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The 2020 election and its aftermath present an opportunity to understand how audiences' changing news consumption patterns within an expanded, digitized, and polarized media environment shape electoral judgments. This paper introduces measures that capture individuals' partisan slant, partisan extremity, and overall diversity of news media use to understand how people interact with the contemporary news ecology. The measures combine self-reported media use with the partisan slant of news outlets along the ideological spectrum. Using these measures, we analyze a two-wave panel survey conducted before and after the 2020 US election to investigate how slant, diversity, and extremity are related to post-election beliefs, including public confidence in the election and the acceptance of fraud claims. Our findings show that Republicans have more insulated news use behaviors in terms of slant and diversity. The analysis also reveals that the slant of people's news use is associated with post-election fraud beliefs, with right-wing news consumers more likely to believe such claims. However, a diverse news consumption style can moderate misinformation beliefs. Panel analysis points to the role of extreme-right news use in decreasing confidence in the legitimacy of the election. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Visual representations of refugees likely have a determinative function in the ways policies are written and aid is dispensed for crises resolution efforts. We use theoretical concepts from the visual framing literature and two studies—a content analysis and an experiment—to examine the effects of six visual frames. We study the content of newspapers from four countries for the following visual frames: 'individual', 'massified', 'mother and child', 'father and child', 'receiving aid' and 'working refugees.' Next, we examine the impact of these frames on intention to donate. Findings demonstrate that individuals with higher positive attitude towards refugees showed higher intention to donate. However, among these participants, intention to donate was highest in the 'individual' frame condition. On the other hand, among the participants with lower positive attitude towards refugees, the highest intention to donate was in the 'working refugees' frame condition. Implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior research has identified the influence of using hyperlinks in online information gathering. This study attempts to understand first, how hyperlinks can influence individuals' perceptions of news credibility and information-seeking behavior. Second, the paper extends previous research by examining the interaction of hyperlinks with the content of the story. In doing so, the paper examines the influence of hyperlinks on news frames. The data for the study were collected using 2 experiments embedded in web-based survey of participants. Findings show that hyperlinks in news stories can increase perceptions of credibility as well as information-seeking. Results reveal the interaction of news frames in the process; hyperlinks increase participants' perception of news credibility; but only in the value-framed condition. Implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social networking sites ( SNS) currently boast more than half a billion active users worldwide, the majority of which are young people. With notable exceptions, few studies have ventured into the growing political realm that exists on these sites. This study expands research on SNS by examining both what encourages people to express themselves politically in this realm, and what effects such expression may have on classic questions of political participation. We test the proposition that political use of SNS among teens offers a new pathway to their political participation using hierarchical linear regression and panel data analysis. Results demonstrate that political SNS use strongly impacted both levels of and growth in traditional political participation during the 2008 election. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although many scholars have pointed out problems in framing research, there has been very few systematic examinations of the published literature. To examine the common conceptual debates, the present study content analyzes framing literature from 93 peer-reviewed journals for a decade. Two methods were employed for the sample: First, every journal identified as a 'communication journal' in the Journal Citation Report was included; second, keyword searches in electronic databases were used. The main findings showed that framing studies have concentrated more on message design and 'unique' frames. Consistent with existing debates, results highlight the lack of research about production of frames and mixed frames. This examination of a decade's published literature reveals better direction for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]