Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T18:39:36.963Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Gaffe Appeal A Field Experiment on Partisan Selective Exposure to Election Messages*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2015

Timothy J. Ryan  and
Ted Brader
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The possibility that citizens expose themselves to information in biased ways—so-called selective exposure—has acquired new importance as the media environment has evolved to provide more choices concerning what to watch and read. But evidence for the most prominent idea in selective exposure research—that citizens prefer attitude-consistent information—is notably mixed. Methodological challenges likely contribute to the inconclusive nature of findings, as researchers face trade-offs between the artificiality of lab environments and the difficult-to-disentangle confounds of observational analysis. We improve understanding of selective exposure in two ways. First, we consider how message aspects other than attitude-consistency affect exposure decisions. Second, we study selective exposure with an innovative field experiment conducted in the United States that addresses limitations of other approaches. Our results allow us to reach more confident conclusions about the prevalence of motivated selective exposure, and help to illuminate underpinnings of the oft-lamented tendency for campaign media to focus on candidate miscues rather than substantive policy differences.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Political Science Research and Methods , Volume 5 , Issue 4 , October 2017 , pp. 667 - 687
Copyright
© The European Political Science Association 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

Timothy J. Ryan is an Assistant Professor of Political Science, Department of Political Science, 361 Hamilton Hall, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3265 ([email protected]). Ted Brader is a Professor of Political Science, Department of Political Science, 5700 Haven Hall, University of Michigan, 505 S. State St., Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1045 ([email protected]). We are thankful to David Broockman and Donald Green for comments on an earlier draft, though errors are our own. To view supplementary material for this article, please visit http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2015.62

References

Aldrich, John H., Gronke, Paul, and Grynaviski, Jeff. 1999. ‘Policy, Personality, and Presidential Performance’. Paper presented at the 1999 Midwest Political Science Association Meeting, Chicago, IL, 15–18 April.Google Scholar
Arceneaux, Kevin, and Johnson, Martin. 2013. Changing Minds or Changing Channels? Partisan News in an Age of Choice. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Barberá, Pablo N.d. ‘How Social Media Reduces Mass Political Polarization: Evidence from Germany, Spain, and the U.S’, Unpublished manuscript, New York University, New York, NY.Google Scholar
Baum, Matthew A. 2002. ‘Sex, Lies, and War: How Soft News Brings Foreign Policy to the Inattentive Public’. American Political Science Review 96(1):91–109.Google Scholar
Bennett, W. Lance, and Iyengar, Shanto. 2008. ‘A New Era of Minimal Effects? The Changing Foundations of Political Communication’. Journal of Communication 58(4):707–731.Google Scholar
Broockman, David E., and Green, Donald P.. 2014. ‘Do Online Advertisements Increase Political Candidates’ Name Recognition or Favorability? Evidence From Randomized Field Experiments’. Political Behavior 36:263–289.Google Scholar
Bullock, John G., Gerber, Alan S., Hill, Seth J., and Huber, Gregory A. 2013. ‘Partisan Bias in Factual Beliefs About Politics’. Working Paper. Available at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2272939, accessed 20 December 2013.Google Scholar
Campbell, Angus, Converse, Philip E., Miller, Warren E., and Stokes, Donald E.. 1960. The American Voter. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Cappella, Joseph, and Jamieson, Kathleen H.. 1997. Spiral of Cynicism. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Chaffee, Steven H., and Metzger, Miriam J.. 2001. ‘The End of Mass Communication?’. Mass Communication & Society 4(4):365–379.Google Scholar
Chay, Kenneth Y., and Powell, James L.. 2001. ‘Semiparametric Censored Regression Models’. The Journal of Economic Perspectives 15(4):29–42.Google Scholar
Combs, David J.Y., Powell, Caitlin A.J., Schurtz, David R., and Smith, Richard H.. 2009. ‘Politics, Schadenfreude, and Ingroup Identification: The Sometimes Happy Thing About a Poor Economy and Death’. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 45:635–646.Google Scholar
Converse, Philip E. 1962. ‘Information Flow and the Stability of Partisan Attitudes’. Public Opinion Quarterly 26(4):578–599.Google Scholar
De Boef, Suzanna, and Kellstedt, Paul M.. 2004. ‘The Political (and Economic) Origins of Consumer Confidence’. American Journal of Political Science 48(4):633–649.Google Scholar
Epstein, Jay E. 1973. News from Nowhere. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Feather, N.T., and Sherman, Rebecca. 2002. ‘Envy, Resentment, Schadenfreude, and Sympathy: Reactions to Deserved and Undeserved Achievement and Subsequent Failure’. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 28(7):953–961.Google Scholar
Festinger, Leon. 1957. A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Fiorina, Morris P. 1981. Retrospective Voting in American National Elections. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Fiorina, Morris P. 1990. ‘Information and Rationality in Elections’. In John Ferejohn and James Kuklinski (eds), Information and Democratic Processes, 329–342. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Freedman, David A. 2008. ‘On Regression Adjustments to Experimental Data’. Advances in Applied Mathematics 40(2):180–193.Google Scholar
Gadarian, Shana K., and Albertson, Bethany. 2014. ‘Anxiety, Immigration, and the Search for Information’. Political Psychology 35(2):133–164.Google Scholar
Gerber, Alan S., and Green, Donald P.. 2013. Field Experiments: Design, Analysis, and Interpretation. New York: W.W. Norton and Company.Google Scholar
Gerber, Alan S., and Huber, Gregory A.. 2010. ‘Partisanship, Political Control, and Economic Assessments’. American Journal of Political Science 54:153–173.Google Scholar
Graber, Doris A. 1988. Processing the News: How People Tame the Information Tide. New York: Longman.Google Scholar
Graber, Doris A. 1997. Mass Media and American Politics. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press.Google Scholar
Green, Donald P., Palmquist, Bradley, and Schickler, Eric. 2002. Partisan Hearts and Minds. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Green, Donald P., and Aronow, Peter. 2011. ‘Analyzing Experimental Data Using Regression: When is Bias a Practical Concern?’ Working Paper, Yale University, New Haven, CT.Google Scholar
Greene, William H. 1981. ‘On the Asymptotic Bias of the Ordinary Least Squares Estimator of the Tobit Model’. Econometrica: Journal of the Econometric Society 49(2):505–513.Google Scholar
Greene, William H. 2008. Econometric Analysis, 6th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.Google Scholar
Groeling, Timothy. 2010. When Parties Attack. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Groenendyk, Eric. 2013. Competing Motives in the Partisan Mind: How Loyalty and Responsiveness Shape Party Identification and Democracy. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Harmon-Jones, Eddie, and Mills, Judson. 1999. ‘An Introduction to Cognitive Dissonance Theory and an Overview of Current Perspectives on the Theory’. In Eddie Harmon-Jones and Judson Mills (ed.), Cognitive Dissonance: Progress on a Pivotal Theory in Social Psychology. 3–21. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.Google Scholar
Hart, William, Albarracín, Dolores, Eagly, Alice H., Brechan, Inge, Lindberg, Matthew J., and Merrill, Lisa. 2009. ‘Feeling Validated Versus Being Correct: A Meta-Analysis of Selective Exposure to Information’. Psychological Bulletin 135(4):555–588.Google Scholar
Healy, Andrew, and Lenz, Gabriel S.. 2013. ‘Substituting the End for the Whole: Why Voters Respond Primarily to the Election-Year Economy’. American Journal of Political Science 58(1):31–47.Google Scholar
Hetherington, Marc J. 1996. ‘The Media’s Role in Forming Voters’ National Economic Evaluations in 1992’. American Journal of Political Science 40(2):372–395.Google Scholar
Hibbs, Douglas R. 2000. ‘Bread and Peace Voting in U.S. Presidential Elections’. Public Choice 104:149–180.Google Scholar
Iyengar, Shanto, and Hahn, Kyu S.. 2009. ‘Red Media, Blue Media: Evidence of Ideological Selectivity in Media Use’. Journal of Communication 59(1):19–39.Google Scholar
Iyengar, Shanto, Hahn, Kyu S., Krosnick, Jon A., and Walker, John J.. 2008. ‘Selective Exposure to Campaign Communication: The Role of Anticipated Agreement and Issue Public Membership’. The Journal of Politics 70(1):186–200.Google Scholar
Iyengar, Shanto, Sood, Gaurav, and Lelkes, Yphtach. 2012. ‘Affect, Not Ideology: A Social Identity Perspective on Polarization’. Public Opinion Quarterly 76(3):405–431.Google Scholar
Katz, Elihu, and Lazarsfeld, Paul F.. 1955. Personal Influence. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Kiesler, Charles A. 1971. The Psychology of Commitment. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Kinder, Donald R. 1986. ‘Presidential Character Revisited’. In Richard R. Lau and David O. Sears (eds), Political Cognition: The Nineteenth Annual Carnegie Symposium on Cognition, 233–255. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Kinder, Donald R. 2003. ‘Communication and Politics in the Age of Information’. In David O. Sears, Leonie Huddy and Robert Jervis (eds), Oxford Handbook of Political Psychology, 357–393. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kinder, Donald R., and Roderick Kiewiet, D.. 1981. ‘Sociotropic Politics: The American Case’. British Journal of Political Science 11(2):129–161.Google Scholar
Kruglanski, Arie W., and Webster, Donna M.. 1996. ‘Motivated Closing of the Mind: “Seizing” and “Freezing”.’ Psychological Review 103(2):263–283.Google Scholar
Kunda, Ziva. 1990. ‘The Case for Motivated Reasoning’. Psychological Bulletin 108(3):480–498.Google Scholar
Kurzban, Robert, and Athena Aktipis, C.. 2007. ‘Modularity and the Social Mind: Are Psychologists Too Self-Ish?’. Personality and Social Psychology Review 11:131–149.Google Scholar
Krupnikov, Yanna. 2011. ‘When Does Negativity Demobilize? Tracing the Conditional Effect of Negative Campaigning on Voter Turnout’. American Journal of Political Science 55(4):797–813.Google Scholar
Lau, Richard, and Redlawsk, David. 2001. ‘Advantages and Disadvantages of Cognitive Heuristics in Political Decision Making’. American Journal of Political Science 45(4):951–971.Google Scholar
Lawrence, Eric, Sides, John, and Farrell, Henry. 2010. ‘Self-Segregation or Deliberation? Blog Readership, Participation, and Polarization in American Politics’. Perspectives on Politics 8(1):141–157.Google Scholar
Lazarsfeld, Paul F., Berelson, Bernard, and Gaudet, Hazel. 1948. The People’s Choice. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Levendusky, Matthew. 2009. The Partisan Sort. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Lin, Winston. 2013. ‘Agnostic Notes on Regression Adjustments to Experimental Data: Reexamining Freeman’s Critique’. Annals of Applied Statistics 7(1):295–318.Google Scholar
Lippmann, Walter. 1955. Essays in the Public Philosophy. New York: New American Library.Google Scholar
LoSciuto, Leonard A. 1972. ‘A National Inventory of Television Viewing Behavior’. In Eli A., Rubinstein, George A. Comstock and John P. Murray (eds), Television and Social Behavior. Televisions in Day-to-Day Life: Patterns of Use, 33–86. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
MacKuen, Michael, Erikson, Robert, and Stimson, James. 1992. ‘Peasants or Bankers? The American Electorate and the U.S. Economy’. American Political Science Review 86(3):597–611.Google Scholar
Mahapatra, Lisa. 2013. ‘The Economics of Prime Time: How Much Does it Cost to Place a 30 Second Ad in a Prime Time Weeknight Show?’ International Business Times, 14 October. Available at www.ibtimes.com, accessed May 25, 2014.Google Scholar
Mason, Lilliana. 2014. ‘I Disrespectfully Agree: The Differential Effects of Partisan Sorting on Social and Issue Polarization’. American Journal of Political Science 59(1):128–145.Google Scholar
Mercier, Hugo, and Sperber, Dan. 2011. ‘Why Do Humans Reason? Arguments for an Argumentative Theory’. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 34(1):57–74.Google Scholar
Mutz, Diana C. 2006. Hearing the Other Side: Deliberative Versus Participatory Democracy. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Mutz, Diana C., and Reeves, Byron. 2005. ‘The New Videomalaise: Effects of Televised Incivility on Political Trust’. American Political Science Review 99(1):1–15.Google Scholar
Neuman, W. Russell, Just, Marion R., and Crigler, Ann N.. 1992. Common Knowledge: News and the Construction of Political Meaning. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Nyhan, Brendan. 2014. ‘Scandal Potential: How Political Context and News Congestion Affect the President’s Vulnerability to Media Scandal’. British Journal of Political Science 45(2):435–466.Google Scholar
Parker-Stephen, Evan. 2013. ‘Tides of Disagreement: How Reality Facilitates (and Inhibits) Partisan Public Opinion’. Journal of Politics 75(4):1077–1088.Google Scholar
Patterson, Thomas E. 1994. Out of Order. New York: Vintage.Google Scholar
Patterson, Thomas E. 2000. ‘Doing Well and Doing Good: How Soft News and Critical Journalism Are Shrinking the News Audience and Weakening Democracy–And What News Outlets Can Do About It’. Faculty Research Working Paper Series No. RWP01-001, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
Patterson, Thomas E., and McClure, Robert D.. 1976. The Unseeing Eye: The Myth of Television Power in National Elections. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons.Google Scholar
Petty, Richard, and Cacioppo, John T.. 2011. Communication and Persuasion: Central and Peripheral Routes to Attitude Change. New York: Springer.Google Scholar
Popkin, Samuel L. 1994. The Reasoning Voter: Communication and Persuasion in Presidential Campaigns. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Portmann, John. 2000. When Bad Things Happen to Other People. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Prior, Markus. 2003. ‘Any Good News in Soft News? The Impact of Soft News Preference on Political Knowledge’. Political Communication 20(2):149–171.Google Scholar
Prior, Markus. 2005. ‘News vs. Entertainment: How Increasing Media Choice Widens Gaps in Political Knowledge and Turnout’. American Journal of Political Science 49(3):577–592.Google Scholar
Prior, Markus. 2007. Post-Broadcast Democracy: How Media Choice Increases Inequality in Political Involvement and Polarizes Elections. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Prior, Markus. 2013. ‘Media and Political Polarization’. Annual Review of Political Science 16:101–127.Google Scholar
Rahn, Wendy, Aldrich, John, Borgida, Eugene, and Sullivan, John. 1990. ‘A Social-Cognitive Model of Candidate Appraisal’. In John Ferejohn and James Kuklinski (eds), Information and Democratic Processes, 136–159. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Redlawsk, David P. 2002. ‘Hot Cognition or Cool Consideration? Testing the Effects of Motivated Reasoning on Political Decision Making’. The Journal of Politics 64(4):1021–1044.Google Scholar
Reinemann, Carsten, Stanyer, James, Scherr, Sebastian, and Legnante, Guido. 2012. ‘Hard and Soft News: A Review of Concepts, Operationalizations, and Key Findings’. Journalism 13(2):221–239.Google Scholar
Robinson, Michael J. 1976. ‘Public Affairs Television and the Growth of Political Malaise: The Case of the Selling of the Pentagon’. American Political Science Review 70(2):409–432.Google Scholar
Ryan, Timothy J. 2012. ‘What Makes Us Click? Demonstrating Incentives for Angry Discourse with Digital-Age Field Experiments’. The Journal of Politics 74(4):1138–1152.Google Scholar
Ryan, Timothy J., and Broockman, David E.. 2012. ‘Facebook: A New Frontier for Field Experiments’. Newsletter of the APSA Experimental Section 3(2):2–10.Google Scholar
Sabato, Larry J. 2000. Feeding Frenzy: Attack Journalism and American Politics. New York: Lanahan.Google Scholar
Sears, David O., and Freedman, Jonathan. 1967. ‘Selective Exposure to Information: A Critical Review’. The Public Opinion Quarterly 31(2):194–213.Google Scholar
Steele, Claude M. 1988. ‘The Psychology of Self-Affirmation: Sustaining the Integrity of the Self’. In Leonard Berkowitz (ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology. 261–302. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Stroud, Natalie Jomini. 2011. Niche News: The Politics of News Choice. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Stroud, Natalie Jomini, and Muddiman, Ashley. 2013. ‘Selective Exposure, Tolerance, and Satirical News’. International Journal of Public Opinion Research 25(3):271–290.Google Scholar
Taber, Charles, and Lodge, Milton. 2006. ‘Motivated Skepticism in the Evaluation of Political Beliefs’. American Journal of Political Science 50(3):755–769.Google Scholar
Valentino, Nicholas A., Banks, Antoine J., Hutchings, Vincent L., and Davis, Anne K.. 2009. ‘Selective Exposure in the Internet Age: The Interaction Between Anxiety and Information Utility’. Political Psychology 30(4):591–613.Google Scholar
van Dijk, Wilco, Ouwerkerk, Jaap, Goslinga, Sjoerd, and Nieweg, Myrke. 2005. ‘Deservingness and Schadenfreude’. Cognition and Emotion 19(6):933–939.Google Scholar
van Dijk, Wilco, Ouwerkerk, Jaap, and Goslinga, Sjoerd. 2009. ‘The Impact of Deservingness on Schadenfreude and Sympathy: Further Evidence’. The Journal of Social Psychology 149(3):390–392.Google Scholar
Vavreck, Lynn. 2009. The Message Matters: The Economy and Presidential Campaigns. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Verba, Sidney, Schlozman, Kay Lehman, and Brady, Henry E.. 1995. Voice and Equality. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Zaller, John. 1992. The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Ryan and Brader supplementary material

Ryan and Brader supplementary material 1

Download Ryan and Brader supplementary material(File)
File 89.9 KB
Supplementary material: PDF

Ryan and Brader supplementary material

Ryan and Brader supplementary material 2

Download Ryan and Brader supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 210.8 KB