The ecology of incidental exposure to news in digital media environments

Abstract

The profusion of information about current events in digital media makes it likely that individuals are exposed to news through the course of everyday life, even when they are not motivated to do so. Yet, such incidental news exposure and its consequences depend on a multitude of characteristics that are unique to individuals and the social and information environments they inhabit. This complexity makes it difficult to evaluate the broader democratic implications of incidental exposure. To address this challenge, we propose an ecological model that offers a more comprehensive framework for theorizing and studying incidental news exposure in digital media environments. The model organizes factors influencing incidental exposure into six ecological levels that span individual and environmental domains. It further distinguishes state-like factors (i.e. malleable, context-dependent) and trait-like factors (i.e. stable, context-independent). We demonstrate how the model can (1) better define types of incidental exposure, (2) theorize how factors can interact across levels to shape exposure and its consequences, and (3) identify promising areas for future research.

Understanding Audience Engagement with Mainstream and Alternative News Posts on Facebook

“…talk radio, cable television) and other spaces online (Bennett and Iyengar, 2008;Jamieson and Cappella, 2008), social media arguably make it easier for people to be exposed to this highly partisan information because they allow people to actively expose themselves to a range of news sources available, including ideological sources, simply by "liking" or "following" a news page. But social media also enable people to incidentally encounter this partisan information when their social connections share or post news articles from these sources (Flaxman et al, 2016;M€ uller and Schulz, 2021;Weeks and Lane, 2020).…”

Media Representation of Online Maid Hiring System (SMO): A Critical Discourse Analysis

“…The study of media representations has developed and evolved into several phases. Research on the representation of social groups such as races, ethnicities, and marginalized communities has been on the rise (Flowerdew, Richardson, 2017;Sikov, 2020;Weeks, Lane, 2020). The analysis of media representation shows a variety of variables across time and media channels.…”

“…It is the type of social research that draws a relationship between text and discourse on the one hand and historical background, social processes and social change on the other, aiming at offering a deep and comprehensive analysis of texts. DHA aims to elucidate the persuasive construction-in its analysis of argumentative strategies -that are manipulative social constructions (Wodak, 2009;2011;Wodak, Meyer, 2012). In addition, ideology is associated with the concept of power and hegemony, which is located and transmitted through language.…”

“…As such, they justify the transition from the argument or arguments to the conclusion (Wodak, 2006). As for intensification and mitigation strategies, they refer to tools used to intensify or mitigate certain actions, attributes, or qualities of certain social groups (Wodak, 2012;Wodak, Meyer, 2012).…”

Studying incidental news: Antecedents, dynamics and implications

“…Such a holistic, ecological view of incidental news consumption underlies the last two contributions to this special issue. Weeks and Lane (2020) propose an ecological model, which organizes the factors influencing incidental exposure into six ecological levels, from the characteristics of individuals (cognitive ability, demographic/identity, perceptions of the information environment and level of motivation) to environmental factors (the level of the social network and the level of media systems). These factors, they claim, can be state-like – malleable and shifting depending on the individual or context, or they can be trait-like – stable and inherent.…”