Suchergebnisse

Political campaigns employ segmenting and targeting strategies to reach voters, which result in a differential distribution of campaign resources across the whole nation. This study investigates how the resulting differences in information availability influence an individual's political learning and behaviors in relation to geographical locality. Data for this study come from three separate studies conducted during the 2004 U.S. presidential election. The results from a series of multilevel modeling analyses show that newspaper use had a greater impact on political knowledge and participation in localities with more political advertising or more candidate appearances than in localities where these were less frequent. The impact of offline political discussion did not follow the same pattern. The findings relating to Internet use were mixed. This study demonstrates the importance of geographical contexts in understanding communication effects. Also, the Internet functions to both extend and diminish unequal information availability in the offline world.

This study analyzed the impact of pre- and postimmigration use of English- and native-language newspapers and TV on the relative size of education- and language-based political knowledge gaps among new U.S. immigrants. Results from a nationally representative survey of new immigrants in the United States (N = 3,319) suggested that pre-immigration use of English-language newspapers widens political knowledge gaps between immigrant groups with higher and lower English proficiency and groups with higher and lower preference to use English in social interactions. However, the gap in political knowledge between immigrant groups with higher and lower levels of education was leveled by post-immigration use of English-language TV. Interestingly, use of native-language media also had a leveling effect on the knowledge gap. Specifically, pre-immigration use of native-language newspapers and TV decreased the gap in political knowledge between groups with high and low education, and pre-immigration use of native-language TV decreased the knowledge gap between groups with high and low preference to use English. Implications are discussed.

This study attempts to replicate recent findings suggesting a reversal of the standard knowledge gap, i.e., that the relationship between television news use and knowledge is greater among those with less than with more education. We also extend this approach to examine need for cognition and campaign interest as additional moderators beyond the standard education-based analysis. Our results reveal mixed support for the general hypothesis that the pattern of interaction between these moderators and news media use varies depending on whether the medium of interest is television news or print newspapers.

This study examined the relationships between video game play motivations identified by Yee (2006), social capital (measured by social trust and neighborliness), political participation, and civic engagement. Results of a survey of 465 college students in the United States showed that the Social motivation for video game play was positively associated with neighborliness. A factor consisting of Discovery/Role-playing/Customization, subcomponents of the Immersion motivation, was positively associated with civic engagement. Also, two marginally significant associations were found: a positive one between the Achievement motivation and civic engagement, and a negative one between Escapism, a subcomponent of the Immersion motivation, and trust. Implications were discussed.