TY - JOUR
T1 - The role of heterogeneous political discussion and partisanship on the effects of incidental news exposure online
AU - Yoo, Sung Woo
AU - Gil De Zúñiga, Homero
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019, © 2019 Taylor & Francis.
PY - 2019/1/2
Y1 - 2019/1/2
N2 - Scholars have for some time shed light on the effects incidental news exposure have for the democratic process. However, limited work has explored how the ease and openness of discussion online interplay with unintentional encounters with news in explaining citizens’ political engagement. Using a U.S. national survey, this study seeks to contribute to the literature by testing the mediating role of heterogeneous and homogeneous political discussion in predicting the relationship between incidental news exposure and political participation. Findings show that heterogeneous discussion fully mediates the relationship with offline participation. The relationship with online participation was partially mediated. Mediation of homogeneous discussion to political participation did not occur. Moreover, a moderated mediation analysis finds that the mediation of heterogeneous discussion is more likely to occur among partisans than nonpartisans. Limitations and further suggestions to advance this line of research are provided in this study.
AB - Scholars have for some time shed light on the effects incidental news exposure have for the democratic process. However, limited work has explored how the ease and openness of discussion online interplay with unintentional encounters with news in explaining citizens’ political engagement. Using a U.S. national survey, this study seeks to contribute to the literature by testing the mediating role of heterogeneous and homogeneous political discussion in predicting the relationship between incidental news exposure and political participation. Findings show that heterogeneous discussion fully mediates the relationship with offline participation. The relationship with online participation was partially mediated. Mediation of homogeneous discussion to political participation did not occur. Moreover, a moderated mediation analysis finds that the mediation of heterogeneous discussion is more likely to occur among partisans than nonpartisans. Limitations and further suggestions to advance this line of research are provided in this study.
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U2 - 10.1080/19331681.2018.1561346
DO - 10.1080/19331681.2018.1561346
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85060138285
SN - 1933-1681
VL - 16
SP - 20
EP - 35
JO - Journal of Information Technology and Politics
JF - Journal of Information Technology and Politics
IS - 1
ER -