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While people may accidentally come across political information online, the question of the conditions under which this incidental exposure facilitates political participation remains. To answer this question, the current study acknowledges the need to consider the content of incidental exposure, namely, information that supports or challenges one's views. Furthermore, this relationship between incidental exposure and political participation may depend on individuals' cultural worldviews of themselves and their social units: individualism and collectivism. By analyzing two panel survey data sets collected before the presidential elections in the United States and South Korea, the current study advances a dual theoretical model in which pro-/counter-attitudinal incidental exposure and collectivism/individualism interact respectively to predict political participation offline and online. We find that pro-attitudinal incidental exposure may be a catalyst for political participation among highly collectivist individuals, whereas counter-attitudinal incidental exposure may be a suppressor among people who hold weak individualist values in the United States rather than in Korea.

Although scholars consider it important for citizens to seek diverse information to optimize citizenship, a growing body of research suggests that many people predominantly expose themselves to information that confirms their previous beliefs. Using four waves of survey data from an online panel of 2,450 Americans, this study explores a disconnect between information values and practices to identify (1) whether citizens exemplify the diversity-seeking values endorsed in communication scholarship, (2) whether individuals who hold diversity-seeking values enact these values, and (3) whether diversity-seeking values and traits are emblematic of good democratic citizenship. Results suggest that nearly half of respondents either did not hold diversity-seeking values or failed to actualize the values they expressed. Individuals who held diversity-seeking values were more politically knowledgeable and more likely to have voted in 2014, regardless of their diversity-seeking traits.

Building on prior studies suggesting that social media can facilitate offline political participation, this study seeks to clarify the mechanism behind this link. Social media may encourage social learning of political engagement due to their unique affordances such as visibility (i.e. once-invisible political activities by others are now visible on social media feeds). By analyzing a two-wave survey conducted before the 2016 presidential election in the United States, this study tests a theoretical model in which observation of others' political activities on social media inspires users themselves to model similar political behaviors, which foster offline political participation. Autoregressive models show that the link between political observation and activities on social media is stronger among users surrounded with similar others and politically homogeneous networks. The results highlight the need to cultivate engaged citizenship norms for individuals' political activities on social media to be carried over to participation beyond the realm of social media.

Despite a fast-growing body of literature on fake news and mis-/disinformation, there remains surprisingly little empirical work on the social/political consequences of exposure to false information. Addressing this issue, this study provides initial evidence that perceptions of false information exposure catalyze political cynicism. The findings from a two-wave panel survey during the 2018 US midterm elections reveal that perceptions of false information exposure 2 weeks before the election significantly predict the changes in political cynicism immediately after the election day. We also find that social media news use in Wave 1 significantly relates to political cynicism in Wave 2 indirectly through perceptions of mis-/disinformation exposure. The autoregressive regression model indicates that our findings are robust after controlling for prior levels of cynicism.

Social media, as sources of political news and sites of political discussion, may be novel environments for political learning. Many early reports, however, failed to find that social media use promotes gains in political knowledge. Prior research has not yet fully explored the possibility based on the communication mediation model that exposure to political information on social media facilitates political expression, which may subsequently encourage political learning. We find support for this mediation model in the context of Facebook by analyzing a two-wave survey prior to the 2016 U.S. presidential election. In particular, sharing and commenting, not liking or opinion posting, may facilitate political knowledge gains.

This study examines how two distinct patterns of online political information exposure—pro-attitudinal selective exposure and counter-attitudinal incidental exposure—can work together to influence engagement in online cross-cutting political discussion. Using panel data from a two-wave national survey conducted in 2012, we test two competing theoretical accounts. Findings suggest that incidental exposure affects selective exposure's contribution to cross-cutting discussion in a curvilinear way. Incidental exposure strengthens the impact of selective exposure on cross-cutting discussion up until a certain point, after which it begins to attenuate its impact. Results emphasize the need to account for the multiple ways people encounter political information online.

Amid growing concerns over the contentious tenor of online political discourse, scholars have begun to recognize that the social contexts and affordances provided by social media may present indirect pathways from online political discussion to offline political participation. Less work has addressed how users' motivations for using social media might influence such dynamics. In this study, we use two-wave panel survey data collected in the United States to test the possibility that online cross-cutting discussion involving political disagreement can encourage users to share political information on social media, which in turn can increase their offline political engagement. We also test how specific motivations for using social media (i.e., political engagement, relationship maintenance, and self-promotion) moderate the amount users share political information on social media when engaged in conversations involving political disagreement. Our results find that increased online cross-cutting political discussion indirectly affects offline political participation through the influence of social media political information sharing. We also observe that this indirect effect is stronger for users who are motivated to use social media for either political engagement or relationship maintenance (but not self-promotion) purposes. Our findings advance one route from online political disagreement to offline political action, which can impact both politically and nonpolitically motivated social media users.