Byproduct Exposure to Politics
Year: 2013
Type: preprint
Abstract: Political scientists have long recognized that exposure to political information is heterogeneous across the electorate in both quantity and quality. While some people seek out information about candidates, campaigns, issues, and the rest of politics, many only happen across politics incidentally simply because politics is everywhere. The process by which individuals stumble across politics, and what effects that exposure has on their knowledge and attitudes, is not well understood in large part because of methodological challenges. Such exposure matters because incidental contact with politics may be the only way that some members of the public encounter politics the issues of the day. This paper reports a novel experiment design that mimics byproduct exposure by allowing participants to choose their own news and then manipulates what political information they receive about the ongoing conflict in Syria. The study reveals that citizens can learn from their incidental exposure to politics, but the benefits of such exposure are short-lived and felt unequally across those who self-select into and out of politics.
Source: SSRN Electronic Journal
Author: Thomas J. Leeper
Language: English
Topic: Media Influence and Politics
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2191653620