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doi:10.1093/ijpor/edaa021 Advance Access publication 11 December 2020
Abstract
To examine whether mass media and social media relate to political knowledge, the
study draws upon an original survey of adults from 11 countries, the 2014 CESifo
DICE Report on public service broadcasting, and the 2015 Press Freedom Index by
Freedom House. Findings reveal that news use via television, newspapers, online
news sites, and social media is positively associated with political knowledge.
Furthermore, press freedom and strong public broadcasting strengthen the associ-
ation between news use (via both mass and social media) and political knowledge.
The findings suggest that the media system plays a crucial role in creating a political
learning environment even in this social media age.
Introduction
For several decades, scholarly efforts to explain what increases political knowledge have
centered on individual-level predictors (e.g., Lewis-Beck, Norpoth, Jacoby, &
Weisberg, 2008; Zaller, 1992), or the effects of news use via mass media (Strömbäck &
Shehata, 2010). Today, more and more people rely on social media for news. According
to Pew Research Center (2017), 67% of Americans obtain news from social media.
However, research on the potential of social media as a political learning tool is still
scant, and findings are inconsistent (e.g., Dimitrova, Shehata, Strömbäck, & Nord,
2014). In addition, most research about this topic has been conducted in the US, creat-
ing generalizability issues. Thus, this study first examines whether social media predicts
All correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Chang Sup Park, Department of
Communication (Journalism Program), University at Albany, The State University of New York, 1400
Washington Ave, Albany, NY 12222, USA. E-mail: cpark2@albany.edu
316 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PUBLIC OPINION RESEARCH
Literature Review
Media Channels Matter in Political Learning
Media richness theory posits different types of media provide different levels of rich-
ness to the audience (Daft & Lengel, 1984), thus affecting political knowledge
(Dimitrova et al., 2014). Although, mass media offer a good opportunity for learning,
different media outlets can cause different impacts on political knowledge (Fraile,
2011). Print media generally deliver more substantial information than other types of
mass media and allow readers to control the pace at which they read the news.
Furthermore, the format and semantic organization of print news stories are related to
how people process the news (Neuman, Neuman, Just, & Crigler, 1992). Newspaper
use is consistently linked positively to acquisition of political knowledge (Strömbäck &
Shehata, 2010).
Compared with print news media, television news takes simplified and visual-
focused formats, which may hinder viewers’ understanding (Robinson & Levy, 1986).
However, some studies show that television news may facilitate political knowledge gain
for more abstract information (Neuman et al., 1992), and can rival newspapers as a
political knowledge facilitator (Chaffee & Schleuder, 1986). Overall, the effect of
LEARNING ABOUT POLITICS FROM MASS MEDIA AND SOCIAL MEDIA 317
TV news on political knowledge is not conclusive—some saw a positive or beneficial
impact (Papathanassopoulos et al., 2013), while others found a null or negative effect
(Fraile, 2011), mainly because television programs offer a more superficial way of
presenting the news.
Unlike traditional newspapers, online news sites offer hyperlinks to related stories,
the excess of information on social media may increase the feeling of information over-
load (Park, 2019), driving users to become unaware of crucial facts and knowledge they
need to know. Considering the contrasting rationales and inconsistent findings, this
study poses the following research question:
Public service broadcasting. Commercial media disfavor news and current affairs
(Aalberg et al., 2010). Commercial media rely heavily on the number of audiences be-
cause advertising revenues are decided by the size of the audience. For this reason, com-
mercial media tend to produce content that is instantly satisfying the audience, for
example, celebrity gossips or sports. On the other hand, commercial media do not prefer
news about democratic processes or public affairs. Indeed, a media system dominated
by commercial television does not to supply enough quantities of news about current
affairs in prime time when most people watch television (Aarts & Semetko, 2003).
Therefore, commercial broadcasting is less conducive to increasing citizens’ level of pol-
itical knowledge than public broadcasting (Jenssen, 2009).
By contrast, public service broadcasters are required to offer substantial and impar-
tial information on political matters (Soroka et al., 2013) because their mission is to edu-
cate, inform, and entertain citizens. One of the main missions of public service
broadcasters is to help citizens obtain the information they need to know as democratic
citizens, particularly information that they hardly get from commercial media. Public
service broadcasters also provide more “hard news,” which is about important social
and political issues, than commercial broadcasters (Toka & Popescu, 2009). Aalberg
et al. (2010) find that there are more news and current affairs information on television
in less commercialized media systems.
The contrasting features of public service broadcasters and commercial broadcast-
ers do not necessarily mean that living in a highly commercial media context exposes
citizens to less news about politics and public affairs. It is possible that other media,
such as social media, compensate for relatively low levels of TV news in commercial
media systems.
However, the more commercialized a media system is, the more proactive citizens
may need to be to get meaningful news. Inadvertent or incidental exposure to the news
occurs more frequently in countries where public broadcasting is a strong component of
the national media system (Prior, 2007). Moreover, commercial media tend to neglect
hard news or treat it without much emphasis (Soroka et al., 2013). In a nutshell, the
quantity and quality of news varies systematically between public and private broadcast-
ers. Therefore, it seems that public service broadcasting has a potential link to political
knowledge.
320 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PUBLIC OPINION RESEARCH
Social media rely on their users to produce or share content, and few users regularly
produce news content related to public or political matters (Hjarvard, 2018). It is un-
likely that commercial media organizations devote themselves to publishing information
about political and public matters on social media. Instead, various mass media outlets
play a vital role as providers of public affairs content to social media (Hjarvard, 2018).
Method
Sample and Data
This study counts on a cross-national survey conducted in 11 countries including
Estonia, Germany, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Poland, Russia, Spain, the UK, the US,
and Turkey. Although the participating countries were chosen based on data availability
and convenience, we tried to maximize diversity in terms of press freedom and public
service broadcasting because this article aims to understand how those two variables
work in the process of political learning at the global level.
Nielsen implemented the survey online between September 14 and 24, 2015.
Nielsen used stratified quota sampling techniques to create samples whose demograph-
ics match each country’s official census data. The total participants are 11,397. Each
country’s sample size ranges from 904 (Turkey) to 1,136 (New Zealand). The overall co-
operation rate is 77% (American Association for Public Opinion Research, 2011).
Individual-Level Measures
Self-report measures are widely used in communication research, but they have advan-
tages and disadvantages. For example, respondents may recall correctly their experien-
ces. Respondents also have a tendency to “look” good in their responses (Holbrook,
2008). People who have high levels of civic duty and self-efficacy tend to over-report
media exposure (Vavreck, 2007). Despite these issues, cautions in questionnaire design
may alleviate such drawbacks. For example, Prior (2009) recommends that surveys
“offer help with the estimation of news exposure” (p. 904). Researchers can also
“improve the likelihood of accurate recall by restricting the recall task to a short and
LEARNING ABOUT POLITICS FROM MASS MEDIA AND SOCIAL MEDIA 321
recent reference period and by providing recall cues” (Schwarz & Oyserman, 2001,
p. 138). The current study measured “news exposure” in a typical week, and assessed
“political knowledge” with issues that recently attracted the public’s attention. All items
used a 7-point Likert scale unless indicated otherwise.
Social media news use. Respondents were asked how often they use social media
to (a) get news, (b) stay informed about current events and public affairs, (c) get news
about their local communities, and (d) get news about current events from mainstream
media. The four items formed a reliable scale (a ¼ .87, M ¼ 4.30, SD ¼ 1.50).
Political talk. Respondents were asked how often they talk about politics (a) face-to-
face and (b) online with their (1) spouse, (2) family, relatives, or friends, (3) acquaintan-
ces, and (4) strangers. These eight items were averaged (a ¼ .87, M ¼ 2.74, SD ¼ 1.21).
Political efficacy. Political efficacy was measured with two items asking respond-
ents to what extent they agree that (a) “People like me can influence government” and
(b) “I consider myself well qualified to participate in politics.” The two items were aver-
aged (Spearman Brown coefficient ¼ .68, M ¼ 3.59, SD ¼ 1.06).
Political interest. Political interest was measured with two items asking respondents
(a) how closely they pay attention to public affairs information and (b) how interested
they are in politics. The two items were averaged (Spearman Brown coefficient ¼ .95,
M ¼ 4.59, SD ¼ 1.49).
Political knowledge. This article adopts the definition of political knowledge used
in prior work: facts or information related to a political system that people can draw
from their memory to interpret and understand political events (Delli Carpini &
Keeter, 1996). Political knowledge was measured with three items (0 ¼ Incorrect,
1 ¼ Correct) that asked respondents general factual questions about an international pol-
itical actor (UN secretary general), an international institution (nuclear energy monitor-
ing), and a controversial global issue (global warming).1 Correct answers were summed
and averaged (M ¼ .59, SD ¼ .32) (Table 1).
1
Notes
The following three items were used to measure political knowledge.
*Do you happen to know who is the current Secretary-General of the United Nations?
(1) Ban Ki-moon, (2) Kofi Annan, (3) Boutros Boutros-Ghali, (4) Joseph Blatter, (5) Don’t know
*What international organization is in charge of monitoring the use of nuclear energy throughout the
world?
(1) The World Health Organization (WHO), (2) The United Nation Security Council (UNSC),
(3) The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA),
(4) The United Nations High Commissioner for Nuclear Energy (UNHCNE), (5) Don’t know
*You might have heard some people talking about global warming. In your mind, global warming is:
(1) The idea that sun is getting closer the earth, (2) The idea that the earth’s temperature is increasing, (3)
A post-Cold War environment, described by a nuclear arms race, (4) When the global markets are increasing
petrol prices, (5) Don’t know
322 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PUBLIC OPINION RESEARCH
Table 1
Zero-Order Correlations among TV News Use, Newspaper Use, Online News Site Use,
Social Media News Use, Political Knowledge, and Public Broadcasting
1 2 3 4 5 6
Country-Level Measures
Press freedom. The index for press freedom was obtained from the 2015 Freedom
of the Press Index by Freedom House (Table 2). Drawing upon data about 23 questions,
Freedom House assigns a press freedom score ranging from 0 (best) to 100 (worst). The
score indicates which category each country belongs to: “Free” (0–30), “Partly Free”
(31–60), “Not Free” (61–100).
Public broadcasting market share. Data for public broadcasting market share
were obtained mainly from the 2014 CESifo Report about public service broadcasting.2 The
CESifo Group4, consisting of the Center for Economic Studies (CES), the ifo Institute and
the CESifo GmbH (Munich Society for the Promotion of Economic Research) is an econ-
omy research group. This organization examines how the public service broadcasting in
each country performs in its national television market. The 2014 report shows that the
market share of public service broadcasters ranges from 3% (US) to 62% (New Zealand).
Analysis
First, we conducted one-sample t-tests to figure out how each nation’s press freedom
score differs from the grand mean of political knowledge. Then, multi-level modeling
was used to assess the relationship between news use and political knowledge and
to evaluate the between-country variance in the news use effect while including the
two indicators of a media system (press freedom index and public broadcasting
market share) as second-level predictors. Multi-level modeling is recommended
2
CESifo Group is a research group unique in Europe in the area of economic research. See https://www.
cesifo-group.de/ifoHome.html.
LEARNING ABOUT POLITICS FROM MASS MEDIA AND SOCIAL MEDIA 323
Table 2
Press Freedom Index and Public Service Broadcasting Market Share
Country Press freedom index Public service broadcasting
market share
when data are organized at more than one level (i.e., nested data) (Tabachnick &
Fidell, 2007).
Results
One-sample t-tests were conducted to assess differences between each country’s mean
and the grand mean for political knowledge (M ¼ .59, SD ¼ .32). High test statistics
(indicating above-average country means) are observed in Estonia (.66), Germany (.64),
Italy (.64), Japan (.72), New Zealand (.64), and UK (.63). Low test statistics are seen in
Russia (.53), Turkey (.47), and US (.49). The statistics of Poland (.58) and Spain (.57)
were not significantly different from the grand mean (Table 3).
Before testing the hypotheses and research questions, a series of model comparisons
was first conducted to determine whether the intercept and effects of mass media and
social media news use vary between countries. Taken together, the results show that a
random slope model is best fit to our data.3 Because we mean-centered the covariates,4
the fixed intercept (.59, SE ¼ .03, p < .05) can be interpreted as the grand mean of pol-
itical knowledge (Min. ¼ 0, Max. ¼ 3) adjusted at the mean of the predictors.
The coefficients for TV news use (B ¼ .12, p < .05, RQ1), newspaper use (B ¼
.25, p < .001, H1), online news site use (B ¼ .20, p < .001, H1) are all positive. Using
news via social media also has a positive link to political knowledge (B ¼ .13, p < .05).
Additionally, this study conducted a series of hierarchical regression analysis for each
country. In all the countries, the coefficients of TV news use, newspaper use, online
news site use, and social media news use were positive.
3
A fixed intercept null model (i.e., a model with no predictors and a fixed intercept) is compared with a
random intercept null model. Results show that a random intercept model is better fit to data than a fixed
intercept model (likelihood ratio ¼ 2,246.31, p < .05). Then, a random intercept full model (i.e., a model with
all predictors and a random intercept term) is compared with a random slope full model to determine whether
the effect for news use also varies by country. Results show that a random slope full model is better fit to data
than a random intercept full model (likelihood ratio ¼ 162.58, p < .05).
4
The hierarchical linear model models control for age, gender, education, SES, political interest, political
efficacy, and political talk. All controls are mean-centered.
324 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PUBLIC OPINION RESEARCH
Table 3
Tests of Mean Differences between Each Country Mean and the Grand Mean for
Political Knowledge
M (SD) t(df)
The effect size of social media news use turns out to be small (r ¼ .15), meaning
that 2.25% of the variance of social media news use is shared with political knowledge.
The effect sizes of newspaper use (r ¼ .30) and online news site use (r ¼ .23) are also
considered small, explaining 9% and 5.29% of the variance of political knowledge, re-
spectively, but both are quite larger than the effect size of social media news use
(Figure 1).
H2 was tested by adding a cross-level interaction between four types of news use
and press freedom (Figure 2, 3, 4, and 5). The interaction terms of newspaper use
press freedom (B ¼ .08, p < .05) and online news sites use press freedom (B ¼ .07, p
< .05), and social media news use press freedom (B ¼ .07, p < .05) are all positive
and significant. These results indicate that news use shows a stronger relationship with
political knowledge when press freedom is high, while news use shows a weaker rela-
tionship with political knowledge when press freedom is low. The analysis did not find
a moderation effect by TV news use (Table 4).
We tested H3 by adding a cross-level interaction between four types of news use
and public service broadcasting (Figure 2, 3, 4, and 5). The interaction terms of TV
news use public service broadcasting (B ¼ .07, p < .05), newspaper use public ser-
vice broadcasting (B ¼ .08, p < .05), online news sites use public service broadcasting
(B ¼ .07, p < .05), and social media news use public service broadcasting (B ¼ .06, p
< .05) are all positive and significant. These results indicate that news use becomes
more strongly related to political knowledge when public service broadcasting is strong
in the market, while news use becomes more weakly linked to political knowledge when
public service broadcasting is weak in the market (Table 4).
Table 4
The Relationship between News Use and Political Knowledge with and without Cross-Level Interaction with the Indexes of Press Freedom and
Strong Public Broadcasting
Variables Political knowledge
Random effects SD
Intercept .19 .18 .19 .18 .17
TV news use .06 .06 .06 .06 .06
Newspaper use .12 .12 .11 .10 .10
Online news site use .09 .08 .08 .07 .07
Social media news use .07 .07 .06 .06 .06
Residual 1.05 1.03 1.02 1.02 1.02
Fixed effects B (SE)
Intercept .59 (.03)*** .59 (.03)*** .59 (.03)*** .59 (.03)*** .59 (.03)***
Age .01 (.00) .01 (.00) .01 (.00) .01 (.00) .01 (.00)
Gender (1 ¼ female) .35 (.06)*** .36 (.06)*** .35 (.05)*** .35 (.06)*** .33 (.05)***
Education .17 (.05)*** .14 (.04)** .15 (.04)** .14 (.04)** .14 (.04)**
Socio-economic status .11 (.03)* .10 (.03)* .10 (.03)* .10 (.03)* .10 (.03)*
Political interest .18 (.05)*** .18 (.05)*** .17 (.05)*** .18 (.05)*** .17 (.05)***
Political efficacy .19 (.04)*** .19 (.05)*** .18 (.04)*** .18 (.05)*** .18 (.04)***
Political talk .23 (.08)*** .23 (.07)*** .21 (.07)*** .21 (.07)*** .21 (.07)***
TV news use .12 (.01)* .11 (.01)* .12 (.01)* .11 (.01)* .12 (.01)*
Newspaper use .25 (.07)*** .25 (.07)*** .25 (.07)*** .24 (.07)*** .24 (.07)***
Online news site use .20 (.05)*** .19 (.05)*** .19 (.05)*** .19 (.05)*** .18 (.05)***
Social media news use .13 (.04)* .12 (.04)* .12 (.04)* .11 (.04)* .12 (.04)*
Press freedom .11 (.04)* .10 (.04)* .10 (.03)* .09 (.04)* .09 (.03)*
Public broadcasting market share .09 (.03)* .08 (.03)* .08 (.03)* .08 (.03)* .08 (.03)*
Continued
LEARNING ABOUT POLITICS FROM MASS MEDIA AND SOCIAL MEDIA
325
Notes. Strong press freedom: Estonia, Germany, Poland, Spain, UK, Japan, and New Zealand;
moderate press freedom: Italy; weak press freedom: Russia and Turkey. Strong public broadcast-
ing: Italy, Germany, Poland, UK, Japan, New Zealand, and Russia; moderate public broadcasting:
Estonia and Spain; weak public broadcasting: Turkey and US.
Discussion
Consistent with prior studies (e.g., Barabas & Jerit, 2009), the current study finds a
positive role of news use via television, newspapers, and online news sites in political
learning. Beyond previous studies, this study found that news use via social media
328 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PUBLIC OPINION RESEARCH
Figure 3
Cross-level interactions between newspaper news use and press freedom and between newspaper
use and public service broadcasting.
Acknowledgements
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Biographical Notes
Chang Sup Park, PhD, is an assistant professor at the Department of Communication
(Journalism Program), University at Albany, The State University of New York. His
336 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PUBLIC OPINION RESEARCH
research interests include journalistic implications of audience news activities via social/
mobile media and the role of digital media in citizen empowerment.
Homero Gil de Zú~ niga, PhD, serves as Distinguished Research Professor at
University of Salamanca where he directs the Democracy Research Unit (DRU), as