Evaluating the Partisan Media Echo Chamber Hypothesis in Canada

In this article, we examine the relationship between news media use and levels of psychological distance associated with COVID-19. Our findings suggest that conservative media use is associated with greater perceived distance to the disease, while less partisan news use is associated with a smaller perceived distance. Moreover, perceived distance is associated with perceived severity of COVID-19, the perceived susceptibility associated with the disease, and intentions to get vaccinated/boosted against COVID-19. As a whole, we examined a mediation process through which media use predicts distance, distance then predicts severity and susceptibility, and distance, severity, and susceptibility predict behavioral intentions.

Using a survey of college students in the US, this study examines whether the way students attribute responsibility is associated with perceived risk of sexual assaults and willingness to engage in preventive behaviours. We then link news media use to attributions of responsibility to examine whether media use is related with risk perceptions and preventive behaviours through the mediation of attributions of responsibility. Attributing responsibility to victims was correlated with perceiving a lower risk, while finding colleges responsible was related with perceiving a greater risk. Such relationships were moderated by gender, suggesting that attributions of responsibility might have different effects between male and female students. Attributions of responsibility were also associated with helping victims and taking protective measures. Finally, news media use was positively correlated with blaming victims, while negatively associated with finding perpetrators responsible, and these attributions of responsibility mediated the link between media use and the outcome variables. Clinical Impact Statement This article will assist educators and professionals in designing strategies for sexual assault prevention by explaining how attributing responsibility to victims, perpetrators, or colleges is related to college student's perceived risk and willingness to engage in preventive behaviours.

ABSTRACTThis study examines the role of skepticism as a source of news media use and online opinion expression. Data from a national online panel of participants show that skepticism is related to increases in news media use, which in turn positively predicts online opinion expression. Data further indicate that this indirect link between skepticism and online opinion expression via news media use differs by age, such that this indirect link is stronger for younger respondents in the current sample. Implications are discussed for the role of skepticism in producing an engaged citizenry.

In Malaysia, the use of new media in the political sphere is increasing especially after the tenth General Election. In terms of age group, youths are the highest group using this new media. However, how do these youths use the new media for political purposes? Therefore, this article aims to analyse the use of new media for political activities among youth in Selangor. In particular, this article examines political activity through new media, the level of media consumption for political activity, and the relationship between demographic factors and the use of new media for political activity. Using the survey as a method of data collection, 200 respondents aged between 18-40 years were randomly selected in Selangor to answer the questionnaire. The data were analyzed using SPSS software (Statistic Packages for Social Science) version 22.0. In general, the study has found that the respondents used online newspapers to obtain news and political information. Further analysis has found that the Malay youths in Selangor had the highest use of new media and there is a significant relationship between the use of new media and residential areas. This article describes the impact of the use of new media on political participation, in which youths are involved in political activities through new forms. This article also suggests that more research need to be done in the future on the role that new media plays in Malaysian politics as a whole.

Keeping up with what’s going on in the world of politics and current affairs through various news media is commonly seen as important for civic engagement and informed citizenship. Today, however, citizens face more opportunities than ever to select media content according to their personal preferences and interests—leading to what previous research has identified as a polarization between news-seekers and news-avoiders. Given heightened concerns regarding growing shares of news-avoiders in particular, this study analyzes the development, stability, and family influences on Swedish adolescents’ news habits over time. The findings, based on panel survey data among adolescents and their parents, show that (a) news habits are fairly stable at the individual level, (b) parents’ own news consumption is the most consistent predictor of adolescents’ development of news habits, and (c) these family effects are distinct from adolescents’ personal motivations for seeking out news.

The popularization of new media has enabled increasing individuals, including the urban elderly, to use these new media. The accelerative use of new media by the elderly, along with their insufficient media literacy, deeply affects the happiness in their later lives. This study focuses on the gratification and its influencing factors in elderly group. How to carry out the improvement of new media literacy education of the elderly is also studied by understanding their needs for new media equipment. This study is based on Uses and Gratifications theory, with literature investigations, questionnaire surveys, and in-depth interviews as research methods. Through statistical analysis of the questionnaire data and interviews, it is concluded that the age, gender, education background and attitudes towards aging separately exerts influences on the usage of new media gratification. Moreover, five gratification dimensions of gratification, which are respectively defined as, entertainment gratification, social gratification, and learning gratification, and escapism gratification and self-cognition gratification, in the usage of new media by the elderly were analyzed. Also, the elderly has diversified demands on the visual and aural effects, interfaces, input methods, operating systems, content interestingness, information usefulness, property security, and privacy security. According to the research results, possible measures of new media literacy education for the elderly are proposed. The younger generation plays the role of digital feedbacks to encourage the elderly to embrace new functions and integrate into the new media environment with a positive attitude. From the perspective of communities, carrying out new media classes and competitions would be an effective way to promote the use of new media by elderly groups. Providers of new media should develop products that fit the physiological and psychological needs of the urban elderly.

This study examines political persuading, trying to influence another during a political campaign, by women between 1964 and 1984. Data for the study are drawn from the American National Election Studies surveys done during each Presidential election campaign in those years. Political persuading by women increased significantly during this period, but still lagged behind men's rates of persuading. This study explores the antecedents of women's political persuading as represented in two constructs, “access” and “competence.” Competence (education, age cohort and news media use) contributed significantly to explaining women's political persuading during this time. Access, opportunities to persuade inferred from parenting, marital, and employment status, had little effect. A path model of competence variables found that news media use contributed significantly to explaining persuading beyond the impacts of education and generation. These findings modify previous explanations of American women's political par...

The success of health protection measures depends on public compliance. This paper aims to understand the influence of three different types of communication (i.e., news media, social media, and interpersonal communication) on people’s engagement in health protective behavior during a public health crisis. Our C-ENT model of health protective behavior proposes that communication raises perceptions of efficacy, norms, and threat, which in turn influence health protective behavior (communication → efficacy, norms, threat: C-ENT). We test the model for the case of social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic, based on a representative online survey during the first week of the lockdown in Switzerland (N = 1005). The results support the C-ENT model and illustrate the important role of communication engagement during a public health crisis. News media use was associated with perceptions of behavior-related efficacy and norms and disease-related threat, and these perceptions were positively associated with compliance with social distancing. Social media use and interpersonal communication were related with perceived norms. Social media use was negatively and interpersonal communication positively associated with health behavior-supporting normative perceptions. Our findings suggest taking the distinct pattern among communication types (i.e., news media, social media, and interpersonal communication), perceptions, and behavior into account in order to understand existing dependencies and design respective communication strategies.

It is a popular assumption that people learn certain practices for handling media in the course of their adolescence and adulthood, which make it difficult for them to develop new patterns for the use of media at a later point in their lives. From this theoretical standpoint, it is a challenge for older people to learn how to handle new media and integrate them into their current living situation. Beyond theoretical assumptions, there has formerly been a lack of exploratory investigations pursuing the conditions under which older adults take up digital media with which they were previously not familiar and incorporate them into their daily lives. Between October 2023 and March 2024, 32 semi-standardised individual interviews were conducted with a group of people between 80 and 93 years of age, who had recently acquired a digital medium and integrated it into their everyday lives. The decisive factor here was the presence of certain motives that generate plausible incentives to make permanent use of new media. The interviewees have purposefully acquired new media. It is notable that acquisition processes were strongly initiated by significant changes in life circumstances. In the case of most interviewees, the intention to acquire an internet-enabled medium was based on the wish to use a few selected functions. New options for online use were only explored after a while. The following patterns were identified regarding the motives and gratifications of acquisition: new media as…(1) hobby extension, (2) support network, (3) compensation tool, (4) connection opportunity, (5) escape from everyday life. It can be assumed that older people experience the use of new media as purposeful if they have specific motives for doing so. Biological, psychological and social correlations as well as ways of coping and dealing with age(ing) are relevant here. If daily use potentials are perceived as beneficial, older people show a high level of adaptability in terms of new media. Against this background, a gratification-orientated model appears to be a promising starting point for explaining the prerequisites for media adoption based on motives that generate plausible incentives for learning how to use new media at an older age.

This article examines the relative size of gaps in knowledge and participation between the more and less educated as they vary by the quantity and type of news media use. We predicted that the gap between high and low education groups would be smaller among heavy television news users than among light users, whereas the gap between high and low education groups would be larger among heavy newspaper users than among light users. We also predicted that the gap in general political participation but not votingwould be greater among both heavy television news users and heavy newspaper users than among light news users. These predictions were based on logic derived from the communication effects gap hypothesis, the cognitive psychology of learning, and research on political behavior. Analyzing data collected as part of the American National Election Study during the 1996 U.S. presidential campaign, we found that gaps in knowledge between higher and lower education groups were greater among light than heavy users of television news. A similar pattern was found for knowledge gaps across levels of newspaper use, but this pattern was weaker and may possibly be attributed to ceilings imposed by the nature of the test or a natural ceiling in the information domain. By contrast, neither television news use nor newspaper use was related to gaps in voting; however, newspaper use, but not television news use, was related to gaps in general political participation.

Democratic Representation and the Emergence of Partisan News Media: Investigating Dynamic Partisanship in Congress

Fueled by news media, affective polarization is on the rise in the United States. This study tests the possibility that people learn to be polarized from news by investigating whether political knowledge mediates the relationship between news use and affective polarization. Analysis of the 2016 American National Election Studies (ANES) survey (N = 4,271) shows that news media use is associated with higher levels of political knowledge, and also that higher levels of political knowledge are associated with increases in affective polarization. We find that those who actively use news media are more likely to have political knowledge, which, in turn, leads them to have more polarized attitudes toward candidates. The findings of the current study are discussed in light of scholarly conversations on affective polarization in American politics.

This study uses survey data to examine how various forms of media use are related to public perceptions of DNA evidence, including self-perceived understanding of DNA, perceptions of DNA evidence as reliable, weight attached to DNA evidence (or the absence thereof) in jury decision making, and support for a national DNA databank.The hypotheses build on cultivation theory, priming theory, and research regarding the “ CSI effect.” The findings indicate that overall television viewing, crime television viewing, and news media use predict perceptions of DNA evidence. Moreover, a question-order experiment produced evidence that priming thoughts about media can influence such perceptions.

This study examines the relationship between selective and cross-cutting/non-partisan media exposure, perceived journalism framing, and U.S. public’s perception of China and the United States during the U.S.–China trade dispute. A national survey of U.S. adult population indicated that more people perceived that the media escalated the conflict between China and the United States than promoted peace between the countries. Perceived peace journalism framing was positively related to perception of China, whereas perceived war journalism framing was positively related to perception of the United States. Partisan media use has higher influence on perception of the United States than perception of China.

The main purpose of this article was to point out the growing importance of the issue of cybersecurityin the use of new Internet media in the development of electronic local and local governmentmagazines. This article identifies the importance and impact of the development of new onlinemedia in the process of digitization of documents and the development of electronic, digital versionsof local and self-government magazines. In the context of the conducted research, the followingresearch thesis was formulated: The development of cybercrime related to the theft of sensitivedata on the Internet defines the need for continuous improvement of cybersecurity techniques andinstruments. Improving the cybersecurity in the use of new Internet media is an important factorin the development of electronic and online local and self-government magazines. New onlinemedia, including social media, have become one of the key factors in the current information andsocial globalization. The SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus pandemic significantly accelerated the processesof digitization of the economy and the Internetization of remote communication processes. Theconclusions from the conducted research confirm the main research thesis. The analysis proves thatthere is a fundamental relationship between the improvement of cybersecurity techniques and theprocess of digitization and Internetization of the media, including press media. The article indicatesthe growing importance of cybersecurity in the use of new Internet media in the development ofelectronic local and local government magazines. The considerations and results of the analysescontained in the article confirm the thesis that the development of cybercriminal theft of sensitivedata on the Internet forces the need for continuous improvement of cybersecurity techniques andinstruments. Improvement of the cybersecurity in the use of new Internet media also concerns thedevelopment of electronic and online local and self-government magazines. The text shows theimportance of the role of the Coronavirus pandemic, which occurred in March 2020, in acceleratingthe process of the Internetization of journals.