Conservative bias, selective political exposure and truly false consensus beliefs in political communication about the ‘refugee crisis’ in Germany

The rise of digital media has increased the opportunities for individuals to self-select political content online. This development has stimulated empirical research on how people select political information, especially when political beliefs are at stake. In the present paper, we tested a series o...

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Autores principales:	Dominic Burghartswieser, Tobias Rothmund
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2021
Materias:	Medicine R Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/2b8e64508a184cfe8e98dd03feeeb235
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:2b8e64508a184cfe8e98dd03feeeb2352021-11-11T07:14:36ZConservative bias, selective political exposure and truly false consensus beliefs in political communication about the ‘refugee crisis’ in Germany1932-6203https://doaj.org/article/2b8e64508a184cfe8e98dd03feeeb2352021-01-01T00:00:00Zhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8568288/?tool=EBIhttps://doaj.org/toc/1932-6203The rise of digital media has increased the opportunities for individuals to self-select political content online. This development has stimulated empirical research on how people select political information, especially when political beliefs are at stake. In the present paper, we tested a series of theory-derived assumptions about antecedents and consequences of selective exposure to confirmative political information and opinions in the digital arena. We conducted an online survey with German Internet users (N = 897, April 2016) and assessed political attitudes, media use and general beliefs in the context of the so-called “migration crisis”. 28% of the participants in our sample reported exposure to a confirmative information environment. They are more likely to hear or read about political opinions on migration and political asylum that are similar to their own compared to cross-cutting content. We found no evidence for the assumption that the technological affordances of the Internet foster this form of selective political exposure. Instead, our analyses indicate that conservatism is a positive predictor of selecting confirmative information environments when it comes to migration and political asylum. We also gathered evidence that this relation is mediated by perceived threat and that selective political exposure is linked to truly false consensus beliefs. Our findings inform supply- and demand-side explanations of selective political exposure online. We discuss the relevance for psychological theories about the motivational underpinnings of selective exposure.Dominic BurghartswieserTobias RothmundPublic Library of Science (PLoS)articleMedicineRScienceQENPLoS ONE, Vol 16, Iss 11 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Medicine R Science Q
spellingShingle	Medicine R Science Q Dominic Burghartswieser Tobias Rothmund Conservative bias, selective political exposure and truly false consensus beliefs in political communication about the ‘refugee crisis’ in Germany
description	The rise of digital media has increased the opportunities for individuals to self-select political content online. This development has stimulated empirical research on how people select political information, especially when political beliefs are at stake. In the present paper, we tested a series of theory-derived assumptions about antecedents and consequences of selective exposure to confirmative political information and opinions in the digital arena. We conducted an online survey with German Internet users (N = 897, April 2016) and assessed political attitudes, media use and general beliefs in the context of the so-called “migration crisis”. 28% of the participants in our sample reported exposure to a confirmative information environment. They are more likely to hear or read about political opinions on migration and political asylum that are similar to their own compared to cross-cutting content. We found no evidence for the assumption that the technological affordances of the Internet foster this form of selective political exposure. Instead, our analyses indicate that conservatism is a positive predictor of selecting confirmative information environments when it comes to migration and political asylum. We also gathered evidence that this relation is mediated by perceived threat and that selective political exposure is linked to truly false consensus beliefs. Our findings inform supply- and demand-side explanations of selective political exposure online. We discuss the relevance for psychological theories about the motivational underpinnings of selective exposure.
format	article
author	Dominic Burghartswieser Tobias Rothmund
author_facet	Dominic Burghartswieser Tobias Rothmund
author_sort	Dominic Burghartswieser
title	Conservative bias, selective political exposure and truly false consensus beliefs in political communication about the ‘refugee crisis’ in Germany
title_short	Conservative bias, selective political exposure and truly false consensus beliefs in political communication about the ‘refugee crisis’ in Germany
title_full	Conservative bias, selective political exposure and truly false consensus beliefs in political communication about the ‘refugee crisis’ in Germany
title_fullStr	Conservative bias, selective political exposure and truly false consensus beliefs in political communication about the ‘refugee crisis’ in Germany
title_full_unstemmed	Conservative bias, selective political exposure and truly false consensus beliefs in political communication about the ‘refugee crisis’ in Germany
title_sort	conservative bias, selective political exposure and truly false consensus beliefs in political communication about the ‘refugee crisis’ in germany
publisher	Public Library of Science (PLoS)
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/2b8e64508a184cfe8e98dd03feeeb235
work_keys_str_mv	AT dominicburghartswieser conservativebiasselectivepoliticalexposureandtrulyfalseconsensusbeliefsinpoliticalcommunicationabouttherefugeecrisisingermany AT tobiasrothmund conservativebiasselectivepoliticalexposureandtrulyfalseconsensusbeliefsinpoliticalcommunicationabouttherefugeecrisisingermany
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Conservative bias, selective political exposure and truly false consensus beliefs in political communication about the ‘refugee crisis’ in Germany

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