Issue Publics in the New Information Environment : Selectivity, Domain Specificity, and Extremity  

Oleh:

Kim, Young Mie

Jenis: Article from Journal - ilmiah internasional
Dalam koleksi: Communication Research vol. 36 no. 2 (Apr. 2009), page 254-284.
Topik: issue publics; Internet; selectivity; domain specificity; extremity; citizen competence
Fulltext: Vol 36, no (2), page 254-284.pdf (849.64KB)

Isi artikel

The present research revisits citizen competence in the changing political and information environment, considering citizens as pluralistic issue publics. Using 2000 and 2004 American National Election Study data, Study 1 explores the conceptual premises of issue publics and the impact of theWeb on domain-specific knowledge and extremity. Study 2 uses a unique data set combining an innovative direct measure of users’ Web behavior records with survey responses from those users in the context of the 2004 U.S. general election. The results shed light on issue publics’ information acquisition on theWeb. This complementary data set provides a more complete picture of how issue publics develop unique patterns of information acquisition and make voting decisions. The findings indicate that issue publics enhanced their domain-specific knowledge by using information highly selectively. In addition, their selective information use contributed to increases in extremity and issue voting patterns. Implications for the functioning of democracy are discussed.

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