Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Why Motivations Matter: Information Processing Goals and Their Implications for Selective Exposure to Political Information

政治学博士论文研究：为什么动机很重要：信息处理目标及其对选择性接触政治信息的影响

• 批准号: 1263729
• 负责人: Thomas Nelson
• 金额: $ 1.53万
• 依托单位: Ohio State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2013
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2013-03-01 至 2015-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1263729&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Political; Science

Recent literature in political communication has demonstrated the proclivity of the American news consumer to seek out political information that serves to confirm prior beliefs. But, the motivations that underlie these behaviors, as well as what impacts these motivations may subsequently have on the consequences of exposure to political information, are less clear. The objective of this project is to contribute to understanding in these areas by applying the concept of information-processing goals - the objectives that the media consumer wishes to accomplish in their information-seeking behaviors - to the phenomena of political media selectivity. This poses two questions: 1) How are information-processing goals influential in how citizens choose political information sources? and, 2) In what ways do these goals moderate the relationship between political information exposure and political attitudes? To this end, a multi-faceted research approach involving original survey data collection and survey experimentation is proposed in an effort to determine both the real-world consequences of information-processing goals on political media preferences and the causal implications of information-processing goals regarding the effect of political media exposure on public opinion and political tolerance.The intellectual merit of this project stems from a decade of research that has identified selective exposure - the preference for information that affirms prior attitudes and the aversion towards information that challenges existing beliefs - as a serious threat to the health of American democracy. While such claims are not without some empirical support, these studies largely operate under a theoretical paradigm that treats all forms of political information exposure as being solely motivated by the innate desire to avoid information that may challenge existing worldviews. However, recent psychological research has suggested that such an approach is simplistic as it neglects to account for a number of other motivations that influence information preferences and subsequently the role of these factors in dictating how new information is processed in the formation of political judgments. Hence, the intellectual contribution of this study involves testing an alternative theoretical approach toward understanding citizens' political media habits, accounting for motivations in the form of information-processing goals. The results of this project should ultimately result in a more nuanced understanding of why individuals prefer the information sources that they do as well as what consequences (i.e. polarization or moderation) can be expected of such information-seeking behaviors. Beyond an improved academic understanding of the correlates and consequences of citizens' political information-seeking habits, this study should also yield broader impacts regarding the consequences for democratic society of citizens' engagement with the political information environment. As numerous scholars have proclaimed, a shift towards selective exposure is thought to manifest increased attitude polarization and intolerance. Further, many of these same scholars argue that the solution to this spiral towards extremity is the promotion of diversity in information-seeking behavior. The expected outcomes of this study, however, would suggest that each of these claims is conditional on the objectives that people wish to accomplish in their political media habits. In other words, if the empirical analysis supports the theoretical importance of information-processing goals, improving democratic society must go beyond making normative claims about which types of political information-seeking strategies are best and instead focus on the promotion of more deliberative mindsets in how people make sense of political information, either through citizenship training or fostering more accountability for the attitudes that people hold about politics.

最近关于政治传播的文献表明，美国新闻消费者倾向于寻找有助于确认先前信念的政治信息。但是，这些行为背后的动机，以及这些动机对暴露于政治信息的后果可能产生的影响，都不太清楚。该项目的目的是通过将信息处理目标的概念- -媒体消费者希望在其信息寻求行为中实现的目标- -应用于政治媒体选择性现象，来促进对这些领域的理解。这就提出了两个问题：1)信息处理目标如何影响公民选择政治信息来源？2)这些目标如何调节政治信息暴露与政治态度之间的关系？为此，提出了一种涉及原始调查数据收集和调查实验的多方面研究方法，以确定信息处理目标对政治媒体偏好的现实后果，以及信息处理目标对政治媒体曝光对公众舆论和政治宽容的影响的因果影响。这个项目的智力价值源于十年来的研究，该研究确定了选择性暴露——对肯定先前态度的信息的偏好和对挑战现有信念的信息的厌恶——是对美国民主健康的严重威胁。虽然这些主张并非没有一些经验支持，但这些研究在很大程度上是在一种理论范式下进行的，这种范式认为，所有形式的政治信息暴露都是由避免可能挑战现有世界观的信息的先天愿望所驱动的。然而，最近的心理学研究表明，这种方法过于简单化，因为它忽略了一些影响信息偏好的其他动机，以及随后这些因素在决定如何处理新信息以形成政治判断方面的作用。因此，本研究的智力贡献包括测试另一种理论方法来理解公民的政治媒体习惯，以信息处理目标的形式解释动机。这个项目的结果最终会导致对为什么个人喜欢他们所做的信息源以及这种信息寻求行为的后果（即两极分化或适度）的更细致的理解。除了提高对公民政治信息寻求习惯的相关性和后果的学术理解之外，这项研究还应该对公民参与政治信息环境对民主社会的影响产生更广泛的影响。正如许多学者所宣称的那样，向选择性暴露的转变被认为是态度两极分化和不宽容加剧的表现。此外，这些学者中的许多人认为，解决这种螺旋式走向极端的方法是促进信息寻求行为的多样性。然而，这项研究的预期结果表明，这些说法中的每一个都取决于人们希望在他们的政治媒体习惯中实现的目标。换句话说，如果实证分析支持信息处理目标在理论上的重要性，那么改善民主社会必须超越对哪种类型的政治信息寻求策略是最好的规范性主张，而是将重点放在促进人们如何理解政治信息的更审慎的心态上，要么通过公民培训，要么通过培养人们对政治态度的更多问责制。