Media use and political learning: Comparing Trump supporters to celebrity candidate voters

This study examines whether political media use behaviors of voters who supported Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election align with those of “celebrity candidate voters” portrayed in the literature. The study used a national online survey (N = 1,608) conducted during the 2016 primary, and findings reveal that Trump supporters, more than other voters, are driven by entertainment motivations and follow campaign news using entertainment media: specifically, the video-sharing site YouTube. Although Trump voters are interested in the campaign, their level of political knowledge is lower than other voters, and no one media outlet made a significant contribution to their learning. A comparison group of other voters showed significant knowledge gains from news websites and Twitter. Results for Trump voters are consistent with scholars’ characterization of the celebrity candidate audience, particularly in studies suggesting that celebrity politicians may increase citizens’ engagement through entertainment gratifications rather than by a desire to become informed.     

Open media or echo chamber: the use of links in audience discussions on the Facebook Pages of partisan news organizations

This study evaluates the use of hyperlinks in audience discussions on the Facebook Pages of two partisan cable news organizations: the liberal-leaning Rachel Maddow Show and the conservative O'Reilly Factor, to investigate to what extent linking might intensify partisan political discussion or infuse a variety of perspectives into online communication. The results suggest that these Facebook audiences show a preference for a small group of information resources; furthermore, the two audiences shared an even smaller number of information resources in common. The findings support previous research that suggests a relatively small number of information resources receive most of the news audience traffic, and provide some support for other studies that indicate that partisan political discussions on social media are segregated by political orientation.     

Credibility or Credulity? Examining Political Organization-Public Relationships in an Election of Interloping Candidates

ABSTRACT

This national online survey (N = 493) examined the political organization-public relationship (POPR) that voters perceived with their own political party and their opposing political party, as well as voters’ assessment of the credibility of candidates running for president during the primary season of the 2016 election. Results indicated that although credibility assessment of one’s own party’s candidate was much as expected, POPR with the Democratic Party was generally stronger than that with the Republican Party. Data showed no evidence that a poor POPR with one’s own party would drive voters to support interloper candidates. We conclude by reflecting on the importance of POPR with the opposing party and what weak relationships may mean for parties in the long term.     

To click or not to click? A study of the innovation resistance of political emails

As a novel technology in the age of information, the Internet has become a fancy vehicle through which campaign messages can be delivered to prospective voters via multiple paths such as websites and emails. However, despite the effort put into making campaign messages as appealing as possible, studies show that the click-through rate of campaign emails remains relatively low. In the past, many studies concerning technology adaptation have focused on the aspect of “innovation diffusion” rather than “innovation resistance”. The aim of this study is to integrate ideas derived from the Technology Acceptance Model, the concepts of innovation resistance and the theory of ad avoidance to find the factors that influence voters' resistance of reading political emails. An online survey was conducted, in which a sample of 1012 voters in the 2009 local election in Taiwan was studied. The results showed that negative impression and perceived interruption were the factors behind people's resistance of politically-related emails. In addition, both of the above factors affected people's attitudes toward opening future political emails.     

The Undeserving Rich: “Moral Values” and the White Working Class1

White working‐class citizens who vote for the Republican Party have been fodder for much political discussion and speculation recently, and a debate has arisen about the role that “moral values” played in the political decision making of this segment of voters. In this article, we defend a version of the moral values claim. We show that although the Republicans’ policies are unpopular, they are bundled with an overarching moral framework that is extremely resonant to this set of voters, and we use in‐depth interviews to uncover this framework. A key feature of this framework, on which in the 2004 presidential election George W. Bush scored high and John Kerry scored low, is the appropriate attitude to wealth, which serves as an indicator for a candidate’s general moral philosophy and as a heuristic about whether the candidate will govern with working‐class voters’ interests in mind. National Election Studies data support the argument that this was a key influence on the voting decision in 2004, even controlling for voters’ partisan identification.     

How media diet,partisan frames,candidate traits,and political organization-public relationship communication drive party reputation

This study examined the ability of antecedents such as media diet and candidate traits to impact political organization-public relationships (POPRs), in turn affecting views on party reputation. As expected, survey respondents reported greater levels of relationship-focused communication and higher reputation assessments of their own parties, additionally rating their party’s candidate higher in authenticity and character. Connecting media diet and reputation, heavier use of partisan, traditional media (e.g., talk radio and cable news) indicated increased partisan divides, suggesting young and often inexperienced voters engage in motivated reasoning, seeking out information from sources that cater to their existing ideologies. This pattern was less pronounced for infotainment and social media sources, suggesting promising agenda-building opportunities for political PR practitioners. SEM analyses demonstrated the significant influence of candidate traits and POPR on party reputation, though manifestations of effects differed among Democrats and Republicans, the implications of which are discussed.     

Emerging adult identity following adolescent experiences with psychotropic medications: A retrospective study

This study examines the perceptions of mental illness identity among a group of emerging adults based on their retrospective experiences with diagnoses and psychotropic medication use during their earlier formative adolescent years. A short questionnaire was administered via online social media platforms to volunteers between the ages of 19 and 30 and who self-identified as having taken psychotropic medication between the ages of 12 and 18 (N = 46). Correlation analysis revealed that several variables were associated with a stronger illness identity, including participant’s happiness with their medication experiences, the belief that medication made them more like their “true” selves, and the belief that their diagnosis was accurate. Content analysis of participant narratives suggested themes related to discontinuation and barriers to adherence. These results contribute to the growing knowledge base around lived experiences of psychiatric medication use and suggest further study on how to advance more informed and compassionate mental health care.     

The Green Elephants in the Room: Perceived Environmental Harm and Support for Regulation Among Republicans

Previous research identifies a “great paradox” in attitudes toward environmental regulation: some people close to environmental risk nevertheless oppose environmental regulation for partisan reasons. Does this pattern hold in large survey samples? Unexpectedly, we do not find evidence for it. Instead, we find that Republicans who report higher levels of personal environmental harm also report stronger support for environmental regulation. This pattern holds across varied measurement specifications, and it is weaker for Democrats, suggesting that exposure to environmental harm might directly challenge and change partisan opposition to environmental reform. We present a theory and research agenda that accounts for these “green elephants in the room.” Our work, as we will demonstrate, crosses at least three disciplinary boundaries: social psychology, cultural sociology, and political science. A conceptual replication of results is provided in the Appendices S1 and S2.     

The Disconnection In Online Politics: the youth political web sphere and US election sites, 2002-2004

In recent years, candidates and other political actors have dramatically increased their presence and activities online. Although the notion of these activities reaching beyond a limited set of early-adopters is relatively new, younger citizens have long been at the forefront of new developments on the web and continue to make up a substantial proportion of those seeking political information online. Given longstanding concern over levels of civic and political engagement among young people, questions concerning what young people seeking information and opportunities for political involvement online might find there are particularly relevant. In particular, we explore political websites that are directly targeted at younger voters (e.g. Rock the Vote and similar sites), websites produced by candidates and political parties, and possible linkages between these two web spheres. Based on content and hyperlink analyses spanning the 2002 and 2004 US election cycles, we find a complex evolution of the online political information environment offered to youth. Although the youth engagement web sphere experienced dramatic growth during this time period, our data also identify a reluctance of many mainstream political actors to speak directly to young people through the web, and a surprising underdevelopment of linkages between youth politics websites and the wider web of political information online. We conclude by considering the implications of these patterns for future research on the role of new media in processes of political communication and engagement.     

DECEPTION AND POLITICAL PARTICIPATION: THEORY AND LABORATORY EVIDENCE

We model two‐candidate elections in which (1) voters are uncertain about candidates' attributes; and (2) candidates can inform voters of their attributes by sending advertisements. We compare between political campaigns with truthful advertising and campaigns in which there is a small chance of deceptive advertising. Our model predicts that voters should vote in‐line with an advertisement's information. We test our model's predictions using laboratory elections. We find, in the presence of even a small probability that an advertisement is deceptive, voters become substantially more likely to elect a “low‐quality” candidate. We discuss implications of this for existing models of voting decisions. (JEL C92, D72, D82)     

Do Candidates Run as Women and Men or Democrats and Republicans? The Impact of Party and Sex on Issue Campaigns

Previous work on the campaigns of women and men has tried to identify whether these candidates campaign for office by focusing on or downplaying gender-stereotyped issues and personality traits. We continue that investigation with a unique data set that uses all campaign advertisements created by almost 400 candidates for Congress in 2010. In examining whether candidate sex or political party identification are the primary influences on the issues candidates present to voters, we determine that all candidates, women and men, campaign as strategic politicians, crafting campaigns around the issues of the day and adopting partisan perspectives on those issues. We find no evidence that women or men attempt to “play to” gender stereotypes in their advertisements.     

The extremists across the aisle: selective exposure and evaluations of presidential candidate extremity

The consensus of most scholars is that the United States is significantly polarized across lines of partisanship, ideology, beliefs, and values. This polarization also extends to media use through selective exposure to partisan television and online content. This suggests a process in which partisans view opponents as especially extreme, seek reinforcement of those views in media, and strengthen those views going forward.

Using National Annenberg Election Survey panel data, this study examines relationships between political identity, cable television use, and perceptions of 2008 presidential candidates’ ideological extremity. Candidates from “across the aisle” are seen as more extreme, and this perception leads to a spiral of selective exposure, which reinforces and strengthens extant views. This process is driven by television sources that predate the Internet-based “Daily Me” model, suggesting that concerns about online echo chambers might be better focused on political segregation in general.     

Media use predictors of online political efficacy among Internet users in five Arab countries

Informed by research on the uses and gratifications of the Internet for political activity, this study examines predictors of online political efficacy among Internet users in five Arab countries (N?=?4029): Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Lebanon, Qatar, and the U.A.E. As predicted, variables presumed to be associated with political dissidence in Arab countries – unemployment, distrust of mainstream media, young age, and feeling country is on the wrong track – were not positively associated with online political efficacy. Counter to what was hypothesized, however, Internet reliance and social media use were not strongly or consistently associated with online political efficacy in the five countries. Rather, the strongest predictors of efficacy were a belief in news media credibility, print media use (newspapers, magazines, and books), belief in the reliability of online information, and tolerance of free speech online. Findings align with some prior research on predictors of online political efficacy, but not with common presumptions of the role the Internet plays among Arab publics.     

Expert advising under checks and balances

This paper attempts to compare the efficiencies of different political institutions (with or without checks and balances) in extracting external “cheap talk” information. We find that a political institution with checks and balances can extract more credible information (measured by the number of signals) from an external partisan expert because no policymaker can unilaterally exploit revealed expert information to her own best advantage. However, there is a tradeoff between signal quantity and distribution under checks and balances, as more signals tend to be distributed more unevenly due to the existence of an “inertia region” where credible communication is more difficult. Institutions using checks and balances are more efficient when conflict of interest between policymakers is relatively small, in which case the signal distribution is less uneven.     

Personality and psychographics of three types of gamblers in the United States

Using the results of the Experian Marketing Services' Simmons^® National Consumer Study (NCS) (N₀ = 24,581), this paper studies the characteristics of three types of US. gamblers: regular lottery players (N₁ = 1100), heavy casino gamblers (N₂ = 636) and online gamblers (N₃ = 291). We explore each type of gambler using measures of several personality and psychographic variables: impulsiveness, desire for control, materialism, risk taking, self-centredness, introversion, sensation seeking and financial prudence. We find that while all three groups have elevated levels of impulsiveness and materialism relative to non-gamblers (p < 0.01), most noteworthy are the online gamblers, who have higher levels of risk taking, desire for control, self-centredness and sensation seeking compared to casino gamblers, lottery players and non-gamblers (p < 0.01). This study additionally emphasizes the importance of considering demographics when investigating psychographics, as some of the psychographics related to gambling are conditioned on age. In addition, we find that online gamblers who also engage in other forms of gambling may be distinct from those who do not, suggesting they are not a homogeneous group.     

The Moral Economy of Neoliberalism: How Voters Use Neoliberal Ideology to (De)Legitimate Undocumented Worker Access to Labor Markets

Neoliberalism is prevalent in American life. While researchers have documented the use of neoliberal ideology in institutional and macrolevel policy contexts, they have yet to investigate how voters use neoliberal ideology to legitimate their position on economic policy. I use data from semi‐structured interviews with 85 Tucsonans about why they voted the way they did on Proposition 202 (2008): “Arizona Stop Illegal Hiring”—which sought to reregulate undocumented worker labor market access—to address this gap. I found evidence of two distinct neoliberal ideological legitimations: “fair market competition” and “individual responsibility.” Furthermore, I use these data to shed light on the debate over whether neoliberalism spans partisan affiliation or converges with American conservatism. I found that voters across party lines who supported the measure paired neoliberal legitimations with conservative legitimations. We can interpret this bipartisan use of neoliberal ideology as evidence of a neoliberal “moral economy”—or consensus about the moral principles in which market action is embedded. Evidence of this moral economy indicates that moral principles from neoliberal ideology are simultaneously bipartisan and converge with American conservatism. These findings suggest that there could be a broader moral consensus among voters concerning the legitimacy of anti‐immigration economic policies.     

Are There Two Liberalisms? The Partisan and Demographic Influences on Two Dimensions of Political Belief

Abstract

Recent analyses suggest that a new kind of liberalism has emerged in the American system. “Social liberalism,” in this view, is organized by issues that are relatively new to the political agenda: abortion, homosexuality, marijuana use, pornography. This dimension of belief occupies an ideological domain clearly separate from traditional “New Deal” issues involving government spending and the management of the economy. Some scholars argue, furthermore, that partisan and social divisions on the basis of New Deal-style economic issues have declined in importance, and that the relatively young and the better educated are now more liberal on both dimensions of belief. Evidence presented here indicates that mass opinions on social issues and traditional views on government spending form distinct ideological dimensions. However, this analysis also reveals clear and persistent patterns of conflict characteristic of economic issues.     

Toward a Model of Political Organization–Public Relationships: Antecedent and Cultivation Strategy Influence on Citizens' Relationships with Political Parties

This study examined the organization–public relationship between citizens and their political parties against the backdrop of the 2008 presidential general election. Employing a telephone survey of registered voters (n = 508), we investigated the interaction of politically relevant relationship antecedents, relationship cultivation strategies used by political parties, perceptions of the organization–public relationship between voters and their party, and outcomes of the relationship to test a model of political organization–public relationships (POPRs). Time, interpersonal trust, mediated communication, interpersonal communication, and dialogic communication emerged as significant predictors of POPR strength. The findings lay the groundwork for further investigation of POPRs.     

Conspiracies beyond Fake News. Produsing Reinformation on Presidential Elections in the Transnational Hybrid Media System

As presidential elections carry the promise of distilling the contested and elusive “will of the people,” the protracted media event intensifies the public demand for exposing the transgressions of the aspiring political elite. This expectation provides fertile ground for investigative journalism, ultrapartisan smear campaigns, fake news, and full-fledged conspiracy theories that are sometimes difficult to differentiate from one another in a hybridized media space. We compare three unique conspiracy stories—Macronleaks, Pizzagate, and Voter fraud—emerging during the previous French and American elections. We assess the divergent strategies of social action that contribute to the stories’ dissimilar patterns for intervening the political news cycle with the “reinformative toolkit” and deconstruct the common conspiratorial “masterplot” for “reinforming” the public. Focusing on online “produsers”—media users functioning as (dis)information producers—we analyze how the grassroots level participated in shaping the conspiracy stories’ synopses and channeling news-framed, conspiratory content between mainstream and “countermedia” outlets.