Prey to Peers’ Postings: Mass Media Versus Blended Communication Impacts on Confirmation Bias, Attitude Change

• In Event: ICA Interactive Paper/Poster Session II
  In Interactive Poster Session: Political Communication Interactive Poster Session

Abstract

In light of concerns that dubious online postings influence political attitudes, this study tracked how incidental and selective exposure to messages in a blended interpersonal and mass communication (BIMC) context versus a mass-media (MM) context are selected and affect attitudes. Hypotheses were derived from motivated cognition and elaboration-likelihood models. In the BIMC context (community blog), participants preferred attitude-consistent messages; incidental exposure to message leads shifted attitudes in line with message stance but attitude impacts were weaker with longer selective exposure to the full-text message. In contrast, in the MM context (news site), attitude impacts were greater the longer participants read the full-text message. In both BIMC and MM contexts, attitudes shifted per both attitude-consistent and discrepant stances and held up one day after exposure.

Authors

• Daniel Jeffrey Sude, School of Communication - The Ohio State University

• Axel Westerwick, The Ohio State U

• Melissa J Robinson, The Ohio State U

• Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick, School of Communication - The Ohio State University