Incidental News Research Articles

Pathways from incidental news exposure to political knowledge: Examining paradoxical effects of political discussion on social media with strong and weak ties

Pathways from incidental news exposure to political knowledge: Examining paradoxical effects of political discussion on social media with strong and weak ties

Does Serendipity Affect Democratic Consequences? Examining the Role of Algorithmic Awareness, Intolerance of Uncertainty in Incidental News Exposure and Online Political Participation

Abstract In the context of social media becoming users' primary access to information, such as news, incidental news exposure under the influence of algorithmic recommendation and its democratic consequences are worth studying. While studies on the relationship between social media users’ incidental news exposure and online political participation have been widely explored, we know little about the current mechanisms of variable association in the context of algorithmic recommendations. This study examines the mediating role of algorithmic awareness and the moderating effect of intolerance of uncertainty on the relationship between incidental news exposure and online political participation among Chinese social media users. Findings indicate that algorithmic awareness negatively mediates this relationship, suggesting that users’ participation in online politics is heightened by their awareness of algorithmic curation. Intolerance of uncertainty positively moderates the link between incidental news exposure and online political participation, emphasizing the impact of personality traits on democratic engagement. This study underscores the importance of transparent algorithmic systems and user-centred design in fostering informed citizen participation in the digital era and offers a comprehensive perspective on the role of serendipity in Chinese democratic participation.

The effects of incidental news exposure on social media on Chinese youth: News diversity and online expression

Chinese youths––the “mobile internet generation”––are increasingly exposed to news incidentally through mobile social media. Based on the theory of incidental news exposure and semi-structured interviews with 41 Chinese youths, this study inductively explored the effects of incidental news exposure on news diversity and expression on social media from an audience-centered perspective. The results question previous findings of positive impacts of incidental news exposure on democratization, evidencing potential negative effects of incidental news exposure on news diversity and civic expression. This paper indicates possible reasons for those effects, highlighting the influence of citizens’ trust in official information sources and the social media censorship environment in China.

Incidental News Exposure and Algorithmic Governance of Social Media Platforms in Ambient Journalism

The emergence of social media platforms as the leading platform for people to access news has brought essential changes in journalism. People encounter news in a diffuse news environment. The news algorithmic distribution of social media platforms determines the content ecology of people's chance encounter with news, and the problems of information overload, information cocoon, vulgar news, and so on brought by news algorithmic distribution are becoming increasingly prominent. Algorithmic governance as a trend is unstoppable. This study adopts a qualitative research method to focus on the challenges and governance of the algorithmic distribution of news in social media to provide lessons for establishing an excellent online news ecosystem and promoting efficient management of cyberspace.

Distributed Discovery of News and Perceived Misinformation Exposure: A Cross-Continent Application of the Resilience to Online Disinformation Framework

Perceived misinformation exposure (PME) among citizens is a global phenomenon and a normative concern because it can lead to reduced trust and faith in democratic institutions, actors, and processes. Using secondary data from multiple sources, this study analyzed individuals’ online news habits across forty-six countries in six continents (North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia: N = 91,061) and country-level factors from the resilience to online disinformation framework that shape the relationship between distributed discovery of news and PME. Multilevel analyses showed that increased incidental news exposure and searching for news online at the individual level and news sharing on social media at the country level increased PME while aggregate media trust reduced PME. Cross-level interactions also indicated that higher levels of public service media in a country attenuated the relationship between online news search and PME, exhibiting what we call soft resilience. This study demonstrates the theoretical utility of the resilience to disinformation framework and certain country-level factors that can affect the individual-level dynamics of news consumption and PME.

Accidently acquired? Examining the conditional indirect effects of social media incidental news exposure on knowledge of COVID-19

Anchored by the extended Cognitive Mediation Model (CMM), this study relies on a survey sample from China (N = 1333) to examine the relationship between social media incidental news exposure (INE) and knowledge of COVID-19. Findings showed that the association between social media INE and knowledge of COVID-19 was not significant. However, cognitive elaboration was a significant mediator, namely, INE was positively tied to cognitive elaboration, which in turn facilitated knowledge. Furthermore, discussion network heterogeneity functioned as a moderator. Specifically, the positive mediated association between INE and knowledge was more positive among those with a higher level of discussion network heterogeneity. This study extended the traditional CMM through using INE as the main independent variable, adapting to the current ambient news environment. Results of this study not only enriched the extant literature of CMM but also provided novel credence to the effects of INE on learning in the context of COVID-19.

News “Attraction” and Digital Inequalities: Incidental News Exposure and the Equalization or Stratification of Political Information

Understanding the impact of digital media on news inequalities is critical for democracy. The literature on incidental exposure challenges the idea that major platforms shrink information gaps, and research has turned to the identification of variables that explain how those gaps widen or persist. We use Latent Class Analysis to operationalize the metaphor of “attracting the news” and investigate incidental exposure as both an individual trait and temporal state. We link the top stories on Facebook during an election cycle with incidental exposure measures to explore news attraction, incidental exposure, and news engagement. We find some evidence incidental exposure may close information gaps, but that it does not close engagement gaps. Results contribute to theory about how digital media shape inequalities in news consumption and engagement.

Incidental news exposure and political consumerism – Exploring nuances

With the rise of the internet and social media, many people find their news online, often only incidentally. Burgeoning research in this line of inquiry has explored the connection between incidental exposure to news (INE) and participatory political behaviors. However, certain peculiarities still need to be addressed in this area. Working with panel survey data from the United States, in this study, we uncover the relationship between incidental news exposure and political consumerism as well as nuances thereof. While there is a positive connection between overall INE and consumerism, our findings reveal that different effects emerge depending on the place of incidental exposure (on social media, traditional media, or online), thus highlighting that the focus on social media INE applied in many studies needs to be broadened. Furthermore, we find differences between those who boycott and buycott, challenging the traditional composition of the political consumerism measurement.

Incidental news exposure and opinion leader’s role in spreading climate change information and environment-friendly behavior on social media

Social media is the primary medium for disseminating information, including global topics such as climate change. The topic of climate change is related to the community's application of environmentally friendly habits. Social media and social media users have their characteristics in disseminating information about climate change compared to other media. Social media allows a user to be accidentally exposed to the information referred to as incidental news exposure. In addition, in disseminating information, opinion leaders have a role in disseminating information to social media users. This study aims to determine the role of opinion leaders and incidental news exposure in disseminating information about climate change. This research is a case study involving fourteen participants divided into two Focused-Group Discussion (FGD) groups. After carrying out the FGD, the results of the participants' discussions were analyzed using the diffusion of innovation theory, in which there are elements of the spread of an innovation consisting of the innovation, communication channel, time, and social system. The study results show that incidental news exposure and opinion leaders play a role in disseminating information about climate change and environmentally friendly habits. Incidental news exposure and opinion leaders can be part of disseminating information with the diffusion of innovation theory approach.

“Because I have my phone with me all the time”: The role of device access in developing Singapore adolescents’ critical news literacy

AbstractGiven constant online access to information, critical news literacy, or the ability to access and critically evaluate the news, is essential for adolescents to learn about the world and obtain civic knowledge to participate as national and global citizens. Although there has been much research focusing on how youths critically read and produce media, less attention has been paid to the issue of access as an essential element of news literacy. Drawing on survey data (N = 5732) and focus group discussions (N = 67) with Singapore adolescents aged 13–17 years old, this study examines (1) whether adolescents access the news and if so, via what technologies, and (2) the factors that influence their news access. Findings show that adolescents prefer to read news online and that older adolescents (aged 15–17 years old) read more than younger adolescents (aged 13–14 years old). Factors shaping access to news include technological (portability, personalization, curation, and notifications), social (families, peers, and schools as sponsors), and personal factors (active seeking of news vs. incidental news exposure). Policymakers, scholars, and educators should consider the physical, social, and curatorial dimensions of news reading to implement policies and design practices to encourage news access and exposure. Educators can foster adolescents' motivation to read news by engaging them with news of interest to them, creating opportunities for them to receive the news through their smartphones and other devices, and developing their civic knowledge base.

Incidental news exposure in a digital media environment: a scoping review of recent research

ABSTRACT In digital news environments, incidental news exposure (INE) refers to coming across news when online for other reasons. In this systematic scoping review, conducted to summarize the current state of research on INE, I identified 88 scientific articles via Web of Science, Scopus, EBSCOhost and Google Scholar and systematically analyzed them. In quantitative analysis, trained coders coded categories such as year of publication, method, region of the sample, and the primary topic. In qualitative analysis, I summarized results for the concept of INE (e.g. definition and process of INE), its operationalization (e.g. in surveys and experiments), and published findings (e.g. determinants and effects). Finally, I articulate seven implications for future research.

Incidental News Exposure on Facebook and Its Relation to Trust in News

There has been a growing interest in the impact of incidental news exposure on audiences as using social media as a source of news is becoming increasingly common practice. This article examines how this may have an impact on the trust in news through an analysis of Facebook news users in three countries—Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States ( n = 1,296). While trust in general news is no different between those who access news intentionally or incidentally, incidental exposure has a negative relationship to the trust in news on social media. This finding is more prominent among those who use social media as their primary source of news. Among social media news users, those who actively access news have a much higher trust in news they find on social media compared with incidental news users. This gap implies that there are a variety of contexts in which a social media user is exposed to news and a nuanced understanding of the context of incidental versus intentional exposure is needed to fully explain how incidental exposure to news may affect audiences’ trust in news.

Stumble on information or misinformation? Examining the interplay of incidental news exposure, narcissism, and new media literacy in misinformation engagement

PurposeIn the current media landscape where misinformation circulation becomes a primary threat to public health and society's intellectual well-being, incidental news exposure's role in influencing misperceptions and misinformation engagement remains under-explored. Moreover, less is known regarding how and to what extent personal factors such as personality and media literacy may drive the sharing of misinformation.Design/methodology/approachUnder the theoretical guidance of the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) model, the authors surveyed 546 college students aged 18 and above to explore the relationship between incidental news exposure and misinformation sharing.FindingsFindings buttressed the hypothesized relationship built on the S-O-R model and revealed a path from incidental online news exposure to misinformation sharing, mediated by misperceptions. The mediated path was further moderated by narcissism and media literacy. Specifically, narcissists have higher misperceptions when they encounter online news more often; higher misperceptions in turn give rise to greater misinformation sharing behaviors. The ability to critically consume new media information only decreases misinformation sharing behavior for narcissists with lower misperceptions.Originality/valueGuided by the S-O-R framework, this study takes the first step in examining the link between incidental news exposure and misinformation sharing and accounts for the moderating influences of personality and media literacy factors. Findings provide a theoretical foundation and practical implications for future interventions to combat misinformation.

Neither Absent nor Ambient: Incidental News Exposure From the Perspective of News Avoiders in the UK, United States, and Spain

Scholars have long argued that incidental news exposure (INE) is a potentially valuable way citizens gain political information and learn about current affairs. Yet growing scholarship on news avoidance suggests many people still manage to consume little news, and algorithmic curation may decrease the likelihood that they will be exposed to it incidentally. In this article, we put the literatures on INE, news avoidance, and political talk into dialogue with one another. Then, by inductively analyzing over a hundred in-depth interviews conducted from 2016 to 2020 with news avoiders in the UK, Spain, and the United States, we explore how they encounter news incidentally and to what extent they feel the news is accessible and available to them. Our audience-centric approach highlights that interviewees often did not make a clear distinction between direct encounters with professional news (“firsthand news”) and discussions of news (“secondhand news”), especially online. When they did make a distinction, the latter was often more salient for them. We also find that just as news consumers have repertoires of news sources on which they habitually rely, news avoiders have repertoires of sources for incidental exposure to news to stay informed about major events and anything that might affect them directly. And yet, those repertoires catch only the biggest and most sensational stories of the day and do little to help them contextualize or understand the news they encounter, contributing to their sense that news is neither entirely absent nor ambient in the way scholars have theorized.

Social Media Content Preferences and Political Participation among Nigerian Youths

This study examines the influence of social media content preferences on political participation in Nigeria’s relatively nascent democracy. Due to mixed conclusions on the influence of news and entertainment preferences on political participation, we sampled 434 youths aged 18-35 in a Nigerian northern state, to investigate the differential influence of diverse social media content consumption on political participation. Incorporating the moderating and mediating influences of political efficacy and incidental news exposure, findings confirm that news and entertainment preferences are positive, significant predictors of political participation among respondents. While political efficacy moderated the influence of news preference on political participation, incidental news exposure did not mediate the influence of entertainment preference on political participation. We recommend further investigation into the influence of content preferences on political participation among Nigerian youths who constitute considerable members of the nation’s electorate.

Seeing political information online incidentally. Effects of first- and second-level incidental exposure on democratic outcomes

Today, the internet and particularly social media offer lots of opportunities to encounter political information incidentally. Motivated by conflicting findings regarding the effects of incidental exposure (IE) on political outcomes, researchers recently developed new theoretical models. Building on the Political Incidental News Exposure (PINE) model, we distinguish two levels of IE to political information, first-level (i.e., mere scanning of IE content) and second-level (i.e., effortful processing of IE content). In one cross-sectional (N1 = 1660) and three panel surveys (N2 = 450, N3 = 524, N4 = 901), we measure the two levels of IE and investigate their effect on multiple political outcomes. We find null effects on political knowledge for both levels. However, across all three panel studies, second-level IE affects online political participation positively. In Study 4, we find that second-level IE also affects social media use for political information and political expression positively. Implications are discussed.

Тематическое моделирование в дискурсе компьютерной безопасности: исследование на примере публикаций информационных бюллетеней и новостных лент

Up-to-date information plays a crucial role in modern linguistic research. For this reason,computational linguistic methods, including those aided with analytical and machine-learning tools, are attracting growing attention. Some of their applications in cognitive-discursive linguistics are keyword extraction, topic modelling, and content analysis. Text-mining tools facilitate time-consuming linguistic work andadd to the results’ reliability and greater statistical precision by processing a significantly larger data volume.Most studies, however, have overlooked interference of socially significant but context-irrelevant (e.g. political) information into a specialized discourse by focusing mainly on one data format. The current study,aimed at topic modelling, has been carried out on the computer security discourse. We have implemented theproject on the KNIME analytical platform. The model enables comparison between topics extracted frompublished articles and date-specific RSS news feeds. The study provides important insights into infodemiology and political incidental news exposure occurring in computer-security-oriented RSS feeds on theKaspersky website but untraceable in the papers published on the same website in a PDF format. The resultsreported here provide further evidence for the need to consider the hypercontext of professional communication and employ real-time data in solving similar problems within cognitive-discursive linguistics.Our contribution to the development of cognitive-discursive linguistics is the method for comparingtopics within one discourse, taking into account near-real-time data. For computational linguistics, the significance of our work lies in describing a new application of the topic extraction workflow freely available onthe KNIME hub.

Incidental news exposure and COVID-19 misperceptions: A moderated-mediation model

On a regular day, individuals can consume news and information on purpose as well as accidently. Incidental news exposure (INE) can be critical for an informed citizenry, but individuals can also encounter misinformation and disinformation accidently. Misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic has made headlines, and such fake information continues to circulate on social media. We examine the link between INE and misperceptions, as well as investigate the role of a literacy-related variable, self-perceived media literacy (SPML), which may mitigate the impact of INE on misperceptions. To that end, we use survey data to examine 1) the relationship between INE with general misperceptions and COVID-19 misperceptions, 2) the mediating role of general misperceptions between INE and COVID-19 misperceptions, and 3) the moderating role of SPML in this relationship. Our results demonstrated a significant moderated mediation model, in which the association between INE and COVID-19 misperceptions was mediated through general misperceptions, and this relationship was further moderated by SPML. Specifically, among those with higher levels of SPML, the indirect effect of INE on COVID-19 misperceptions was lower compared to those with lower levels of SPML. Our findings have critical implications for INE as well as misinformation research.

Incidental news exposure on social media and political participation gaps: Unraveling the role of education and social networks

Liberal democratic contexts have been the focus of much of the existing research on the relationship between incidental exposure to news on social media and political participation gaps. There is also a limited understanding of the factors that influence the mobilizing or reinforcing role of incidental news exposure in this process. This study examines the role of incidental news exposure on social media in political interest-driven participatory gaps in Singapore. It also examines how education, social network size, and heterogeneous political discussions further modify the effect of incidental news on the participatory gaps between high and low political interest groups. Findings from primary survey data support the reinforcement thesis, suggesting that politically disinterested individuals are negatively affected by frequent incidental news exposure, but those with high political interest benefit. Moderated moderation analyses indicate that these participatory gaps only exist at higher education levels and within more extensive social networks. Further, politically disinterested citizens are at risk for further disengagement if they encounter news accidentally in bigger social networks or engage in heterogeneous political discussion. The study contributes to the growing scholarship on the effects of incidental news exposure on political participation by highlighting the role of education and social network characteristics in amplifying the incidental news-based participation gaps.

Social media news deserts: Digital inequalities and incidental news exposure on social media platforms

Some people live in social media “news deserts,” while others are embedded in online networks that are rich in news content. These news deserts represent a new form of digital inequality—distinct from problems of access, resources, or civic skills—that could foreclose one of the ways social media are believed to contribute to informing citizens and engaging them in democratic processes: providing opportunities for incidental news exposure. This study investigates incidental exposure on social media platforms, drawing on an online survey administered just before the 2018 US Midterm Elections ( N = 1493). The study finds that even after controlling for key individual-level factors, characteristics of social media discussion networks play a role in explaining variation in incidental exposure. The results are discussed in light of prevailing theory about incidental exposure, public engagement, and digital inequalities.