Internal political efficacy has long been associated with news use and political discussion. Yet, as more people are inadvertently exposed to news and political discussion online, it remains unclear whether incidental news exposure also has a discursive effect on political efficacy. In a two-wave panel study, we applied the O-S-R-O-R model of communication effects to test these relationships. We found that political discussion with weak ties, but not strong ties, is a mediator between incidental news exposure and internal political efficacy.

Case studies and correlational evidence suggest that celebrity political advocacy leads to media coverage and public attention. With a new dataset of celebrity witnesses at congressional hearings, we develop a systematic analysis that allows us to estimate whether celebrities increase media coverage of the issues they advocate in official government venues. We also use this dataset to measure how much celebrity advocacy efforts increase public engagement with policy issues-a necessary condition for the expansion of issue publics. We find that the issues addressed in congressional hearings featuring celebrity witnesses are about three times more likely to be the subject of the New York Times reporting, but the average celebrity witness has no discernible effect on public issue attention, as measured by Wikipedia page views. We conclude that while the Internet vastly expands the opportunities for political communication, it is difficult to appropriate non-political social network infrastructures to promote policy change.

The Asia-Pacific constitutes the fastest growing region in mobile and social media penetration. Yet, the political implications of the technologies are not fully understood. Using probability samples of university students in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China, this study examines the roles of mobile and social media news in offline and online political participation. Consistent with the O-S-R-O-R model (Orientations–Stimulus–Reasoning–Orientations–Response), which derives from communication and cognitive mediation models explaining the relationship between media use and political participation, all three samples demonstrated indirect relationships between mobile/social media use and political participation through interpersonal political discussion and political efficacy. The study contributes to theory building by demonstrating the external validity of the O-S-R-O-R model across different political systems.

Elite polarization is at an all-time high. Has this division filtered down into the public, and is this trend being exacerbated by expanded media choice in the postbroadcast era? Using National Annenberg Election Surveys (NAES) data from recent election cycles, we analyze the influence of news choice on individual-level perceptions of the ideologies of parties and partisan elites. We examine whether cable news choice shapes respondents’ ability to correctly identify Democrats as the more liberal party, and Republicans as more conservative. Using cross-sectional and panel data, we find that partisan news consumers—particularly those watching Fox News—are better able to identify the positions and ideologies of partisan elites. Partisan news may help citizens participate more effectively by helping them identify the ideological orientation of the major parties and candidates.

This study explores the perplexing role of the Internet in authoritarian settings. We disentangle the political impact of the Internet along two distinct dimensions, indirect effects and direct effects. While the direct effects of the exposure to the Internet shape political attitudes in a manifest and immediate way, the indirect effects shape various political outcomes via instilling fundamental democratic orientations among citizens. In authoritarian societies such as China, we argue the indirect effects of the Internet as a value changer tend to be potent, transformative, and persistent. But the direct effects of the Internet as a mere alternative messenger are likely to be markedly contingent. Relying on the newly developed method of causal mediation analysis and applying the method to data from a recent survey conducted in Beijing, we find strong empirical evidence to support our argument about the two-dimensional impacts of the Internet in authoritarian countries.

The "end of ideology" was declared by social scientists in the aftermath of World War II. They argued that (a) ordinary citizens' political attitudes lack the kind of stability, consistency, and constraint that ideology requires; (b) ideological constructs such as liberalism and conservatism lack motivational potency and behavioral significance; (c) there are no major differences in content (or substance) between liberal and conservative points of view; and (d) there are few important differences in psychological processes (or styles) that underlie liberal versus conservative orientations. The end-of-ideologists were so influential that researchers ignored the topic of ideology for many years. However, current political realities, recent data from the American National Election Studies, and results from an emerging psychological paradigm provide strong grounds for returning to the study of ideology. Studies reveal that there are indeed meaningful political and psychological differences that covary with ideological self-placement. Situational variables--including system threat and mortality salience--and dispositional variables--including openness and conscientiousness--affect the degree to which an individual is drawn to liberal versus conservative leaders, parties, and opinions. A psychological analysis is also useful for understanding the political divide between "red states" and "blue states."((c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).

The most commonly used method to test an indirect effect is to divide the estimate of the indirect effect by its standard error and compare the resulting z statistic with a critical value from the standard normal distribution. Confidence limits for the indirect effect are also typically based on critical values from the standard normal distribution. This article uses a simulation study to demonstrate that confidence limits are imbalanced because the distribution of the indirect effect is normal only in special cases. Two alternatives for improving the performance of confidence limits for the indirect effect are evaluated: (a) a method based on the distribution of the product of two normal random variables, and (b) resampling methods. In Study 1, confidence limits based on the distribution of the product are more accurate than methods based on an assumed normal distribution but confidence limits are still imbalanced. Study 2 demonstrates that more accurate confidence limits are obtained using resampling methods, with the bias-corrected bootstrap the best method overall.

Television journalism can produce significant changes in opinions about basic American institutions and may also foster political malaise. Laboratory investigation revealed that the CBS documentary, “The Selling of the Pentagon,” convinced viewers that the military participated more in national politics and misled the public more about Vietnam than these viewers had previously believed. The program also caused a significant decrease in political efficacy among all our groups. This finding led to correlational research to determine if exposure to television news is also associated with lower levels of efficacy.

The island of Rotuma in Fiji poses a paradox. Indigenous Fijians make up more than 60% of Fiji’s population. However, as a unique ethnic group, Rotumans are a demographic minority, with their language listed on the UNESCO list of endangered languages. This is caused by extensive outmigration, with more than 80% of Rotumans residing outside of Rotuma. Recently, Rotuman migrants have heavily relied on Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and new media, as tools for reinvigorating culture, rekindling familial ties and being a platform for political discourse on Rotuman issues. Facebook has been increasingly employed by Rotumans to inform and educate themselves and their networks on the implications of two bills introduced in Fiji’s Parliament in 2015, which impact Rotuma in terms of its land and customs. This article examines how Rotumans have innovatively used social media to reinvigorate culture and how this has evolved to take on an increasingly political dimension.