How App Are People to Use Smartphones, Search Engines, and Social Media for News?: Examining Information Acquisition Tools and Their Influence on Political Knowledge and Voting

Stephens, Maegan; Yoo, Joseph; Mourão, Rachel R.; Vu, Hong Tien; Baresch, Brian; Johnson, Thomas J.

doi:10.1080/19331681.2014.951137

Cited by 12 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…The researcher also found that mobile election news use was the strongest predictor of electoral participation, indicating that mobile devices facilitate political engagement. In a similar vein, by analysing survey responses from 800 registered voters, Stephens et al [27] found a significantly positive correlation between news app use and voting. At the same time, several studies highlighted an increased use of social media in consuming election news.…”

Section: Related Studiesmentioning

confidence: 96%

University students’ mobile news consumption activities and evaluative/affective reactions to political news during election campaigns: A diary study

Tang

2019

Journal of Information Science

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Smartphones have now become routinely used tools for people’s everyday life news consumption. This article presents a diary study involving 49 university students in the United States documenting their process of consuming political news via smartphones. Participants reported the information about the news and used 23 pairs of semantic differential scales to evaluate and express their affective reactions to the news. Among 176 political news items submitted, the highest proportion was election news. Significant demographic differences were found in participants’ choices of semantic adjectives. Differences were also found in proportions of election and non-election news submitted. A higher proportion of election news was marked as ‘light’, ‘stale’, ‘shallow’, ‘worthless’, ‘dishonest’ and ‘harmful’ than those labelled for non-election news. Findings provide valuable insights into university students’ political news mobile consumption activities and their assessment and sentiment surrounding election news and general political news during the 2016 US Presidential election campaign.

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Section: Related Studiesmentioning

confidence: 96%

University students’ mobile news consumption activities and evaluative/affective reactions to political news during election campaigns: A diary study

Tang

2019

Journal of Information Science

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“…Apps are recognized as effective tools for disseminating political information, persuading constituents, mobilizing citizens, and piquing political interest (Stephens et al, 2014) and have been linked to political participation, particularly online (Gil de Zúñiga et al, 2017;Yamamoto & Nah, 2018;Yoo et al, 2015). Still, the relationship between mobile app reliance and political attitudes and political participation warrants further study; therefore, this study next asks the following questions:…”

Section: Political Characteristics and Political Activities Of App Usersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Studies of app users mainly focus on individuals who turn to apps for general information or who turn to apps for news of all types (e.g., Stephens et al, 2014; Van Damme et al, 2015), but there is still much to learn about those who rely on apps specifically for political information. This study first sets out to provide a demographic profile of users who turn to apps for political information and focuses on differences between those who rely heavily on apps and those who rarely or never do so. Research Question 1 : How do demographic characteristics of users who rely heavily on apps for political information compare to light reliant users? …”

Section: Demographic Characteristics Of News App Usersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Smartphones and tablets are powered by applications (apps), which are computer software programs especially designed to make websites readable on a small screen. An app is neither a medium nor a content provider but rather an information acquisition tool (Stephens et al, 2014) that is packaged as a sleek and easy way to access and interact with digital content. Although apps are not needed to access the web, they heighten the interactive experience of a touch screen.…”

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confidence: 99%

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An APPetite for APPs: A Comparison of Heavily Reliant and Light Reliant App Users on Political Activity and Media Reliance

Kaye

Johnson

2018

Social Science Computer Review

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The ubiquity of mobile devices and the apps that power them has spurred concerns that they are contributing to the decline in news media use. Mobile devices, however, have been credited with spurring political participation. In its examination of app-reliant individuals, this study found that reliance on apps positively predicts political participation, and respondents who rely heavily on mobile apps for political information are more politically active than light app users on six of the seven measures of nononline participation and three of the six measures of online political activity. Heavy-reliant users also rely more heavily on all six online-only media tested than light app users and rely more heavily on broadcast television news, CNN, and news magazines. Data were collected from October 31, 2016, through November 2, 2016, from 644 respondents of a national online panel.

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“…Social media are internet-based tools that allow for the free exchange of ideas and content, which transcend the boundaries of geography, analogous to the changes experienced by science as a whole. Social media provide ease of access to people and information, foster transparency of information [ 3 ], and have shifted the way in which people gather information [ 4 , 5 ]. Social networking sites are currently used by 74 % of the adults who have internet access in the United States [ 6 ] with the majority of users of a younger age range: 89 % of 18–29 year-olds who use the internet are on social networking sites, followed by 82 % of 30–49 year-olds, 65 % of 50–64 year olds, and 49 % of those 65 and older.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A guide for using social media in environmental science and a case study by the Students of SETAC

et al. 2015

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BackgroundIn the past few years, the use of social media has gradually become an important part of our daily lives. While some might see this as a threat to our productivity or as a source of procrastination, social media as a whole have unquestionably changed the way in which information and knowledge disseminate in our society.Social media guideThis article is meant to serve as a guide for scientists who would like to establish their online presence and includes an outline of the benefits of using social media as well as strategies for establishing and improving your presence in social media. Environmental scientists in particular can benefit enormously from this approach, since this field of science deals with topics that directly impact our daily lives.Case studyTo highlight these approaches for our fellow scientists in the field of environmental science and toxicology and in order to better engage with our own peers, we describe the outreach methods used by the student advisory councils of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) and how we have worked towards an improved social media presence. In this article we present our initiatives to increase social media usage and engagement within SETAC. This includes joint social media accounts organized by the SETAC student advisory councils from various SETAC geographical units. We also led a course on social media usage at the SETAC Nashville meeting in 2013 and are currently developing other outreach platforms, including high school student-oriented science education blogs.ConclusionThe Students of SETAC will continue to increase communication with and among SETAC students on a global level and promote the use of social media to communicate science to a wide variety of audiences.

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How App Are People to Use Smartphones, Search Engines, and Social Media for News?: Examining Information Acquisition Tools and Their Influence on Political Knowledge and Voting

Cited by 12 publications

References 45 publications

University students’ mobile news consumption activities and evaluative/affective reactions to political news during election campaigns: A diary study

University students’ mobile news consumption activities and evaluative/affective reactions to political news during election campaigns: A diary study

An APPetite for APPs: A Comparison of Heavily Reliant and Light Reliant App Users on Political Activity and Media Reliance

A guide for using social media in environmental science and a case study by the Students of SETAC

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