Presentations of our department at the virtual 71st annual conference of the International Communication Association (ICA) [19.10.21]
This year, Dr Frank Mangold and Prof Dr Jens Vogelgesang are represented at the ICA Annual Conference with a total of three presentations. Together with Marko Bachl, Frank Mangold has investigated the attitudes of political opinion leaders towards modern news environments. In a joint project by Frank Mangold and Michael Scharkow, the focus is on questions of measuring audience polarisation. In their presentation, Frank Mangold, Jens Vogelgesang and Michael Scharkow explore the question of why individual preference structures do not necessarily lead to a fragmentation of news audiences.
Changing News Media, Changing Opinion Leadership? How Political Opinion Leaders Engage with the Modern News Ecology
Autoren: Frank Mangold & Marko Bachl
Abstract: We updated the understanding of political opinion leaders’ news use beyond its current focus on news exposure. The civic-duty-to-keep-informed, news media trust, and the news-finds-me perception were conceptually and empirically condensed into over-arching profiles to capture the varied ways that opinion leaders engage with the modern news environment. We analyzed data from a representative general population survey in Germany (N = 1,573) and found a robust association of news engagement profiles with opinion leadership. Opinion leadership was associated with both a polarization of news media trust and varied levels in the commitment to actively follow the news vs. keeping informed via (online) social networks. We conclude from these findings that contemporary opinion leaders’ varied adherence to the idea of informed citizenship makes it necessary to reconsider their role in the process of public opinion.
Metrics of News Audience Polarization: Same or Different?
Autoren: Frank Mangold & Michael Scharkow
Abstract: Although media and communication scholars have suggested various analytical methods for measuring and comparing news audience polarization across countries, we lack a systematic assessment of the metrics produced by these techniques. Using survey data from the 2016 Reuters Institute Digital News Report on news use in 26 countries, we address this gap through a resampling simulation experiment. Our simulation revealed a strong impact of analytical choices, which invited disparate interpretations in terms of how polarized news audiences are, how strongly audience polarization structurally varies between news environments, and how audience polarization is distributed across news environments. Alternative choices led to profound differences in the compatibility, consistency, and validity of the empirical polarization estimates. We conclude from these results that a more precise methodological understanding of audience polarization metrics informs our capability to draw meaningful inferences from empirical work.
Audience Preference and News Use in an Age of Choice: A News Orientation Perspective
Autoren: Frank Mangold, Jens Vogelgesang & Michael Scharkow
Abstract: Although scholars have assumed that news orientations constitute a core component of preferences structures and thereby shape contemporary news use patterns (i.e., news repertoires), they have never been explicitly studied. We addressed this gap by investigating news orientations as complex overarching preference patterns that span various types of news consumption. We analyzed representative survey data from Germany and found a robust association between news orientations and news repertoires. The association demonstrates that preference-based news choices do not inevitably lead to a dismembering of news use because commonly held core preference patterns have persisted despite news environments’ differentiation. This underlines that although selective exposure is an important driver of news use in high-choice media environments, fears about audience fragmentation are exaggerated.
