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Conservative bias, selective political exposure and truly false consensus beliefs in political communication about the ‘refugee crisis’ in Germany

The rise of digital media has increased the opportunities for individuals to self-select political content online. This development has stimulated empirical research on how people select political information, especially when political beliefs are at stake. In the present paper, we tested a series o...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Burghartswieser, Dominic, Rothmund, Tobias
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8568288/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34735526
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0259445
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author Burghartswieser, Dominic
Rothmund, Tobias
author_facet Burghartswieser, Dominic
Rothmund, Tobias
author_sort Burghartswieser, Dominic
collection PubMed
description The rise of digital media has increased the opportunities for individuals to self-select political content online. This development has stimulated empirical research on how people select political information, especially when political beliefs are at stake. In the present paper, we tested a series of theory-derived assumptions about antecedents and consequences of selective exposure to confirmative political information and opinions in the digital arena. We conducted an online survey with German Internet users (N = 897, April 2016) and assessed political attitudes, media use and general beliefs in the context of the so-called “migration crisis”. 28% of the participants in our sample reported exposure to a confirmative information environment. They are more likely to hear or read about political opinions on migration and political asylum that are similar to their own compared to cross-cutting content. We found no evidence for the assumption that the technological affordances of the Internet foster this form of selective political exposure. Instead, our analyses indicate that conservatism is a positive predictor of selecting confirmative information environments when it comes to migration and political asylum. We also gathered evidence that this relation is mediated by perceived threat and that selective political exposure is linked to truly false consensus beliefs. Our findings inform supply- and demand-side explanations of selective political exposure online. We discuss the relevance for psychological theories about the motivational underpinnings of selective exposure.
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spelling pubmed-85682882021-11-05 Conservative bias, selective political exposure and truly false consensus beliefs in political communication about the ‘refugee crisis’ in Germany Burghartswieser, Dominic Rothmund, Tobias PLoS One Research Article The rise of digital media has increased the opportunities for individuals to self-select political content online. This development has stimulated empirical research on how people select political information, especially when political beliefs are at stake. In the present paper, we tested a series of theory-derived assumptions about antecedents and consequences of selective exposure to confirmative political information and opinions in the digital arena. We conducted an online survey with German Internet users (N = 897, April 2016) and assessed political attitudes, media use and general beliefs in the context of the so-called “migration crisis”. 28% of the participants in our sample reported exposure to a confirmative information environment. They are more likely to hear or read about political opinions on migration and political asylum that are similar to their own compared to cross-cutting content. We found no evidence for the assumption that the technological affordances of the Internet foster this form of selective political exposure. Instead, our analyses indicate that conservatism is a positive predictor of selecting confirmative information environments when it comes to migration and political asylum. We also gathered evidence that this relation is mediated by perceived threat and that selective political exposure is linked to truly false consensus beliefs. Our findings inform supply- and demand-side explanations of selective political exposure online. We discuss the relevance for psychological theories about the motivational underpinnings of selective exposure. Public Library of Science 2021-11-04 /pmc/articles/PMC8568288/ /pubmed/34735526 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0259445 Text en © 2021 Burghartswieser, Rothmund https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Burghartswieser, Dominic
Rothmund, Tobias
Conservative bias, selective political exposure and truly false consensus beliefs in political communication about the ‘refugee crisis’ in Germany
title Conservative bias, selective political exposure and truly false consensus beliefs in political communication about the ‘refugee crisis’ in Germany
title_full Conservative bias, selective political exposure and truly false consensus beliefs in political communication about the ‘refugee crisis’ in Germany
title_fullStr Conservative bias, selective political exposure and truly false consensus beliefs in political communication about the ‘refugee crisis’ in Germany
title_full_unstemmed Conservative bias, selective political exposure and truly false consensus beliefs in political communication about the ‘refugee crisis’ in Germany
title_short Conservative bias, selective political exposure and truly false consensus beliefs in political communication about the ‘refugee crisis’ in Germany
title_sort conservative bias, selective political exposure and truly false consensus beliefs in political communication about the ‘refugee crisis’ in germany
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8568288/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34735526
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0259445
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