Niche News
Abstract
Fox News, MSNBC, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Rush Limbaugh Show, National Public Radio—a list of available political media sources could continue without any apparent end. This book investigates how people navigate these choices. It asks whether people are using media sources that express political views matching their own, a behavior known as partisan selective exposure. By looking at newspaper, cable news, news magazine, talk radio, and political website use, this book offers a look to-date at the extent to which partisanship influences our media selections. Using data from numerous surveys and experiments, the results provide broad evidence about the connection between partisanship and news choices. This book also examines who seeks out likeminded media and why they do it. Perceptions of partisan biases in the media vary—sources that seem quite biased to some don't seem so biased to others. These perceptual differences provide insight into why some people select politically likeminded media—a phenomenon that is democratically consequential. On one hand, citizens may become increasingly divided from using media that coheres with their political beliefs. In this way, partisan selective exposure may result in a more fragmented and polarized public. On the other hand, partisan selective exposure may encourage participation and understanding. Likeminded partisan information may inspire citizens to participate in politics and help them to organize their poli…
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Selectively seeking out messages that reinforce one's worldview provides cognitive equanimity and social consensus that reassures the individual that the foundation of political reality is real, meaningful, and true.
“Selectively seeking out messages that reinforce one's view of the world (e.g., Stroud, 2011) provides cognitive equanimity, offering the social consensus which reassures the individual that the ultimately-tenuous foundation on which political reality is based is real, meaningful, and true.”
From An Integrative Terror Management Theory Perspective on Media Effects: A Model and 12 Hypotheses for Research (2016) · cites this paper as Stroud, 2011
The directional (or defensive) motivation leads to selective exposure, encouraging individuals to seek information or news sources congenial to their existing attitudes.
“The directional (or defensive) motivation leads to selective exposure, encouraging individuals to seek information (or news sources) that they believe is congenial to their existing attitudes (Iyengar & Hahn, 2009;Stroud, 2011).”
From Do Search Algorithms Endanger Democracy? An Experimental Investigation of Algorithm Effects on Political Polarization (2020) · cites this paper as Stroud, 2011
Although people do not necessarily avoid attitude-discrepant messages, attitude-consistent messages that resonate with them and confirm their desired conclusions are more likely to be preferred.
“Although people do not necessarily avoid attitude-discrepant messages (Ahn et al., 2014;Beam, 2014;Garrett et al., 2013), it is more likely that attitude-consistent messages that resonate with them and confirm their desired conclusions are preferred (Feldman et al., 2018;Gentzkow & Shapiro, 2011;Stroud, 2011).”
From Do Search Algorithms Endanger Democracy? An Experimental Investigation of Algorithm Effects on Political Polarization (2020) · cites this paper as Stroud, 2011
A general conclusion of past research on selective exposure is that exposure to confirmatory information strengthens existing opinions.
“A general conclusion of past research on selective exposure is that exposure to confirmatory information strengthens existing opinions (Stroud, 2011;Sunstein, 2001;Tewksbury & Riles, 2015).”
From Do Search Algorithms Endanger Democracy? An Experimental Investigation of Algorithm Effects on Political Polarization (2020) · cites this paper as Stroud, 2011
The real-world media consumption choices reflect a mix of information acquisition, desire for congenial information and interest in non-political material available from these media sources.
“While we refer to this real-world browsing data, at times, as a measure of information search, we note here these real-world media consumption choices reflect a mix of information acquisition, desire for congenial information and interest in the non-political material available from these media sources (see e.g., Stroud, 2011).”
From Partisan Gaps in Political Information and Information-Seeking Behavior: Motivated Reasoning or Cheerleading? (2019) · cites this paper as Stroud, 2011
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Cited by 950
- Authors
- Stroud, N. J.
- Corresponding author
- Stroud, Natalie Jomini
- Venue
- Oxford University Press eBooks
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press
- Published
- 2011-05-09
- OpenAlex
- W4249887204
- Cited by
- 950
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 98 · 2025: 76 · 2024: 65 · 2023: 49 · 2022: 53 · 2021: 58 · 2020: 142 · 2019: 55 · 2018: 80 · 2017: 70 · 2016: 54 · 2015: 53 · 2014: 44 · 2013: 30 · 2012: 18
- FWCI
- 38.71
- Type
- book
- Language
- de
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Oxford University Press eBooks (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Media Influence and Politics
- Social Sciences › Communication › Media Studies and Communication
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Electoral Systems and Political Participation
- Keywords
- partisanship, news source selection, media selection, political polarization, media bias perception, cable news, radio talk shows, news magazines, political websites, political participation
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