posted on 2022-07-21, 15:41authored byLaia Castro, Jesper Stromback, Frank Esser, Peter Van Aelst, Claes de Vreese, Toril Aalberg, Ana Sofia Cardenal, Nicoleta Corbu, David Hopmann, Karolina Koc-Michalska, Jorg Matthes, Cristian Schemer, Tamir Sheafer, Sergio Splendore, James StanyerJames Stanyer, Agnieszka Stepinska, Vaclav StetkaVaclav Stetka, Yannis Theocharis
The transition from low- to high-choice media environments has had far-reaching
implications for citizens’ media use and its relationship with political knowledge.
However, there is still a lack of comparative research on how citizens combine the
usage of different media and how that is related to political knowledge. To fill this
void, we use a unique cross-national survey about the online and offline media use
habits of more than 28,000 individuals in 17 European countries. Our aim is to (i) profile different types of news consumers and (ii) understand how each user profile is
linked to political knowledge acquisition. Our results show that five user profiles –
news minimalists, social media news users, traditionalists, online news seekers, and hyper
news consumers – can be identified, although the prevalence of these profiles varies
across countries. Findings further show that both traditional and online-based news
diets are correlated with higher political knowledge. However, online-based news
use is more widespread in Southern Europe, where it is associated with lower levels
of political knowledge than in Northern Europe. By focusing on news audiences, this
study provides a comprehensive and fine-grained analysis of how contemporary
European political information environments perform and contribute to an informed
citizenry.
Funding
Network of European Political Communication Scholars (NEPOCS)
The Illiberal Turn? News Consumption, Polarization and Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe
This is an Open Access Article. It is published by Sage under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported Licence (CC BY). Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/