A Healthy News Diet? Investigating the Effects of Individual News Diets on Political Participation Offline and Online

• In Event: The Virtuous Circle? The Nature of the Relationship Between Exposure to News and Political Engagement

Abstract

This article focuses on how citizens in a high-choice media environment can compose an individual media diet and its effects on political participation. More specifically we investigate (a) how people combine the use of offline and online media into personal news diets and (b) the effects of different news diets on both offline and online political participation. Based on a two-wave panel study (N = 2,747) covering the 2014 Swedish national election, the study identifies five media diets: minimalists, public news consumers, local news consumers, social media news consumers, popular online news consumers. Firstly, the results show that minimalists are less likely to participate in politics and secondly that there is a positive relationship between a social media news diet and both offline and online participation. The main results of this study thus suggest that the social network characteristics are more mobilizing than the immediate and interactive nature of more ‘traditional’ online news or a traditional offline news diet.

Authors

• Jesper Stromback, U of Gothenburg

• Kajsa Falasca

• Sanne Kruikemeier