Magdalena Wojcieszak

Online versus face-to-face deliberation: Who? Why? What? With what effects?

Although there has been much speculation regarding the strengths and weaknesses of face-to-face versus online deliberative settings, no studies have systematically compared the two. Drawing on a national sample of Americans who reported deliberating face-to-face and/or online, we examine these two deliberative settings with regard to the participants, the motivations, the process, and the effects. Our findings, although tentative, suggest that the two settings are distinct in several important ways. Relative to face-to-face deliberation, online deliberation over-represents young, male, and white users, attracts more ideological moderates, generates more negative emotions, and is less likely to result in consensus and political action. At the same time, online deliberators perceived online settings as more politically and racially diverse. Implications for understanding the democratic potential of different forms of deliberation are discussed.

‘Don’t talk to me’: effects of ideologically homogeneous online groups and politically dissimilar offline ties on extremism

This study analyzes cross-sectional data obtained from respondents in neo-Nazi online discussion forums and textual data from postings to these forums. It assesses the impact of participation in radical and homogeneous online groups on opinion extremism and probes whether this impact depends on political dissimilarity of strong and weak offline ties. Specifically, does dissimilarity attenuate (as deliberative theorists hope) or rather exacerbate (as research on biased processing predicts) extreme opinions? As expected, extremism increases with increased online participation, likely due to the informational and normative influences operating within online groups. Supporting the deliberative and biased processing models, both like-minded and dissimilar social ties offline exacerbate extremism. Consistent with the biased processing model, dissimilar offline ties exacerbate the effects of online groups. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Will politics be tweeted? New media use by Iranian youth in 2011

The uprisings after the 2009 elections in Iran generated debate on new media’s potential to affect dissent in authoritarian countries. We surveyed 2800 young, educated, metropolitan, and technologically savvy Iranians over a year after the election and during the uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa to examine what sources these youth use for information, the extent to which they rely on new media for political exchanges, their experiences with online censorship, and political efficacy as related to new media. Although the Internet was stated as the most important news outlet, state-controlled television was often used, and Twitter was the least prevalent new media platform. Personal issues and IT/science were more often discussed via new media than politics. Further, it was using new media, not talking politics online, that predicted the frequency with which respondents encountered blocked websites online and also perceptions of their ownpolitical efficacy. Although our findings may support voices that are skeptical about technology’s ability to sustain revolution, we also identify what can be described as hubs of politicized Iranian youth.

Don't expect too much! learning from late-night comedy and knowledge item difficulty

The debate on late night comedy has been inconclusive, with some scholars arguing that this genre increases political knowledge, and others seeing late night comedy as harmful to effective citizenry. We add to the debate and to the research on media effects more generally, by proposing a model that measures political knowledge. The model utilizes item response theory (IRT) to account for individual characteristics, knowledge item difficulty, and response format that influences the likelihood of providing a correct response. Drawing on the 2004 National Annenberg Election Study, we employ this model to test knowledge gain from late night comedy. Using a meta-analysis across 35 political knowledge items, we show that late night comedy increases knowledge, but primarily on easy political items that have fewer correct response options, and mainly among the inattentive citizens. We discuss theoretical implications and provide practical suggestions for scholarship on media effects.

Correlates of Party, Ideology and Issue Based Extremity in an era of Egocentric Publics

We extend the study of political extremity to an evolving media landscape. We differentiate between political and non-political uses of both “traditional” and “new” media, and situate political extremity within a new conceptualization of public– egocentric publics –a meso-level phenomenon enabled by new communication technologies that overcomes the traditional dichotomy of small groups and mass publics. Testing the relationship between information, expression, and extremity in Colombia, a sociopolitical context with high levels of polarization and distrust, we find that traditional media use is mostly unrelated to the tested forms of extremity: party-, ideology-, or issue-based. In turn, expressive Internet use is related to extremity and—contrary to what some commentators have feared—this relationship is negative. Lower extremity associated with online expression is consistent with the notion of egocentric publics advanced in this article. The results underscore the importance of differentiating between various media formats in political communication research, reveal the media correlates of various forms of extremity can take, and provide evidence that the emerging publics made possible by new media are not necessarily polarizing.

Participation, Representation and Expertise: Citizen Preferences for Political Decision-Making Processes

In this article, it is shown that citizen process preferences are complex and include several dimensions. The argument relies on data from a representative sample of Spanish citizens (N = 2,450) to assess these dimensions. Using confirmatory factor analysis as well as Mokken analysis, it is shown that citizen process preferences capture support for three different models: participatory, representative and expert-based. The relationships between these dimensions (where the opposition between representation and participation stands as the clearest result) and the substantive and methodological implications of these findings are discussed.

Al Jazeera A Challenge to the Traditional Framing Research

This article examines framing research and the challenges posed to this model by al Jazeera. The study argues that traditional framing scholarship might not be applicable to analyzing al Jazeera and other satellite channels because it presumes the impact of political elites on the framing process, conceives of the media as hegemonic, is idiosyncratic to the American media and power arrangements, and does not account for new information communication technologies. Al Jazeera, on the other hand, is a satellite channel relatively autonomous from domestic media regulations and national power structures, originated in the continuously evolving media landscape and sociopolitical context of the Middle East, and has been considered a counter-hegemonic force in the Arab world that challenges its dominant social discourse and the existing political order.

Assessing Selective Exposure in Experiments: The Implications of Different Methodological Choices

Selective exposure has been studied for more than half a century, but little research has systematically analyzed the implications of various methodological choices inherent in these designs. We examine how four choices affect results in studies of selectivity in political contexts: including an entertainment option, including or excluding moderates, post-hoc adjustment of the subjects through a question about likelihood of selecting content in the real world, and assessing selectivity on the basis of issue attitudes or political ideology. Relying on a large experimental survey (N = 2,300), we compare the effects of these choices on two results: probability of selective exposure to like-minded political news and predictors of selective exposure (attitude strength, political interest, knowledge, and participation). Our findings show that probability estimates and, to a lesser extent, predictors of selective exposure are sensitive to methodological choices. These findings provide guidance about how methodological choices may affect researchers’ assessments and conclusions.

Computer-Mediated False Consensus: Radical Online Groups, Social Networks and News Media

This study draws on survey data obtained from members in neo-Nazi discussion forums and builds on evidence that participation in these forums exacerbates false consensus, that is, overestimating public support for own views. This study goes further to test whether contacts with dissimilar offline social networks as well as exposure to ideologically dissimilar news media attenuate false consensus and its association with online participation. Contrary to predictions, politically dissimilar networks do not reduce false consensus among the analyzed sample. Exposure to ideologically dissimilar news media, on the other hand, results in more accurate estimates (main effect), but it exacerbates false consensus as resulting from participation in neo-Nazi online groups (interactive effect). Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Partisan News and Political Participation: Exploring Mediated Relationships

This study examines mediators of the relationship between news consumption and political participation in the contemporary news environment. We test the differential effects exerted by pro- and counter-attitudinal news compared with balanced news on intended participation. Our primary objective is to model three paths that may link news exposure and participation: cognitive (i.e., perceived issue understanding), affective (i.e., emotions evoked by a news story), and attitudinal (i.e., attitude strength). We compare these paths across four issues, testing which is strongest. Relying on a large survey-based experiment on a representative sample of the American population (N = 2,300), we find that pro-attitudinal exposure increases intended participation relative to balanced news exposure, while the effects of counter-attitudinal news do not differ from those exerted by balanced news. Issue understanding, anger, positive emotions, and attitude strength all mediate the relationship between pro-attitudinal exposure and intended participation, with the route via attitude strength being strongest. These effects do not depend on whether exposure is self-selected or experimentally assigned.