Approaching the 2012 U.S. Presidential Election From a Diversity of Explanatory Principles

Abstract

The explanatory principles of understanding and consistency are used to detail the past, present, and future of individual-level political communication media effects research. It is argued that the field of political communication is at a crossroads, with preferences for a dominant explanatory principle shifting from understanding back to consistency. In addition to understanding and consistency, it is argued that political communication researchers need to begin introducing additional explanatory principles (e.g., hedonism) to the field for the generation of new lines of inquiry. A call for embracing a diversity of explanatory principles is offered, and the utility of such an approach is explored within the context of the 2012 U.S. presidential election.There is much debate at present over the future of empirical political communication research (see Bennett & Iyengar, 2008Holbert, Garrett, & Gleason, 2010). The rise of new technology, a substantial increase in access to a broad range of communication outlets, enhanced power placed in the hands of citizens to choose among these outlets, and a revisiting of what does and does not count as "political messages"

Agenda-Setting With Satire: How Political Satire Increased TTIP’s Saliency on the Public, Media, and Political Agenda

“…Bennett and Iyengar (2008, p. 709) have even explicitly discouraged further work of this nature, and they highlighted agenda-setting in particular: "The agenda-setting paradigm reflects the capacity of ideas to motor on, unimpeded by inconvenient realities to the contrary." The current article, instead, tests whether agenda-setting may still "serve as an appropriate basis for studying new political communication realities" (Holbert et al, 2013(Holbert et al, , p. 1675; concretely, the agenda-setting effect that political satire may have. Thereby, it demonstrates the added value of having a diverse palette of theories within one field: Consistency-driven theories, indisputably, are useful to explain political communication phenomena in a high-choice media environment, but the explanatory principles of understanding-driven theories will continue to help better comprehend the influence of political media.…”

“…setting theory expanded to a more diverse set of media outlets (e.g., cable news, news websites, blogs), a broader range of areas within the communications field (e.g., health or corporate communication, public relations) as well as outside of this field (e.g., economics, educational, or political science) (see McCombs, 2005). With the proliferation of media channels and the ongoing audience fragmentation, however, political communication scholars seem to have shifted focus from so-called understanding-driven theories (including agenda-setting; see Lippmann, 1922) to consistency-driven theories (e.g., partisan selective exposure; see Holbert, Weeks, & Esralew, 2013). Whereas understanding-driven theories explain media effects by citizens' psychological need to understand the world and to make sense of their environment, consistency-driven theories are primarily the outcome of people's motivation to solve incongruence between one's attitudes and their behaviors as to reduce the tension that cognitive dissonance may cause (Pavitt, 2010).…”

Why Do People (Sometimes) Become Selective About News? The Role of Emotions and Partisan Differences in Selective Approach and Avoidance

“…These findings are largely consistent with the claim that specific emotional states may further activate a person's desire to accurately perceive and evaluate relevant information, irrespective of its congeniality with an existing attitude. In sum, established theoretical perspectives and recent empirical evidenceincluding the evidence reported herein-suggest that people's desire for "understanding" (Holbert et al, 2013; also see Holbert et al, 2010) is also an important foundation of selective exposure phenomena vis-à-vis consistency-based explanations.…”

“…To date, the dominant stream of thought in the literature has been driven by what can be called a "consistency-based" principle (Holbert et al, 2013;Pavitt, 2010 A c c e p t e d M a n u s c r i p t attitudinal news programs (e.g., Bennett & Iyengar, 2008). With the recent proliferation of partisan media that fosters easy self-selection and avoidance (Iyengar & Hahn, 2009;Stroud, 2008), scholars have repeatedly expressed concerns about the potential of partisan selective exposure undermining the democratic ideal of a well-informed citizenry.…”

Do Search Algorithms Endanger Democracy? An Experimental Investigation of Algorithm Effects on Political Polarization

“…Existing evidence suggests that the pattern of individuals' information seeking and consumption is more nuanced and multifaceted than assumed in the notion of selective exposure and homophily. People, in general, do not necessarily avoid counter-attitudinal information (Beam, 2014;Garrett et al, 2013), and further seek such information when they believe it helps them understand and be accurate on the situation at hand (Hart et al, 2009;Holbert et al, 2013;Kunda, 1990). In addition to the internal motivation toward accuracy and understanding, social endorsement trumps partisan selectivity in shaping individuals' choice of what information to consume (Messing & Westwood, 2014).…”