Pub Date : 2023-05-04DOI: 10.1080/10584609.2023.2173872
Karolina Koc-Michalska, U. Klinger, L. Bennett, Andrea Römmele
ABSTRACT With the advent of digital media and social media platforms, the speed of innovation and technology adoption in campaigns have increased tremendously. At the same time, the campaign environment and its rules are in constant flow, as platform logics, party operations, and voter alignments both reflect and create instability in many political systems. Additionally, disinformation, foreign interference in campaigns, hyper-partisan media ecologies, and hyperactive users have all created changes in opinion climates. In light of these developments, and building on the theoretical concept of increasingly disrupted and dissonant public spheres (developed by Barbara Pfetsch and Lance Bennett), this special issue seeks to expand research on campaigning beyond assumptions of well-functioning political systems, to better understand the erosion of institutional legitimacy and trust, and their effects on communication processes. The special issue is organized within two conceptual approaches. The first cluster of manuscripts observes how political candidates, organizations, and parties optimize their behaviour within the dissonant political environment. The second part examines responses, perceptions, and consequences of the disrupted environment on the public. Finally, four integrated forum essays look into how dissonant public spheres may disturb democratic processes, discuss the role of data-driven campaigning, and address how limited access to platform data affects our understanding of dissonant public spheres.
{"title":"(Digital) Campaigning in Dissonant Public Spheres","authors":"Karolina Koc-Michalska, U. Klinger, L. Bennett, Andrea Römmele","doi":"10.1080/10584609.2023.2173872","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2023.2173872","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT With the advent of digital media and social media platforms, the speed of innovation and technology adoption in campaigns have increased tremendously. At the same time, the campaign environment and its rules are in constant flow, as platform logics, party operations, and voter alignments both reflect and create instability in many political systems. Additionally, disinformation, foreign interference in campaigns, hyper-partisan media ecologies, and hyperactive users have all created changes in opinion climates. In light of these developments, and building on the theoretical concept of increasingly disrupted and dissonant public spheres (developed by Barbara Pfetsch and Lance Bennett), this special issue seeks to expand research on campaigning beyond assumptions of well-functioning political systems, to better understand the erosion of institutional legitimacy and trust, and their effects on communication processes. The special issue is organized within two conceptual approaches. The first cluster of manuscripts observes how political candidates, organizations, and parties optimize their behaviour within the dissonant political environment. The second part examines responses, perceptions, and consequences of the disrupted environment on the public. Finally, four integrated forum essays look into how dissonant public spheres may disturb democratic processes, discuss the role of data-driven campaigning, and address how limited access to platform data affects our understanding of dissonant public spheres.","PeriodicalId":20264,"journal":{"name":"Political Communication","volume":"40 1","pages":"255 - 262"},"PeriodicalIF":7.5,"publicationDate":"2023-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48648276","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-05-04DOI: 10.1080/10584609.2023.2207486
R. Gibson
Concern about whether contemporary societies face a “crisis of democracy” has grown in recent years (Kreisi, 2020). While the severity of the malaise may be disputed, there is growing suspicion that the increasing reliance of political actors on digital technology and particularly new “data driven” campaign techniques may be contributing to growth in citizen disengagement and discontent (Bennett & Lyon, 2019). The grounds for this claim are essentially three-fold. First, data-driven campaigns promote a more individualized form of political targeting that allows parties to narrow their appeals to the most persuadable and “perceived” sections of the electorate (Hersh, 2015), and thereby effectively bypass those harder to reach groups of under-mobilized voters, i.e. the young, the disinterested, and the marginalized. Furthermore, through these microtargeting techniques, campaigners can more accurately target demobilizing messages at opposition supporters to dissuade them from turning out. Second, social media platforms provide powerful new channels for the release of automated, anonymized, false information or “computational propaganda” by rogue actors, both foreign and domestic. These disinformation campaigns are explicitly designed to mislead and confuse voters and are escalating in scale and sophistication (Woolley & Howard, 2018). Finally, campaigns themselves are now increasingly reliant on the “wisdom” of AI and computer modeling for basic tasks such as resource allocation and message construction. This shift creates a new technological elite at the heart of campaigns that operate in an opaque and unaccountable manner (Tufekci, 2014). The combined impact of these developments is a further shrinking of the public sphere and decline in the representativeness and accountability of democratic institutions. Voters who do actually make it the polls face the increasingly difficult task of making an informed choice, as they struggle to discern both the accuracy and source of the political content they encounter online. Given the potentially serious harms that DDC presents to democracy, systematic investigation of its adoption and usage across countries is now a priority for academic research. This is precisely the goal of a new ERC funded project, Digital Campaigning and Electoral Democracy (DiCED). In this short essay we highlight in brief, the key questions the project will pursue and that we urge the wider literature to explore.
{"title":"Data-Driven Campaigning as a Disruptive Force","authors":"R. Gibson","doi":"10.1080/10584609.2023.2207486","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2023.2207486","url":null,"abstract":"Concern about whether contemporary societies face a “crisis of democracy” has grown in recent years (Kreisi, 2020). While the severity of the malaise may be disputed, there is growing suspicion that the increasing reliance of political actors on digital technology and particularly new “data driven” campaign techniques may be contributing to growth in citizen disengagement and discontent (Bennett & Lyon, 2019). The grounds for this claim are essentially three-fold. First, data-driven campaigns promote a more individualized form of political targeting that allows parties to narrow their appeals to the most persuadable and “perceived” sections of the electorate (Hersh, 2015), and thereby effectively bypass those harder to reach groups of under-mobilized voters, i.e. the young, the disinterested, and the marginalized. Furthermore, through these microtargeting techniques, campaigners can more accurately target demobilizing messages at opposition supporters to dissuade them from turning out. Second, social media platforms provide powerful new channels for the release of automated, anonymized, false information or “computational propaganda” by rogue actors, both foreign and domestic. These disinformation campaigns are explicitly designed to mislead and confuse voters and are escalating in scale and sophistication (Woolley & Howard, 2018). Finally, campaigns themselves are now increasingly reliant on the “wisdom” of AI and computer modeling for basic tasks such as resource allocation and message construction. This shift creates a new technological elite at the heart of campaigns that operate in an opaque and unaccountable manner (Tufekci, 2014). The combined impact of these developments is a further shrinking of the public sphere and decline in the representativeness and accountability of democratic institutions. Voters who do actually make it the polls face the increasingly difficult task of making an informed choice, as they struggle to discern both the accuracy and source of the political content they encounter online. Given the potentially serious harms that DDC presents to democracy, systematic investigation of its adoption and usage across countries is now a priority for academic research. This is precisely the goal of a new ERC funded project, Digital Campaigning and Electoral Democracy (DiCED). In this short essay we highlight in brief, the key questions the project will pursue and that we urge the wider literature to explore.","PeriodicalId":20264,"journal":{"name":"Political Communication","volume":"40 1","pages":"351 - 355"},"PeriodicalIF":7.5,"publicationDate":"2023-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45084690","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-05-04DOI: 10.1080/10584609.2023.2207488
Claes H. de Vreese, Rebekah Tromble
ABSTRACT This article articulates why the lack of social media platform data access for researchers is a huge problem, for research and society. We then review a number of ongoing initiatives and opportunities towards ensuring sustainable data accees.
{"title":"The Data Abyss: How Lack of Data Access Leaves Research and Society in the Dark","authors":"Claes H. de Vreese, Rebekah Tromble","doi":"10.1080/10584609.2023.2207488","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2023.2207488","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article articulates why the lack of social media platform data access for researchers is a huge problem, for research and society. We then review a number of ongoing initiatives and opportunities towards ensuring sustainable data accees.","PeriodicalId":20264,"journal":{"name":"Political Communication","volume":"40 1","pages":"356 - 360"},"PeriodicalIF":7.5,"publicationDate":"2023-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49128409","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-04-28DOI: 10.1080/10584609.2023.2208083
Kathleen Searles, Jessica T. Feezell
ABSTRACT Most major platforms and news portals use the feed approach to information display, which offers people the ability to engage in continuous scrolling. This affordance, “scrollability,” is an understudied feature that changes how people consume news. The endless scroll presents opportunities to monetize attention for advertisers, and a seemingly bottomless supply of headlines for news consumers. Moreover, more people report scrolling headlines than actually reading news stories. A scrollable technical environment creates circumstances that encourage headline reading, or what we call “news-scrolling,” and yet we know little about the consequences of scrollability for other behaviors. In this paper we set forth an argument for increased scholarly attention to scrollability in the context of online news consumption, and articulate a theoretical framework for explaining the behaviors of news-scrollers and news-clickers.
{"title":"Scrollability: A New Digital News Affordance","authors":"Kathleen Searles, Jessica T. Feezell","doi":"10.1080/10584609.2023.2208083","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2023.2208083","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Most major platforms and news portals use the feed approach to information display, which offers people the ability to engage in continuous scrolling. This affordance, “scrollability,” is an understudied feature that changes how people consume news. The endless scroll presents opportunities to monetize attention for advertisers, and a seemingly bottomless supply of headlines for news consumers. Moreover, more people report scrolling headlines than actually reading news stories. A scrollable technical environment creates circumstances that encourage headline reading, or what we call “news-scrolling,” and yet we know little about the consequences of scrollability for other behaviors. In this paper we set forth an argument for increased scholarly attention to scrollability in the context of online news consumption, and articulate a theoretical framework for explaining the behaviors of news-scrollers and news-clickers.","PeriodicalId":20264,"journal":{"name":"Political Communication","volume":"40 1","pages":"670 - 675"},"PeriodicalIF":7.5,"publicationDate":"2023-04-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41510585","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-04-27DOI: 10.1080/10584609.2023.2193554
B. Pfetsch
Political campaigns have always been closely related to the technical conditions of media infrastructures, the social conditions of voters, and the political opportunities within which parties and movements compete. As campaigning has developed through the four ages of political communication (Blumler, 2015; Norris, 2002), it is now shaped by the affordances of digital platforms and networked communication ecologies in addition to legacy media infrastructures. In the environment of hybrid media systems (Chadwick, 2013), campaigning has also become hybrid – a task divided between the use of conventional information subsidies and the dynamics of social media and digital platforms (Azari, 2016; Wells et al., 2016). What is more, contemporary political communications and voter mobilization are taking place under two significant context conditions: dissonant public spheres (Pfetsch, 2018) are coinciding with a profound crisis of liberal democracy (Bennett & Livingston, 2018). The communication ecology and the state of democracy have produced a style of campaigning that is no longer geared toward a consensus among the established political elites and parties to engage in civilized speech, to conduct fair competition, and to stay within the limits and norms of democracy. In this essay, I shall discuss some of the features and consequences of these contextual conditions. I shall further argue that the coincidence of disrupted democracy and dissonant public spheres is related to profound structural changes in the party organization, campaigning and political leadership.
{"title":"Conditions of Campaigning in Dissonant Public Spheres and Crisis of Democracy","authors":"B. Pfetsch","doi":"10.1080/10584609.2023.2193554","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2023.2193554","url":null,"abstract":"Political campaigns have always been closely related to the technical conditions of media infrastructures, the social conditions of voters, and the political opportunities within which parties and movements compete. As campaigning has developed through the four ages of political communication (Blumler, 2015; Norris, 2002), it is now shaped by the affordances of digital platforms and networked communication ecologies in addition to legacy media infrastructures. In the environment of hybrid media systems (Chadwick, 2013), campaigning has also become hybrid – a task divided between the use of conventional information subsidies and the dynamics of social media and digital platforms (Azari, 2016; Wells et al., 2016). What is more, contemporary political communications and voter mobilization are taking place under two significant context conditions: dissonant public spheres (Pfetsch, 2018) are coinciding with a profound crisis of liberal democracy (Bennett & Livingston, 2018). The communication ecology and the state of democracy have produced a style of campaigning that is no longer geared toward a consensus among the established political elites and parties to engage in civilized speech, to conduct fair competition, and to stay within the limits and norms of democracy. In this essay, I shall discuss some of the features and consequences of these contextual conditions. I shall further argue that the coincidence of disrupted democracy and dissonant public spheres is related to profound structural changes in the party organization, campaigning and political leadership.","PeriodicalId":20264,"journal":{"name":"Political Communication","volume":"40 1","pages":"346 - 350"},"PeriodicalIF":7.5,"publicationDate":"2023-04-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49123519","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-04-24DOI: 10.1080/10584609.2023.2201940
Sarah Nguyễn, Rachel E. Moran, Trung-Anh H. Nguyen, Linh Bui
ABSTRACT This paper joins a growing effort within mis/disinformation research to better address the transnational spread of misinformation and, in particular, the impact of political mis/disinformation on historically marginalized and immigrant communities. While misinformation spreads across cultural, sociolinguistic, and geo-political contexts, it impacts communities differently according to preexisting power structures and information resources. Through focus groups with Vietnamese Americans across two generations and several geographic locations, we explore the complexities of misinformation within one such immigrant community. Findings highlight how a prevalence of intergenerational divides in political information seeking, lasting historical and political traumas of immigration, and language barriers underpin the saliency and impact of misinformation for Vietnamese Americans. Further, we explore how misinformation impacts political engagement, highlighting the consequences of misinformation at a familial and community-level. This research highlights the need for researchers of misinformation to better attend to the inequities of informational access and the vulnerabilities of already marginalized communities as targets of problematic information and information disorder.
{"title":"“We Never Really Talked About politics”: Race and Ethnicity as Foundational Forces Structuring Information Disorder Within the Vietnamese Diaspora","authors":"Sarah Nguyễn, Rachel E. Moran, Trung-Anh H. Nguyen, Linh Bui","doi":"10.1080/10584609.2023.2201940","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2023.2201940","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This paper joins a growing effort within mis/disinformation research to better address the transnational spread of misinformation and, in particular, the impact of political mis/disinformation on historically marginalized and immigrant communities. While misinformation spreads across cultural, sociolinguistic, and geo-political contexts, it impacts communities differently according to preexisting power structures and information resources. Through focus groups with Vietnamese Americans across two generations and several geographic locations, we explore the complexities of misinformation within one such immigrant community. Findings highlight how a prevalence of intergenerational divides in political information seeking, lasting historical and political traumas of immigration, and language barriers underpin the saliency and impact of misinformation for Vietnamese Americans. Further, we explore how misinformation impacts political engagement, highlighting the consequences of misinformation at a familial and community-level. This research highlights the need for researchers of misinformation to better attend to the inequities of informational access and the vulnerabilities of already marginalized communities as targets of problematic information and information disorder.","PeriodicalId":20264,"journal":{"name":"Political Communication","volume":"40 1","pages":"415 - 439"},"PeriodicalIF":7.5,"publicationDate":"2023-04-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47901118","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-04-12DOI: 10.1080/10584609.2023.2196972
Marques G. Zárate
ABSTRACT When non-Hispanic candidates make an appeal in Spanish they are typically labeled as “Hispandering.” Some evidence has shown, however, that Hispanics have higher evaluations of candidates who make Spanish appeals, regardless of ethnicity. This paper explores how perceptions of pandering are formed among Hispanics. I expand the expectations gap literature by arguing that trait ownership and expectations are relevant for race. Given the expectation for a candidate’s ability to perform a certain appeal, perceptions of pandering will be conditioned on the candidate’s ability to exceed or fall short of those expectations. I test this idea with Spanish language appeals. I run an experiment where I randomly assign Hispanics to hear a message given by an Anglo or Hispanic candidate where the message is either in English or Spanish. I find support for the expectations gap theory. Anglo candidates, who are not expected to be able to speak Spanish can increase their perceived sincerity by speaking in grammatically correct Spanish. Meanwhile, Hispanic candidates who speak non-native-sounding Spanish have lower evaluations compared to their native-like or English-speaking counterparts. Given the low levels of political trust among Hispanics, I test the implications of perceived pandering on political trust. I run another experiment where I test whether perceiving that one politician panders has spillover effects for other candidates. I find that perceiving pandering decreases trust in that candidate but otherwise pandering had no spillover effect on other candidates’ political trust. These studies help illuminate the important dimensions of pandering perceptions.
{"title":"Dimensions of Pandering Perceptions Among Hispanic Americans and Their Effect on Political Trust","authors":"Marques G. Zárate","doi":"10.1080/10584609.2023.2196972","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2023.2196972","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT When non-Hispanic candidates make an appeal in Spanish they are typically labeled as “Hispandering.” Some evidence has shown, however, that Hispanics have higher evaluations of candidates who make Spanish appeals, regardless of ethnicity. This paper explores how perceptions of pandering are formed among Hispanics. I expand the expectations gap literature by arguing that trait ownership and expectations are relevant for race. Given the expectation for a candidate’s ability to perform a certain appeal, perceptions of pandering will be conditioned on the candidate’s ability to exceed or fall short of those expectations. I test this idea with Spanish language appeals. I run an experiment where I randomly assign Hispanics to hear a message given by an Anglo or Hispanic candidate where the message is either in English or Spanish. I find support for the expectations gap theory. Anglo candidates, who are not expected to be able to speak Spanish can increase their perceived sincerity by speaking in grammatically correct Spanish. Meanwhile, Hispanic candidates who speak non-native-sounding Spanish have lower evaluations compared to their native-like or English-speaking counterparts. Given the low levels of political trust among Hispanics, I test the implications of perceived pandering on political trust. I run another experiment where I test whether perceiving that one politician panders has spillover effects for other candidates. I find that perceiving pandering decreases trust in that candidate but otherwise pandering had no spillover effect on other candidates’ political trust. These studies help illuminate the important dimensions of pandering perceptions.","PeriodicalId":20264,"journal":{"name":"Political Communication","volume":"40 1","pages":"440 - 463"},"PeriodicalIF":7.5,"publicationDate":"2023-04-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47087097","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-04-10DOI: 10.1080/10584609.2023.2201184
Alvin Zhou, Wenlin Liu, A. Yang
We compare the social media discourses on COVID-19 vaccines constructed by U.S. politicians, medical experts, and government agencies, and investigate how various contextual factors influence the likelihood of government agencies politicizing the issue. Taking the political corpus and the medical corpus as two extremes, we propose a language-based definition of politicization of science and measure it on a continuous scale. By building a machine learning classifier that captures subtle linguistic indicators of politicization and applying it to two years of government agencies' Facebook posting history, we demonstrate that: 1) U.S. politicians heavily politicized COVID-19 vaccines, medical experts conveyed minimal politicization, and government agencies' discourse was a mix of the two, yet more closely resembled medical experts;' 2) increasing COVID-19 infection rates reduced government agencies' politicization tendencies;3) government agencies in Democratic-leaning states were more likely to politicize COVID-19 vaccines than those in Republican-leaning states;and 4) the degree of politicization did not significantly differ across agencies' jurisdiction levels. We discuss the conceptualization of politicization of science, the incumbency effect, and government communication as an emerging area for political communication research. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Political Communication is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)
{"title":"Politicization of Science in COVID-19 Vaccine Communication: Comparing US Politicians, Medical Experts, and Government Agencies","authors":"Alvin Zhou, Wenlin Liu, A. Yang","doi":"10.1080/10584609.2023.2201184","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2023.2201184","url":null,"abstract":"We compare the social media discourses on COVID-19 vaccines constructed by U.S. politicians, medical experts, and government agencies, and investigate how various contextual factors influence the likelihood of government agencies politicizing the issue. Taking the political corpus and the medical corpus as two extremes, we propose a language-based definition of politicization of science and measure it on a continuous scale. By building a machine learning classifier that captures subtle linguistic indicators of politicization and applying it to two years of government agencies' Facebook posting history, we demonstrate that: 1) U.S. politicians heavily politicized COVID-19 vaccines, medical experts conveyed minimal politicization, and government agencies' discourse was a mix of the two, yet more closely resembled medical experts;' 2) increasing COVID-19 infection rates reduced government agencies' politicization tendencies;3) government agencies in Democratic-leaning states were more likely to politicize COVID-19 vaccines than those in Republican-leaning states;and 4) the degree of politicization did not significantly differ across agencies' jurisdiction levels. We discuss the conceptualization of politicization of science, the incumbency effect, and government communication as an emerging area for political communication research. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Political Communication is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)","PeriodicalId":20264,"journal":{"name":"Political Communication","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":7.5,"publicationDate":"2023-04-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43153630","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-04-09DOI: 10.1080/10584609.2023.2200735
L. Muradova, Eileen Culloty, Jane Suiter
ABSTRACT As misperceptions undermine the factual basis for public debate, they pose a serious challenge to expert knowledge and the democratic legitimacy of public policy informed by expert evidence. In this paper, we theorize that in times of politicization and polarization of expertise, endorsement of expert information by a minipublic can serve to legitimize expert correction and render it more persuasive in the eyes of individuals. In developing our theoretical argument, we focus on the effect of a minipublic on individuals in the wider public – those who did not participate in such institutions. To test our theoretical predictions, we designed, pre-registered and fielded two experiments in the US (N = 2168) and one experiment in Ireland (N = 1125), during two different waves of COVID-19. The results show that minipublic endorsement significantly increases the uptake of expert information among (nonparticipating) citizens. Furthermore, when an expert correction explicitly asserts a scientific consensus, it is as effective as the minipublic endorsement. The findings have implications for the research on misperceptions, expertise and deliberative institutions.
{"title":"Misperceptions and Minipublics: Does Endorsement of Expert Information by a Minipublic Influence Misperceptions in the Wider Public?","authors":"L. Muradova, Eileen Culloty, Jane Suiter","doi":"10.1080/10584609.2023.2200735","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2023.2200735","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT As misperceptions undermine the factual basis for public debate, they pose a serious challenge to expert knowledge and the democratic legitimacy of public policy informed by expert evidence. In this paper, we theorize that in times of politicization and polarization of expertise, endorsement of expert information by a minipublic can serve to legitimize expert correction and render it more persuasive in the eyes of individuals. In developing our theoretical argument, we focus on the effect of a minipublic on individuals in the wider public – those who did not participate in such institutions. To test our theoretical predictions, we designed, pre-registered and fielded two experiments in the US (N = 2168) and one experiment in Ireland (N = 1125), during two different waves of COVID-19. The results show that minipublic endorsement significantly increases the uptake of expert information among (nonparticipating) citizens. Furthermore, when an expert correction explicitly asserts a scientific consensus, it is as effective as the minipublic endorsement. The findings have implications for the research on misperceptions, expertise and deliberative institutions.","PeriodicalId":20264,"journal":{"name":"Political Communication","volume":"40 1","pages":"555 - 575"},"PeriodicalIF":7.5,"publicationDate":"2023-04-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47925171","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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