Social Influences on Online Political Information Search and Evaluation

Americans are turning to the Internet to learn about politics in greater and greater numbers. Under the current “Web 2.0” paradigm in which users are encouraged to interact with online content, voters encountering political information on the Internet are typically exposed to more than just the news...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Political behavior 2017-09, Vol.39 (3), p.651-673
Main Authors: Pierce, Douglas R., Redlawsk, David P., Cohen, William W.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Cues
Function
Heuristic
Information
Information seeking behavior
Internet
ORIGINAL PAPER
Political behavior
Political Science
Political Science and International Relations
Political Science and International Studies
Social media
Sociology
Software
Voters
Web 2.0
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Summary:Americans are turning to the Internet to learn about politics in greater and greater numbers. Under the current “Web 2.0” paradigm in which users are encouraged to interact with online content, voters encountering political information on the Internet are typically exposed to more than just the news; online information is often colored by the reactions of previous readers, whether in the form of displayed comments or in readily apparent tallies of the number of “likes” or “shares” a particular item has received. In this paper we consider the effect these social cues have on online political information search and evaluation. Using processing-tracing software to monitor the patterns of information search and evaluation among our subjects, we find that social cues can function as a heuristic, allowing voters to reach judgments similar to those of their more informed counterparts. However, we also find that negative cues can adversely influence candidate evaluation, making subjects less disposed to a candidate than they would be in the absence of such signals.
ISSN:0190-9320
1573-6687
DOI:10.1007/s11109-016-9374-4