In the concluding section, we discuss the implications of these results and the extent to which cheating can be reduced. The empirical analyses are based on a Danish Web sample from 2012 (N\(=\) 1,509).

Political Discussion Frequency, Network Size, and “Heterogeneity” of Discussion as Predictors of Political Knowledge and Participation

In this study, we examine the influence of discussion frequency, network size, and 3 variables that together entangle the often misunderstood concept of network heterogeneity: discussion frequency with like-minded individuals (safe discussion), discussion frequency with nonlike-minded individuals (dangerous discussion), and diversity of discussion based on the proportion of safe and dangerous discussion. Data were gathered via a postelection random-digit dial telephone survey of residents of a battleground state (N = 600) in November 2004. Three central dependent variables were measured: factual political knowledge, political knowledge structure density, and political participation. The results support the argument that different aspects of political discussion have different implications for different democratic outcomes-and that different conceptualizations and measures of discussion heterogeneity produce different results.

Finally Informing the Electorate? How the Internet Got People Thinking about Presidential Politics in 2004

Recent research has suggested that traditional and online news sources may differ with respect to their ability to inform audiences. In particular, there is tentative evidence that the hyperlink structure of online newspapers, for example, can promote a more in-depth understanding of political issues than traditional news media. The authors analyze data from the 2004 American National Election Studies (ANES) to test some of these relationships empirically. Specifically, the influence of traditional and Internet news sources on both differentiated and integrated political knowledge structures among citizens are examined. The findings reveal that users of online newspapers have higher levels of both integrated and differentiated knowledge, even after controlling for print newspaper and television use. Print newspaper use is only related to factual political knowledge, and television news use is unrelated to any of the measures of knowledge about the presidential campaign.

Soft News and Political Knowledge: Evidence of Absence or Absence of Evidence?

In "Any Good News in Soft News?" Markus Prior investigates whether, beyond enhancing their attentiveness to select political issues (Baum, 2002a), consumers also learn about politics from soft news. He presents evidence suggesting that the audience for soft news is much smaller than that for hard news, and that a self-expressed preference for soft news outlets is associated with at most sporadic gains in factual political knowledge. In this commentary, I argue that the audience for soft news outlets is, in fact, quite large, even rivaling that for hard news. I further argue that long-term retention of factual political knowledge--the focus of Prior's web-based survey--is an overly restrictive definition of learning. By broadening our definition--taking into account recent insights from cognitive and social psychology concerning human information processing--it becomes possible to understand how consuming soft news might indeed be associated with learning about politics, but not necessarily with an enhanced long-term store of factual political knowledge. I present evidence that consuming soft news influences the attitudes of politically inattentive individuals and that, in at least some fairly predictable contexts, doing so is also associated with enhanced factual political knowledge. I conclude that while Prior's finding of an absence of evidence of consistent factual political knowledge effects represents a valuable contribution to our understanding of the political significance of the soft news media, it does not constitute compelling evidence of absence of any meaningful learning about politics associated with consuming soft news. Hence, it is premature to conclude that there is no good news in soft news.

Values, Communication Behavior, and Political Participation

This article examines how communication patterns mediate the influences of values on political participation. We find that the positive effects of postmaterial values on participation are mediated through reading public affairs content in newspapers. In contrast, materialist values negatively affect participation through watching television entertainment. Interpersonal discussion in which disagreement occurs mediates both the positive effect of reading public affairs and the negative effect of materialism on political participation. We also provide what may be a better explanation of the influence of communication patterns on political participation by going beyond acquisition of factual political knowledge. We show that individuals' efforts to think about news and search for additional information and perspectives modify what people "get from" media. Reflecting about news and integrating information from various sources promote better understanding of the political world and may provide a stronger cognitive base for political participation than factual political knowledge.

Developing Valid Knowledge Scales

central variables in research on mass political behavior, but insufficient attention has been given to the implications of alternate approaches to the measurement of political knowledge. Two issues are considered here: (1) survey protocol regarding don't responses and (2) item format. Data from the 1998 NES Pilot and a survey conducted in the Tallahassee metropolitan area are used to assess alternate survey protocols. or decades, students of mass politics have assessed how much citizens know about politics, how people acquire and process political information, whether political behavior varies as a function of differences in knowledge levels, and whether various psychological mechanisms enable deficiencies in political knowledge to be overcome. Virtually all research on public opinion, voting behavior, and media effects confronts one or more of these questions. Because of the importance of knowledge as an analytical construct, several authors have explored issues in the measurement of political knowledge. This research has produced compelling evidence that political awareness is best represented with data from survey batteries that measure factual political knowledge. Less insight has emerged, however, regarding the implications of how those knowledge batteries are constructed. Therefore, my purposes in this article are to identify some of the key issues in the construction of knowledge batteries and to demonstrate the consequences associated with use of alternate measurement procedures. Two issues in the measurement of political knowledge are addressed: (1) survey protocol regarding don't responses and (2) item format. For both, possible changes in measurement procedures are discussed. Following this discussion, several potential liabilities associated with use of new procedures are considered. In the last section of this article, I demonstrate how the choice of knowledge measures affects hypothesis testing. Throughout this article, alternate measurement procedures are evaluated using data from two split-ballot surveys, the 1998 NES Pilot, and a survey conducted in late 1998 and early 1999 in the Tallahassee metropolitan area.