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By analyzing data from a national panel survey of adolescents (ages 12-17) and their parents conducted around the 2008 general election, this study explores the varied roles communication plays in socializing youth into democratic citizenship. In particular, we propose and test a communication mediation model of youth socialization, in which interdependent communication processes located in the family, schools, media, and peer networks combine to cultivate communication competence, a set of basic communication skills and motives needed for active and informed participation in public life. Analysis of our panel data indicates that participation in deliberative classroom activities and democratic peer norms contribute to civic activism among youth. These peer and school influences, however, are found to be largely indirect, working through informational use of conventional and online news media, and expression and discussion of political ideas outside of classroom and family boundaries. In particular, our findings highlight strong online pathways to participation, centering on news consumption and political expression via digital media technologies, suggesting the key role of the Internet in this dynamic. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines the role of the Internet as a source of political information and a sphere for public expression. Informational media use, whether traditional news sources or online public affairs content, is expected to foster interpersonal political discussion and online civic messaging, contributing to increased civic participation. Using two-wave national panel survey data, three types of synchronous structural equation models are tested: cross sectional (relating individual differences), fixed effects (relating intraindividual change), and auto regressive (relating aggregate change). All models reveal that online media complement traditional media to foster political discussion and civic messaging. These two forms of political expression, in turn, influence civic participation. Other variable orderings are tested to compare the theorized model to alternative causal specifications. Results reveal that the model produces the best fit, empirically and theoretically, with the influence of the Internet, rivaling the mobilizing power of traditional modes of information and expression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the cognitive mediation model by addressing the methodological weakness of several research and replicating findings in the context of the 2000 U.S. presidential election campaign. Possible influence of surveillance motivations on information processing; Psychological explanation for knowledge gaps in response to media campaigns; Reciprocal nature of relationships between information processing and knowledge.

This research explores the influence of mass media use and community context on civic engagement. The article presents a multilevel test of print, broadcast, and Internet effects on interpersonal trust and civic participation that acknowledges there are (a) micro-level differences in the motives underlying media use, (b) age-cohort differences in patterns of media use and levels of civic engagement, and (c) macro-level differences in community/communication context. Accordingly, the effects of individual differences in media use and aggregate differences in community context are analyzed within generational subsamples using a pooled data set developed from the 1998 and 1999 DDB Life Style Studies. The data suggest that informational uses of mass media are positively related to the production of social capital, whereas social-recreational uses are negatively related to these civic indicators. Informational uses of mass media were also found to interact with community context to influence civic engagement. Analyses within subsamples find that among the youngest adult Americans, use of the Internet for information exchange more strongly influences trust in people and civic participation than do uses of traditional print and broadcast news media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents information on a study which examined the processes through which social capital is maintained. Three dimensions of social capital; Concept of opinion leadership; Effects of opinion leadership or personality strength on social capital.

Presents information on a study which determines whether individuals estimated others to be both more susceptible to and more severely affected by mass communications than themselves. Methodology of the study; Results and discussion on the study.

This study examines how the news frames that journalists use to present contentious policy debates shape reasoning processes and opinion outcomes. Drawing on the notion that framing is a cognitive process in which the message affects how individuals weigh existing considerations (i.e., political orientations and relevant attitudes/beliefs) to make a judgment, the authors conducted two experiments in which they presented participants with news stories in which policy conflicts were described as either a clash of underlying values and principles (i.e., a value frame) or as a clash of political interests and strategies (i.e., a strategy frame). The results suggest that the framed news stories failed to change issue opinions directly but did alter the importance of the considerations used to make judgments on relevant issues. Specifically, individuals tend to react to strategy frames by discounting partisan affiliation as a primary consideration, turning to other salient alternatives when making judgments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies examining the effects of news cues (i.e., labels used to characterize issue domains and social groups) typically fail to consider the possibility that news stories may contain multiple cues that have interactive effects on audience processing and opinion expression. To test this possibility, the authors conduct a Web survey–embedded experiment that manipulates features of a news report about civil liberties restrictions targeted at Arabs portrayed as either immigrants or citizens and as either extremists or moderates. Hypotheses predict stronger intercorrelations and faster speed of response among a range of social intolerance evaluations when respondents encounter the combination of immigrant and extremist cues. Findings indicate the convergence of immigrant and extremist cues not only yield stronger associations between group evaluations, social intolerance, immigration opposition, and minority disempowerment but also reduce response latencies. The results across these two measures provide support for a theory of associative priming via cue convergence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents information on a study which explores the factors contributing to rising public perception that news media content contains a liberal bias in presidential campaigns. Methodology of the study; Results and discussion on the study; Conclusions.