Abstract
Politics is not merely concerned with beliefs and ideology; it also encapsulates components of social identity. This study examines the consumption of partisan media, via the prism of social-identity theory. Strength of political identity is proposed as an explanation for selective exposure. Additionally, the study suggests that by creating a conflict between orthogonal social identities, selective exposure can be reduced. Two survey experiments were conducted (N = 300), each experiment focusing on one element of media: the identity of the writer, or the identity of the persona at the center of the news story. Both experiments demonstrated that political social identity influences media selection.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 867-889 |
Number of pages | 23 |
Journal | Media Psychology |
Volume | 22 |
Issue number | 6 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 2 Nov 2019 |
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- Social Psychology
- Communication
- Applied Psychology