Not All News Sources Are Equally Informative: A Cross-National Analysis of Political Knowledge in Europe

Across a sample of twenty-seven European nations, we examine variation in the level of factual political knowledge in relation to self-reported exposure to news programs aired by public or commercial channels, and to broadsheet or tabloid newspapers. Unlike previous studies, we estimate the effects...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Fraile Maldonado, Marta, Iyengar, Shanto
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2014
País:España
Institución:Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
Repositorio:DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC
OAI Identifier:oai:digital.csic.es:10261/185007
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10261/185007
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Political knowledge
Knowledge gaps
Media contents
Western Europe
Media effects
Descripción
Sumario:Across a sample of twenty-seven European nations, we examine variation in the level of factual political knowledge in relation to self-reported exposure to news programs aired by public or commercial channels, and to broadsheet or tabloid newspapers. Unlike previous studies, we estimate the effects of exposure to these news outlets while controlling for self-selection into the audience. Our results show that the positive effects of exposure to broadsheets and public broadcasting on knowledge remain robust. Finally, we show that only exposure to broadsheets (and not to public broadcasting) narrows the knowledge gap within nations; relatively apathetic individuals who read broadsheet newspapers are able to >catch up> with their more attentive counterparts.