Selective Use of News Cues: A Multiple-Motive Perspective on Information Selection in Social Media Environments

Abstract

This study investigated the effects of message and social cues on selective exposure to political information in a social media environment. Based on the heuristic-systematic model, we hypothesized that readers' selective consideration of specific cues can be explained by situational motivations. In an experiment (N = 137), subjects primed with motivational goals (accuracy, defense, or impression motivations, as well as a control group) were asked to search for information. Participants preferred attitude-consistent information and balanced information over attitude-inconsistent information, and also preferred highly recommended articles. Defense-motivated partisans exhibited a stronger confirmation bias, whereas impression motivation amplified the effects of social recommendations. These findings specify the conditions under which individuals engage in narrow, open-minded, or social patterns of information selection.Keywords: Selective Exposure, Online News, Social Media, Social Recommendations, Heuristic-Systematic Model. doi:10.1111/jcom.12241 The era of digital and social media can be characterized by an abundance of information from multiple sources and by increased opportunities for user participation. Compared with traditional mass media, Internet users have access to a much wider range of options and more control over the content they consume (Knobloch-Westerwick, Westerwick, & Johnson, 2015). In addition, they are easily able to observe others' recommendations and evaluations of the content that is available (Walther & Jang, 2012). These characteristics of the media environment Corresponding author: Stephan Winter; e-mail: stephan.winter@uni-due.de may have important implications for citizens' selective exposure to information on politics and public affairs.On one hand, this wealth of content offers great potential for an informed citizenry to locate relevant information with diverse viewpoints (see Dahlberg, 2011). On the other hand, people's freedom of choice may result in the selection of content that is likely to strengthen their initial viewpoints but unlikely to enhance their knowledge (Iyengar & Hahn, 2009;Stroud, 2011). Research on selective exposure online has yielded support for the notion of such attitude-consistent choices (e.g., Garrett, 2009a;Knobloch-Westerwick & Meng, 2009), but has also demonstrated patterns of more open-minded information selection with a preference for balanced content (Winter & Krämer, 2012).Contemporary social recommendations, such as a variety of online rating mechanisms or Facebook "likes," also offer opportunities to guide users' information selection decisions (Messing & Westwood, 2014). With regard to the democratic potential of the Internet, following the opinions of others may not only be beneficial in overcoming attitude-consistent choices but also raises concerns that audience recommendations might gravitate toward tabloid or soft news content (Yang, 2016). Although most studies have looked at the effects of either information attitude-consistency or s...

Correcting Misperceptions: The Causal Role of Motivation in Corrective Science Communication About Vaccine and Food Safety

“…However, a part of motivated reasoning is motivated selection of information (Knobloch-Westerwick & Meng, 2009). In research that manipulated motivation in information selection, researchers found different preferences for information as a product of accuracy motivation and defense motivation (similar to directional motivation; Winter et al, 2016). Although the debate on selective exposure is far from settled (cf.…”

Online Social Influence and the Convergence of Mass and Interpersonal Communication

“…For example, online news site readers favor popular content that is recommended by others (Yang, ) and they spend more time reading online news articles that prior readers rated positively (Knobloch‐Westerwick, Sharma, Hansen, & Alter, ; see also Lee & Tandoc, ). Also, online news articles with greater Facebook “likes” have been shown to be clicked on more frequently, selected earlier, and read for longer than articles with a low number of likes, particularly when impression motivations are high and people are inspired to appear likeable and develop positive relationships with unknown others (Winter, Metzger, & Flanagin, ). Overall, research findings highlight substantial social influence pressures acting on people navigating online messages outside of the traditionally clear control of either organizations or individuals.…”

What Affects First- and Second-Level Selective Exposure to Journalistic News? A Social Media Online Experiment

“…Accordingly, previous research suggests that higher ranked articles are more often read, as users expect positively evaluated content to be of higher relevance and value (Knobloch-Westerwick et al 2005). Other experimental studies have confirmed such positive effects of social endorsements on selective exposure to political information specifically in the context of social media (Dvir-Gvirsman 2019; Messing and Westwood 2014; Winter, Metzger, and Flanagin 2016). The present study aims to extend this research by looking at which role perceived social utility of information plays for firstand secondlevel selective exposure in a constant-choice situation.…”

“…Previous studies looked into these gradual selection processes by using digital trace data from real-world online environments, yet often without tying personal user characteristics to them (e.g., Nelson and Webster 2017). Others used experiments with social endorsement manipulations to examine their impact on selective exposure or exposure intention (e.g., Dvir-Gvirsman 2019; Kaiser, Keller, and Kleinen-von Königslöw 2018;Messing and Westwood 2014;Winter, Metzger, and Flanagin 2016). However, the limited number of selection choices and variations used in classic (online) experiments and the rather artificial exposure environment they create still leave us with an incomplete picture of genuine selection processes on social media.…”