Determinants of Political Knowledge: The Effects of the Media on Knowledge and Information

Elo, Kimmo; Rapeli, Lauri

doi:10.1080/17457280903450799

Cited by 21 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Although the data provides a unique opportunity to compare similar knowledge of three levels of politics with a nationally representative sample, a single-country analysis always raises concerns over the applicability of the results. The analysis by Elo and Rapeli (2010) of the individuallevel determinants of political knowledge in Finland shows considerable similarity with findings from elsewhere. Although education was not a particularly strong predictor, male gender, age and political participation, especially voting, were all positively connected to political knowledge.…”

Section: Data and Variablessupporting

confidence: 68%

“…In addition to the already mentioned gender, the usual demographic and socioeconomic control variables are included in the analysis. Age (e.g., Delli Carpini & Keeter ; Tranter ; Fraile ) and education (e.g., Bennett ; Delli Carpini & Keeter ; Jerit et al ; Elo & Rapeli ) are well‐documented predictors of political knowledge – both of which seem to have a positive relationship with knowledge. As recommended by Smets and van Ham (, 356) in regard to the usual suspects of turnout, both age and age squared are included in the analysis to account for possible linear and non‐linear effect.…”

Section: Data and Variablesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Comparing Local, National and EU Knowledge: The Ignorant Public Reassessed

Rapeli

2014

Scand Pol Stud

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Empirical research has repeatedly confirmed the political ignorance of ordinary citizens, but democracy prevails. This article offers a new perspective into this paradox by arguing that typical political knowledge indicators are inadequate because they only measure national‐level knowledge. The study makes two contributions. First, it compares national, local and European Union political knowledge. Second, it does so with a nationally representative dataset, which comes from a survey from Finland (n = 1,020) devoted solely to political knowledge. Two questions are posed: Are the sociodemographic determinants of knowledge the same on all levels of politics? And is public ignorance equally widespread on all levels? Challenging some established findings, the study shows that people in rural communities know more about local politics than urban counterparts, that women know more about local politics than men and that young people are equally knowledgeable about the EU as older people. The results thus indicate that people are to varying extents knowledgeable about varying aspects of politics.

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Section: Data and Variablessupporting

confidence: 68%

Section: Data and Variablesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparing Local, National and EU Knowledge: The Ignorant Public Reassessed

Rapeli

2014

Scand Pol Stud

Self Cite

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“…Nevertheless, the information transmitted in primary and secondary schools does not relate uniformly to subjects in the temporal-topical space. Indeed, Delli Carpini and Keeter (1996, 190) observe that schools “teach particular aspects of politics, most notably the institutions and processes of government.” It is noteworthy that although dozens of studies have documented the association between education and political knowledge, the empirical analyses often focus on questions at the top of Figure 1's vertical dimension—namely, items measuring general political knowledge (e.g., Bennett 1988, 1989; Bennett and Bennett 1993; Elo and Rapeli 2010; Lambert et al 1988; Mondak 2000). There is emerging evidence that education is associated with greater levels of policy-specific knowledge (e.g., Jerit, Barabas, and Bolsen 2006 or Barabas and Jerit 2009), but the evidentiary basis for this claim is sparse.…”

Section: Revisiting What We Know About Political Knowledgementioning

confidence: 99%

The Question(s) of Political Knowledge

et al. 2014

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Political knowledge is a central concept in the study of public opinion and political behavior. Yet what the field collectively believes about this construct is based on dozens of studies using different indicators of knowledge. We identify two theoretically relevant dimensions: atemporaldimension that corresponds to the time when a fact was established and atopicaldimension that relates to whether the fact is policy-specific or general. The resulting typology yields four types of knowledge questions. In an analysis of more than 300 knowledge items from late in the first decade of the 2000s, we examine whether classic findings regarding the predictors of knowledge withstand differences across types of questions. In the case of education and the mass media, the mechanisms for becoming informed operate differently across question types. However, differences in the levels of knowledge between men and women are robust, reinforcing the importance of including gender-relevant items in knowledge batteries.

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“…Comparable to theorizing in social psychology and survey methodology, research in political decision making has shown that a voters’ degree of political sophistication affects the way he or she processes and organizes political information (e.g., [ 34 ]), and the susceptibility to contextual factors (e.g., [ 35 ]). Political sophistication is related to political interest (which is connected to general interest often measured in the attitude strength literature, but is also known to be strongly related to levels of political knowledge, e.g., [ 36 ], [ 37 ]) as well as to education (found to moderate the forbid/allow asymmetry in [ 33 ]). Furthermore, political sophistication is relevant in this context of political VAA statements.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Positive vs. Negative: The Impact of Question Polarity in Voting Advice Applications

et al. 2016

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Online Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) are survey-like instruments that help citizens to shape their political preferences and compare them with those of political parties. Especially in multi-party democracies, their increasing popularity indicates that VAAs play an important role in opinion formation for citizens, as well as in the public debate prior to elections. Hence, the objectivity and transparency of VAAs are crucial. In the design of VAAs, many choices have to be made. Extant research in survey methodology shows that the seemingly arbitrary choice to word questions positively (e.g., ‘The city council should allow cars into the city centre’) or negatively (‘The city council should ban cars from the city centre’) systematically affects the answers. This asymmetry in answers is in line with work on negativity bias in other areas of linguistics and psychology. Building on these findings, this study investigated whether question polarity also affects the answers to VAA statements. In a field experiment (N = 31,112) during the Dutch municipal elections we analysed the effects of polarity for 16 out of 30 VAA statements with a large variety of linguistic contrasts. Analyses show a significant effect of question wording for questions containing a wide range of implicit negations (such as ‘forbid’ vs. ‘allow’), as well as for questions with explicit negations (e.g., ‘not’). These effects of question polarity are found especially for VAA users with lower levels of political sophistication. As these citizens are an important target group for Voting Advice Applications, this stresses the need for VAA builders to be sensitive to wording choices when designing VAAs. This study is the first to show such consistent wording effects not only for political attitude questions with implicit negations in VAAs, but also for political questions containing explicit negations.

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Determinants of Political Knowledge: The Effects of the Media on Knowledge and Information

Cited by 21 publications

References 18 publications

Comparing Local, National and EU Knowledge: The Ignorant Public Reassessed

Comparing Local, National and EU Knowledge: The Ignorant Public Reassessed

The Question(s) of Political Knowledge

Positive vs. Negative: The Impact of Question Polarity in Voting Advice Applications

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