Automatic Processes in Selective News Exposure Among Habitual Facebook Users in Taiwan

• In Event: What’s on Your Mind? Political Discussion and News Exposure on Facebook

Abstract

Eye tracking, physiological, and reaction time measures were applied together for the first time to investigate selective exposure to news in simulated social media news aggregator environments. The relationship of affectively charged, “hot cognition” responses to current public affairs issues in Taiwan were examined in combination with an experimental comparison of Facebook newsfeed pages with those of a fictitious news aggregator among Taiwanese college students with strong Facebook newsfeed habits. Selective exposure to news items congruent with pre-existing attitudes was evident from eye tracking when hot cognitions were present. The presence of hot cognitions, compared to their absence, shortened the latency of initial fixations and increased the total number of fixations on congruent news items when presented in a Facebook newsfeed environment, but the reverse was the case in a control condition that did not contain Facebook cues.

Authors

• Ching Chun Chen, National Defense U and National Chiao Tung U

• Chen-Chao Tao, National Chiao Tung U

• Mei-Tso Liu, National Chiao Tung U

• Robert Larose, National Chiao Tung University