Non-News Websites Expose People to More Political Content Than News Websites: Evidence from Browsing Data in Three Countries.

ABSTRACT: Most scholars focus on the prevalence and democratic effects of (partisan) news exposure. This focus misses large parts of online activities of a majority of politically disinterested citizens. Although political content also appears outside of news outlets and may profoundly shape public opinion, its prevalence and effects are under-studied at scale. This project combines three-wave panel survey data from three countries (total N = 7,266) with online behavioral data from the same participants (over 106M visits). We create a multi-lingual classifier to identify political content both in news and outside (e.g. in shopping or entertainment sites). We find that news consumption is infrequent: just 3.4% of participants' online browsing comprised visits to news sites. Only between 14% (NL) and

SUBMITTER: Wojcieszak M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10721223 | biostudies-literature | 2024

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature