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Friday, November 11
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ARS11
Audiences, Publics and the Realmof the Political
PP 378
Who Broadcasts (Shady) Truths on News Websites? A Survey on the Predictors of Truth-Demanding User Commenting
C. Schemer
1
, M. Ziegele
1
, O. Quiring
1
, N. Jackob
1
1
University of Mainz, Department of Communication, Mainz, Germany
User comment sections on the websites of legacy news media have been expected to serve as an area for deliberative discourse (Singer, 2009).Yet, this opti‑
mistic view does not seem to prove true. Instead, users often write self-centered, uncivil, and unsubstantial comments (Coe et al., 2014). Another significant
threat to the quality of public discourse are comment authors trying to undermine the credibility of journalistic/political work by suggesting alternative and
often conspiratorial, unverified interpretations of real-world issues. In fact, it has already been discussed whether comment sections are “conspiracy theo‑
ries’engines”(Slavtcheva-Petkova, 2015).To understand the nature of conspiratorial comments, it is important to know the people behind them.Yet, little is
known about what motivates users to practice what we call“truth-demanding news commenting”(TDNC). Based on research on media-skepticism (Tsfati &
Capella 2003) and on dispositions of commenting users (Ziegele et al., 2013), we assume that demographics, attitudes and ideologies, and media consump‑
tion will contribute to predicting this behavior. A cross-sectional CATI survey was conducted to investigate the impact of these factors on TDNC. The random
sample was representative of the German population. We included age, gender, and education as demographic variables. A basic measure of respondents’
social integration was also implemented by asking how often respondents keep in touch with their friends. Attitude and ideology variables encompassed
satisfaction with democracy/economy, political interest, preference for a specific party, and support for political ‘protest’ movements. General conspiracy
mindset was measured by asking respondents whether they believed in the truth of four statements, e.g. “Most people have no idea that our lives are
determined by secret plans”(α = .74). Finally, news media exposure was assessed by asking respondents how often they used various newspapers (online
and offline), television broadcasts on public vs. commercial channels, and social network sites and‘alternative’online news sources. Our dependent variable
(TDNC) was measured by asking “How often do you write comments on news websites when you perceive that journalists withhold the whole truth?” Al‑
though this itemmight measure more than justTDNC, we perceived it as the most direct measure we could ask without arousing the participants’suspicion.
The predictors were entered into a regression model which explained 17 percent of the variation of TDNC. Regarding sociodemographics, male participants
were more likely to practice TDNC. Social integration was negatively related to TDNC. Regarding attitudes and ideologies, only the degree of respondents’
dissatisfaction with the national economic situation predicted the frequency of TDNC. By trend, supporters of the right-wing extremist movement PEGIDA
practiced more TDNC. A substantial share of variance (ΔR² = .14) was explained by participants’ individual media diets: participants’TDNC increased with
the use of ‘alternative’ online news sources, social network sites, and news broadcasts on commercial channels. These results indicate that the (selective)
exposure to presumably non-mainstream truth perceptions in peoples’social networks and the tempting and often conspiratorial interpretations of reality
offered by non-mainstream news sources increase users’desire to "broadcast alternative truths" on the websites of news media.
PP 379
Smart, Up-to-Date, and Tired of News? Perceptions of Political News Overload Among the Elite
M. Steiner
1
, P. Weichselbaum
1
, B. Stark
1
1
Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Department of Communication, Mainz, Germany
From a normative standpoint, informed citizens are essential to a healthy democracy. The current media environment seems to be both fostering and
threatening this goal. The number of news outlets has multiplied and so have the ways to keep informed and participate in the political process. However,
due to the audience’s limited capacity for paying attention, users tend to perceive the amount of news as an oversupply of information. This can lead to
news overload, the feeling of being cognitively overburdened by the amount of news. That is problematic as it means a waste of potential benefits and
might eventually lead to news avoidance. Accordingly, a number of recent studies have investigated news overload. However, despite most of themwarning
of news overload as a“widespread phenomenon”, others claim it to be a“rare sentiment”. Moreover, it is not yet clear, which societal groups experience news
overload to what degrees. Results suggest that news overload especially affects lower educated people. Rarely do studies specifically address the other end
of the educational spectrum. Thus the question arises whether news overload is also perceived among the higher (and highly) educated who are likely to
be deciders in the political and economic realm as well as opinion leaders and have considerable social influence. If they, too, are wary of news, it can be
said that news overload is a phenomenon more widespread and more problematic than it is currently thought to be. This is why we address political news
overload among the educational elite. We conducted a survey via a German elite online access panel (n=346) as well as qualitative group discussions
(n=12) in order to gain deeper insights: What does news overload actually mean for citizens? Which factors (e. g. demographics, news interest or news
repertoires) affect the perceived degree of news overload? Which role does the changing media environment play? The quantitative findings reveal that
all of the respondents know the feeling of being overloaded by news. For one out of four respondents it even appears to be a common feeling. In congru‑
ence with prior findings, our results show that interest in political news reduces news overload. Whether online news media are more important for one’s
news repertoire than traditional media or not has no effect. The qualitative findings show that a perceived decreasing quality of political news coverage
(e. g. headlines and updates without context information, too many breaking news) generally contributes to the feeling of being overloaded. Overall, our
study demonstrates the necessity to analyse news overload in distinct societal groups. Based on our findings from the educational elite, we fear that news
overload will lead to an increasing dissatisfaction with and loss of trust in journalism. Besides, our findings suggest that news overload not only depends
on personal factors but is also a consequence of a changing media landscape. We call for future studies that investigate what journalists could do to reduce
their audience’s feeling of news overload.