Effects of Political Discussion and Media Source Diversity: Communication Mediation in the High Choice Media Environment

• In Event: Influences on Political Knowledge and Learning

Abstract

Considered as a form of discursive engagement, everyday political discussion is prevalent. During an election campaign, it may operate as a gateway of individuals’ using diverse media sources afforded by today’s high choice media environment. But the gateway may be open more widely for those with extreme ideological leanings. Analyzing the 2012 American National Election Survey (ANES) panel, this study estimated two parallel sets of mediated moderation models of political knowledge and campaign involvement with each of the two differently measured media source diversity as the focal predictor after stringent controls. Findings show that, media source diversity had unique positive effects on both knowledge and campaign involvement; political discussion functioned as a conduit of the effects of media source diversity. Individuals’ ideological extremity moderated the indirect effects of media source diversity. The results are generally comparable across the two media source diversity measures.

Authors

• Fangjing Tu, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Department of Communication Arts

• Zhongdang Pan, U of Wisconsin - Madison

• Xinle Jia, University of Wisconsin-Madison