Doctoral Dissertation Research: Issue publics and Web use

在过去的三十年里，美国可获得的政治信息发生了巨大的变化。许多学者认为，最重要的是互联网的迅速发展和采用。观察人士对这种变化有乐观和悲观的说法，但有一些共识认为，这种新媒体似乎有可能给美国民主制度带来重大变化。鉴于信息对公民做出适当的政治决策至关重要，而当公民有效地表达他们的需求、愿望和价值观时，民主才能得到最好的维持，因此，有必要研究公民个人如何与政治信息环境的最新变化相互作用。尽管它很重要，但我们对公民如何以及为什么使用互联网进行政治判断知之甚少。本论文项目缩小了这一差距。该学院未能充分评估公民如何以及为什么使用在线政治信息，主要源于以前研究中的三个长期问题：a)现有的许多研究往往是描述性的，而不是理论性的；b)先前的研究在衡量公民如何在互联网上处理信息的充分性和准确性方面存在局限性；c)最重要的是，之前的研究已经应用了一个大众社会范式，在这个范式中，研究人员有些天真地认为公民是个体的单一集合（即大众）。本论文项目探讨公民如何使用互联网在他们的政治判断。从概念上讲，论文项目采用多元主义的观点，强调问题公众-对特定政治问题特别感兴趣的人群-以及他们的动机信息寻求。以往的研究关注的是国家新闻媒体议程内容与公众知识和议程之间的因果关系，而我们更多地关注个人议程对在线信息搜索的影响。与以往的研究相比，本论文项目更加关注信息处理。论文项目通过阐述政治判断过程，研究公民在态度形成过程中如何收集、聚集和使用信息。在方法上，论文项目将直接测量自然发生的网页浏览量，以便充分和准确地测量在线信息的获取和使用。本论文项目将使用一个创新的网络跟踪程序开发的研究小组。本论文项目包括两组研究，着眼于人们如何获取和使用在线政治信息。第一项研究的特点是测量一组互联网用户的政治态度，并观察他们的在线信息搜索行为。观察信息搜索的性质和范围会因个人问题的突出程度而变化，从而了解问题公共成员与非问题公共成员搜索信息的不同之处。第一项研究还将考察个人问题突出性、信息搜索以及这两个因素之间的相互作用对特定领域和一般政治知识获取、对问题政策的态度以及假设竞选背景下候选人评价的影响。这将揭示议题公众成员和非议题公众成员在信息搜索方面的差异如何在政治知识获取和决策方面产生不同的后果。第二项研究旨在评估基本信息搜索动机对政治信息获取和使用的影响。第二项研究将关注动机对议题公众信息搜索行为的可能调节作用。本论文项目借鉴了不同社会调查领域的理论和研究的核心领域，并以新颖的方式将它们整合起来。因此，它是建立在既定的理论基础上的，但它提出了新的方法来解决有关公民和当代政治环境不断变化的性质的紧迫问题。由于这些特点，拟议的论文项目预计将产生广泛的影响。论文项目将加强目前的研究工具，以衡量互联网的使用及其前因。论文项目的结果应告知跨学科的基础理论，包括传播学，公众舆论和政治心理学。建议的论文项目也与政府之间的政策讨论，利益集团，或其他政治组织关于互联网的社会角色和未来在现代民主国家相关。

The landscape of available political information in America has changed dramatically in the past three decades. Of central importance, many scholars argue, has been the rapid development and adoption of the Internet. Observers have painted this change in variously optimistic and pessimistic terms, but there is some consensus that this new medium appears to have the potential to bring significant changes to the American democratic system. Given that information is essential to citizens for making adequate political decisions and that democracy is best sustained when citizens effectively give voice to their needs, wants, and values, it is imperative to examine how individual citizens interact with recent changes in the political information environment. Despite its importance, we know little about how and why individual citizens use the Internet in their political judgments. This dissertation project narrows this gap. The academy's failure to fully assess how and why citizens use online political information stems largely from three chronic problems in previous research: a) much of the existing research has tended to be descriptive rather than theoretical; b) prior studies have had limitations in the adequacy and precision of their measurement of how citizens process information on the Internet; and c) most importantly, prior research has applied a mass society paradigm, one in which researchers have somewhat naively thought of citizens as a single aggregation of individuals (i.e., the mass).This dissertation project examines how citizens use the Internet in their political judgments. Conceptually, the dissertation project adopts a pluralist perspective, emphasizing issue publics--groups of people particularly interested in a given political issue--and their motivated information seeking. Whereas previous studies have focused on a causal link from content in the national news media agenda to the public's knowledge and agenda, we direct more attention to the impact of individuals' personal agendas on online information seeking. This dissertation project also has a sharper focus on information processing than has been the case in previous research. Explicating the political judgment process, the dissertation project studies how citizens gather, assemble, and use information in attitude formation. Methodologically, the dissertation project will directly measure naturally occurring Web site viewing at the page level in order to adequately and precisely measure online information acquisition and use. This dissertation project will use an innovative Web tracking program developed by the research team. This dissertation project involves a set of two studies that look at how people acquire and use online political information. The first study features measurement of the political attitudes of a set of Internet users and observation of their online information searching behavior. Observing the nature and extent of information searching that varies by a level of personal issue salience will inform how issue public members search for information differently than do non-issue public members. The first study will also examine the effects of personal issue salience, information search, and the interaction between these two factors on domain-specific and general political knowledge gain, attitudes toward issue policies, and candidate evaluations in a hypothetical campaign context. This will reveal how the differences between issue publics members and non-issue public members' information searching may produce different consequences in terms of political knowledge acquisition and decision-making. The second study is designed to assess the impact of basic information search motivations on the acquisition and use of political information. The second study will focus on possible moderating effects of motivations in issue publics' information search behavior.This dissertation project draws upon core areas of theory and research in diverse fields of social inquiry and integrates them in novel ways. Thus, it is well grounded in established theory, yet it suggests news approaches to addressing pressing questions about the changing nature of citizens and contemporary political environments. As a result of these features, the proposed dissertation project is expected to produce broad impacts. The dissertation project will enhance current research tools in measuring Internet use and its antecedents. The results of the dissertation project should inform basic theory across disciplines including communication, public opinion, and political psychology. The proposed dissertation project is also relevant for policy discussions among governments, interest groups, or other political organizations about the social role and future of the Internet in modern democracies.