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Fake news poses a threat to democracy. The rise of social media and its lax content regulation have facilitated a dynamic environment where mis- and disinformation are spread. However, social media is also the place where false information may be corrected. Initial scholarly efforts begin to highlight what is needed for citizens to take corrective action when exposed to fake news on social media. This study is a further step in that direction by introducing the construct of 'fake news media literacy'. Relying on survey data from the U.S. (N = 1338), we show that news media literacy in terms of media locus of control and need for cognition might not be sufficient to take corrective action; individuals rather need to develop specific fake news literacy. Implications for media literacy initiatives are discussed.

News organizations require sustainable business models with reliable revenue streams to perform their intended function in liberal democracies. Since the digital transition, however, many citizens have considerably shown high reluctance to pay for digital content, consequently jeopardizing journalists' watchdog role and substantially eroding media independence. Based on a two-wave panel survey from the United States, this study seeks to investigate the antecedents of readers' paying behavior for news, focusing on the role of social media news use and media skepticism. Findings reveal that users' frequency of social media news use is associated with future paying behavior, while higher levels of media skepticism significantly inhibit readers' payment. The analyses also show that while those reporting low media skepticism are initially more inclined to pay for news, high levels of social media news use function to largely overcome this gap. The study argues that the role of social media in delivering news should be redefined in light of the new paid content strategies implemented by news organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior research underscores the utility of political persuasion to sustain more engaged democracies and as a vital element in political campaigning processes. When citizens display increased openness to political attitude change, societies benefit as diverse viewpoints thrive, and less dissonant public spheres may be fostered. This contrasts with today's contentious political and media environment. With political polarization on the rise, and new social media avenues enabling citizens to curate more diverse news consumption patterns, little is known about how this polarization influences the ability for citizens to be politically persuaded in social media environments. Relying on representative US panel survey data, this study seeks to shed light on this phenomenon by testing the effects of three distinct types of political polarization: Affective, ideological, and perceived societal. Panel autoregressive causal order regression and structural equation models clarify the direct and indirect negative role of polarization in predicting social media political persuasion. Theoretical implications of these findings, limitations of the study, and suggestions for future research are all discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior studies have theorized a positive association between people’s populist attitudes and an increased use of social media to consume news, which will be mainly driven by individuals’ engagement with news that reflects their people‐centered, anti‐elitist, and Manichean understanding of politics. However, such general connection remains elusive. This research seeks to further clarify this strand of the literature by incorporating people’s belief that important political information will find them without actively seeking news—”News Finds Me” perception (NFM). For that, we use online survey data from two European countries that differ regarding the ideological political supply side of populism (Italy and Portugal). The main results suggest that citizens who hold stronger populist attitudes will also develop stronger NFM. Furthermore, findings reveal a mediating effect of social media news use on the effects of populist attitudes over NFM. That is, those who hold stronger populist attitudes tend to use social media to get exposed to public affairs news more often, which in turn explains the development of the NFM. These results emphasize the importance of systematically exploring citizens populists’ attitudes within today’s social media, social networks, and complex information systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Masspersonal information seeking repertoires are a person-centered method of gaining insight into the relationship between Internet use, subjective well-being, and political participation. Through latent profile analysis, three person types were identified in two waves of stratified samples in 18 countries (N = 8352). In accord with the "augmentation hypothesis," high levels of interpersonal contact and traditional mass media usage covaried with high Internet use for the highly engaged type, that had highest political participation and life satisfaction, political knowledge, low depressive symptoms and also high anxiety. The other two types fit the "displacement hypothesis," where Internet-based media displaces traditional media and face-to-face communication. Compared with the digitally immersed, the traditional repertoire was more knowledgeable and politically engaged, and had better well-being. Latent transition analysis showed these repertoires were stable over 6 months. Identifying different types of people with different information seeking styles clarifies mixed results on effects of online mass media use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the emergence and growing popularity of digital technologies and social media platforms, the relationship between professional and citizen journalism has been challenging. In recent years, however, this critical relationship has de-escalated due to a growing collaboration in shaping a complemental news repertoire. This study examines how social and traditional news use and users' perceptions on professional journalism affect citizens' news content creation. Based on survey data from Spain, we first find that social media use for news and users' positive perceptions on professional journalism predict citizens' news production behavior. Second, social media use for news and traditional media consumption are explored as additive moderators over the relationship of users' perceptions on professional journalism on citizens' news content creation, showing a positive significant effect. This study contributes to current conversations on the potential symbiotic association between professional and citizens journalism, arguing that citizens' perceptual appraisals on professional journalism are key in fostering public's participation through news content creation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Slowly approaching the second quarter of the 21st century, research on social media and its effects over democracy has quickly permeated across various fields in social sciences, particularly political communication. Based on accumulated evidence in this strand of literature, this paper briefly summarizes several established research areas. First, it highlights how social media facilitates individuals' political expression. Second, it sheds light on how this enhanced communicative behavior has reinvigorated a more participatory society in democracy. Third, it examines social media's democratic deficit mechanisms in regards to stagnant political knowledge acquisition. Finally, the paper offers a theoretical explanation to this lack of knowledge acquisition through the lenses of the 'news-finds-me' perception theory. Overall, the present manuscript explains specific ways in which social media helps and hinders the advancement of healthy democracies, thereby also providing promising guidelines for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One thriving area of research on participatory media revolves around political expression and the creation of political content. This study analyzes the connections between these behaviors, heterogeneous information networks, and ideological extremity while accounting for the role of emotional intelligence. Results from a two-wave-panel survey of US adults show that people who engage in content-expressive behavior are embedded in heterogeneous information networks and that emotional intelligence moderates the relationship between content-expressive behavior and ideological extremity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Citizens' levels of mistrust toward the media, as well as their perception of media bias, have increased in past years in most Western democracies. This study explores how these negative observations on journalism may influence their use of traditional, citizen, and social media for news. Drawing on two-wave U.S. panel data, results suggest that media trust and perceived bias relate to media consumption differently. Trust in social and citizen media positively predicts use of news via social media, but has no effect on traditional or citizen news use. By contrast, perceived media bias is associated with decreased news use overall. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Opinion leaders can be influential in persuading their peers about news and politics, yet their potential influence has been questioned in the social media era. This study tests a theoretical model of attempts at political persuasion within social media in which highly active users ("prosumers") consider themselves opinion leaders, which subsequently increases efforts to try and change others' political attitudes and behaviors. Using two-wave U.S. panel survey data (W1=1,816; W2=1,024), we find prosumers believe they are highly influential in their social networks and are both directly and indirectly more likely to try to persuade others. Our results highlight one theoretical mechanism through which engaged social media users attempt to persuade others and suggest personal influence remains viable within social media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although much attention has been paid to how media use and interpersonal discussion motivate people to engage in political persuasion, and despite recent efforts to study the role of digital media technologies, less is known about the creation of news and public affairs content online. This study sheds light on how online content creation works alongside other communicative behaviors, such as news use and political discussion, to affect attempted political persuasion. Using two-wave panel survey data, we find that political discussion and citizen news creation mediate the relationships between online and traditional news use, on one hand, and attempted persuasion, on the other. Furthermore, strength of partisanship moderates the relationship between content creation and attempted persuasion. Findings are discussed in light of their implications for the political communication and public sphere processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue of the Social Science Computer Review provides a sample of the latest strategies employing large data sets in social media and political communication research. The proliferation of information communication technologies, social media, and the Internet, alongside the ubiquity of high performance computing and storage technologies, has ushered in the era of computational social science. However, in no way does the use of "big data" represent a standardized area of inquiry in any field. This article briefly summarizes pressing issues when employing big data for political communication research. Major challenges remain to ensure the validity and generalizability of findings. Strong theoretical arguments are still a central part of conducting meaningful research. In addition, ethical practices concerning how data are collected remain an area of open discussion. The article surveys studies that offer unique and creative ways to combine methods and introduce new tools while at the same time address some solutions to ethical questions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political discussion is a core element for the democratic wellbeing of any society. Recently, academics have turned their attention to exploring the different roles discussion-network-attributes may have in today's democracy, such as strength of discussion network ties (weak-strong), heterogeneity of discussion networks, exposure to disagreement, and level of reasoning in discussions. Less explored, however, is the connection of these discussion attributes as antecedents to cognitive elaboration - the extent to which individuals who engage in political discussions find themselves thinking and reflecting upon those discussions at a later time. Survey data from the United States indicates discussing public affairs in networks with strong-ties versus weak-ties has different implications in predicting other discussion attributes and cognitive elaboration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In pursuit of a healthier and participatory democracy, scholars have long established the positive effects of social capital, values derived from resources embedded in social ties with others which characterize the structure of opportunity and action in communities. Today, social media afford members of digital communities the ability to relate in new ways. In these contexts, the question that arises is whether new forms of social capital associated with the use of social media are a mere extension of traditional social capital or if they are in fact a different construct with a unique and distinct palette of attributes and effects. This study introduces social media social capital as a new conceptual and empirical construct to complement face-to-face social capital. Based on a two-wave panel data set collected in the United States, this study tests whether social capital in social media and offline settings are indeed two distinct empirical constructs. Then, the article examines how these two modes of social capital may relate to different types of citizenship online and offline. Results show that social media social capital is empirically distinct from face-to-face social capital. In addition, the two constructs exhibit different patterns of effects over online and offline political participatory behaviors. Results are discussed in light of theoretical developments in the area of social capital and pro-democratic political engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article first surveys current research within the context of the public sphere, particularly in Europe. Then, the article seeks to examine theoretical and empirical mechanisms by which information and communication technologies (ICTs) may contribute to seeding that public sphere. Finally, and more specifically, it establishes a conciliatory argument between the proliferation and sustainability of a public sphere by means of citizens' use of digital and social media. The study concludes by advocating for a more contemporaneous understanding of what a public sphere is, and how digital and social media, under certain circumstances, may elicit an inclusive, discursive, and deliberative path to political participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As journalists and audiences increasingly interact via social media spaces online, scholars have begun to explore the varying forms of information and relational exchanges between them. Building on an emerging thread of research that examines the potential role of reciprocity in such encounters, this study examines how reciprocity, as a key ingredient of online communities, might stimulate audiences' consumption and creation of content, including news content. A national survey finds that, while personal beliefs in reciprocity (perceptions) may predict news consumption, it is reciprocity in practice on social media that is associated with not only news consumption but content creation, both for news and in general. This first-of-its-kind empirical study indicates that scholars may be correct in theorizing a role for reciprocity in the news interaction process, much as in social media and society more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the recognized influence media have over participatory political behaviors, few studies perform systematic and direct cross-national comparisons of news use and its effects on citizenship in different countries. And even fewer studies consider social media news use. By analyzing comparable and concurrently collected survey data from the United States and the United Kingdom, this study explores how traditional media use and the use of social media for news impact citizens' political engagement in both nations. Despite differences in terms of media use, political knowledge, political efficacy, and political participation, evidence in both cases confirms the meaningful role social media play in promoting citizens' political engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An ongoing debate concerns the extent to which political consumerism constitutes political behavior. To address this debate, researchers have examined several predictors of political consumerism, but have not focused on its communicative dimensions, especially with respect to digital media. In this study we conceptualize political consumerism as a form of civic engagement, and we theorize that people who use social media are more likely to engage in political consumerism than those who do not. Using original survey data collected in the US, we find that political consumerism is more closely related to civic engagement than it is to political participation, and that use of social media mediates the relationship between general Internet use and political consumerism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Research has established the positive relationship between news consumption, interpersonal discussion, and political participation. New insights within this framework have tested the positive effect of blog use in the political domain. Based on national survey data, this study proposes novel advances by distinguishing between a less involved blog use (consumptive), such as reading entries and comments, and a more active blog use (expressive), such as posting comments on other people's blogs and on one's own blog. Results indicate expressive blog use is directly related to political participation, online and offline, and interpersonal reasoning processes, including reasoning and disagreement, whereas consumptive blog use is not. Furthermore, the relationship between expressive blog use and participation is mediated by exposure to weak ties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is the relationship between new information and communication technologies (ICTs) and the study of global political communication? This article reflects briefly on four important aspects of this complex question. We begin at the most concrete level, outlining several prominent empirical opportunities and challenges created by a globally interconnected digital communication network. Next, we examine how new ICTs matter, exploring the mechanisms through which diverse contemporary technologies alter the dynamics of political communication. Third, we consider what the changing landscape of mediated communication means for political communication theory. There is tension between the opportunity to advance existing theory and the need for radical new theorizing, and we argue that both approaches are relevant. We conclude by mapping out important research opportunities located at the intersection of new ICTs and political communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes a study which investigated the impact of Internet use by Americans of different ages on their political participation. It reveals that the means of how people access news has a direct effect on how people participate in political activities. It discusses how the study could help track voters turnout, particularly in the 2006 national elections where significant increase from the 2002 mid-term election was recorded. It also notes that the data used in the study came from Pew Internet and American Life Project (PEW).

Research has shown consistently that news consumption both online and offline is related positively to interpersonal discussion, political involvement and political engagement. However, little consideration has been given to the role that new sources of information may exert on different forms of political engagement. Based on secondary analysis of data collected by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, this article contrasts the influence of traditional sources of information online with that of emergent sources (blogs) in predicting further political discussion, campaigning and participation in both the online and the offline domains. The results show that the use of traditional sources online is related positively to different types of political engagement, both online and offline. Most interestingly, the article finds that blog use emerges as an equally important predictor of political engagement in the online domain. Its analyses provide support for the contention that asserts the democratic potential of the internet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the relationship between news use and elaboration while introducing the mediating role of people's perception of how different media helps them understand complex issues. The construct--media efficacy--is conceptualized as an individual's perception of helpfulness of a news medium in understanding complex issues. Analysis from a two-wave panel study showed the relationship between news media use and elaboration was fully mediated by media efficacy. This research advances the Cognitive Mediation Model scholarship by introducing a new mediating variable, media efficacy, and examining its relationship with cognitive elaboration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]