Networks in Context: The Social Flow of Political Information

Abstract

We examine the effects of individual political preferences and the distribution of such preferences on the social transmission of political information. Our data base combines a 1984 election survey of citizens in South Bend, Indiana with a subsequent survey of people with whom these citizens discuss politics. Several findings emerge from the effort. First, individuals do purposefully construct informational networks corresponding to their own political preferences, and they also selectively misperceive socially supplied political information. More important, both of these individual-level processes are shown to be conditioned by constraints imposed due to the distribution of political preferences in the social context. Thus, individual control over socially supplied political information is partial and incomplete. Finally, these information-transmitting processes interact with the social context in a manner that favors partisan majorities while undermining political minorities.

Political Disagreement in Context: The Conditional Effect of Neighborhood Context, Disagreement and Political Talk on Electoral Participation

“…If this is the case, then it may not be worthwhile trying to delineate conceptual and empirical distinctions between the two contexts. In support of this idea, some evidence shows that a person's social network is influenced by the distribution of political preferences in the surrounding social context (Huckfeldt, 1983(Huckfeldt, , 1984Huckfeldt & Sprague, 1987).…”

“…Although some scholars argue that heterogeneity increases participation because it produces acute political competition among groups with different preferences (Campbell, 2004;Cox & Munger, 1989), others make arguments about the importance of participatory norms and exposure to diverse points of view (Cho et al, 2006;Oliver, 2001). Still other work implies that it is not simply aggregate heterogeneity that matters as much as whether individuals are members of the majority or not that is consequential for explaining political behavior (Huckfeldt & Sprague, 1987, 1988Glynn, Hayes, & Shanahan, 1997;Noelle-Neumann, 1984). Since most studies fail to measure these various environmental properties simultaneously it difficult to discern which argument best applies to their analysis.…”

Crowd out or crowd in?: The effects of common interest developments on political participation in California

“…Findings in the political science literature suggest that neighborhood or social context can a¤ect voting behavior (e.g., Huckfeldt et al 1993;Huckfeldt and Sprague 1987). Common interest developments in particular may decrease voter turnout by reducing members' perceived benefits of voting, B, to the extent that services provided by public and private governments are substitutes rather than complements.13 As some critics have charged, CIDs may also diminish member tastes for civic engagement, D.…”

Desigualdad de Información: Una Exploración de los Antecedentes del Conocimiento Político en Chile

“…Huckfeldt et al (Huckfeldt, Beck, Dalton & Levine, 1995;Huckfeldt, Johnson & Sprague, 2002;Huckfeldt & Sprague, 1987) han mostrado, por ejemplo, la importancia que tienen las relaciones con la familia, amigos y compañeros de trabajo en la adquisición y transmisión de preferencias y actitudes políticas. Esta influencia social en la política es particularmente importante, de acuerdo a los autores, en la diseminación de información (Huckfeldt, Mondak, Hayes, Pietryka & Reilly, 2013).…”