TY - JOUR
T1 - Non-News Websites Expose People to More Political Content Than News Websites
T2 - Evidence from Browsing Data in Three Countries
AU - Wojcieszak, Magdalena
AU - Menchen-Trevino, Ericka
AU - Clemm von Hohenberg, Bernhard
AU - de Leeuw, Sjifra
AU - Gonçalves, João
AU - Davidson, Sam
AU - Gonçalves, Alexandre
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© Copyright © 2023 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
PY - 2024/1
Y1 - 2024/1
N2 - Most scholars focus on the prevalence and democratic effects of (partisan) news exposure. This focus misses large parts of online activities of a majority of politically disinterested citizens. Although political content also appears outside of news outlets and may profoundly shape public opinion, its prevalence and effects are under-studied at scale. This project combines three-wave panel survey data from three countries (total N = 7,266) with online behavioral data from the same participants (over 106M visits). We create a multi-lingual classifier to identify political content both in news and outside (e.g. in shopping or entertainment sites). We find that news consumption is infrequent: just 3.4% of participants’ online browsing comprised visits to news sites. Only between 14% (NL) and 36% (US) of these visits were to news about politics. The overwhelming majority of participants' visits were to non-news sites. Although only 1.6\% of those visits related to politics, in absolute terms, citizens encounter politics more frequently outside of news than within news. Out of every 10 visits to political content, 3.4 come from news and 6.6 from non-news sites. Furthermore, exposure to political content outside news domains had the same–and in some cases stronger - associations with key democratic attitudes and behaviors as news exposure. These findings offer a comprehensive analysis of the online political (not solely news) ecosystem and demonstrate the importance of assessing the prevalence and effects of political content in non-news sources.
AB - Most scholars focus on the prevalence and democratic effects of (partisan) news exposure. This focus misses large parts of online activities of a majority of politically disinterested citizens. Although political content also appears outside of news outlets and may profoundly shape public opinion, its prevalence and effects are under-studied at scale. This project combines three-wave panel survey data from three countries (total N = 7,266) with online behavioral data from the same participants (over 106M visits). We create a multi-lingual classifier to identify political content both in news and outside (e.g. in shopping or entertainment sites). We find that news consumption is infrequent: just 3.4% of participants’ online browsing comprised visits to news sites. Only between 14% (NL) and 36% (US) of these visits were to news about politics. The overwhelming majority of participants' visits were to non-news sites. Although only 1.6\% of those visits related to politics, in absolute terms, citizens encounter politics more frequently outside of news than within news. Out of every 10 visits to political content, 3.4 come from news and 6.6 from non-news sites. Furthermore, exposure to political content outside news domains had the same–and in some cases stronger - associations with key democratic attitudes and behaviors as news exposure. These findings offer a comprehensive analysis of the online political (not solely news) ecosystem and demonstrate the importance of assessing the prevalence and effects of political content in non-news sources.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85167658691&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/10584609.2023.2238641
DO - 10.1080/10584609.2023.2238641
M3 - Article
C2 - 38107028
AN - SCOPUS:85167658691
SN - 1058-4609
VL - 41
SP - 129
EP - 151
JO - Political Communication
JF - Political Communication
IS - 1
ER -