Selective Exposure: The Potential Boomerang Effect

This paper reports a test of selective exposure. Interviews with the audience of a film critical of American involvement in Vietnam revealed that the overwhelming majority shared the film's orientation and that eighty per cent knew about the film before entering the theater. Thus selective exposure occurred. Selective exposure, however, supposedly reinforces viewer attitudes; but for many respondents this did not occur, and for several viewers the film had a boomerang effect reducing their opposition to American policy. This effect may be explained by the different expectations members of the audience brought to the film. For those most disapproving, it violated their expectations of new information, insights, reason and logic.     

To Your Health: Self‐Regulation of Health Behavior Through Selective Exposure to Online Health Messages

Reaching target audiences is of crucial importance for the success of health communication campaigns, but individuals may avoid health messages if they challenge their beliefs or behaviors. A lab study (N = 419) examined effects of messages' consistency with participants' behavior and source credibility on selective exposure for 4 health lifestyle topics. Drawing on self‐regulation theory and dissonance theory, 3 motivations were examined: self‐bolstering, self‐motivating, and self‐defending. Prior behavior predicted selective exposure across topics, reflecting self‐bolstering. Standard‐behavior discrepancies also affected selective exposure, consistent with self‐motivating rather than self‐defending. Selective exposure to high‐credibility sources advocating for organic food, fruits and vegetable consumption, exercise, and limiting coffee all fostered accessibility of related standards, whereas messages from low‐credibility sources showed no such impact.     

Looking for Gender: Gender Roles and Behaviors Among Online Gamers

Several hypotheses regarding the importance of gender and relationships were tested by combining a large survey dataset with unobtrusive behavioral data from 1 year of play. Consistent with expectations, males played for achievement‐oriented reasons and were more aggressive, especially within romantic relationships where both partners played. Female players in such relationships had higher general happiness than their male counterparts. Contrary to stereotypes and current hypotheses, it was the female players who played the most. Female players were also healthier than male players or females in the general population. The findings have implications for gender theory and communication‐oriented methods in games and online research—most notably for the use of self‐reported time spent, which was systematically incorrect and different by gender.     

Please Your Self: Social Identity Effects on Selective Exposure to News About In‐ and Out‐Groups

Hypotheses were tested in a secondary data analysis of an experiment on selective exposure to positive and negative news articles about same‐ and differently aged individuals. A sample of 178 young (18–30 years) and 98 older adults (50–65 years) browsed an online news magazine while reading times were logged by software. Younger individuals (high status, high uncertainty) generally focused their reading on same‐aged individuals, with a preference on positive news about this in‐group. Older recipients (low‐status, low uncertainty) were more likely to select negative news about young individuals than positive news about this out‐group and negative news about older individuals. Furthermore, exposure to negative news about younger individuals bolstered older recipients' self‐esteem.     

Online Groups and Political Discourse: Do Online Discussion Spaces Facilitate Exposure to Political Disagreement?

To what extent do online discussion spaces expose participants to political talk and to cross‐cutting political views in particular? Drawing on a representative national sample of over 1000 Americans reporting participation in chat rooms or message boards, we examine the types of online discussion spaces that create opportunities for cross‐cutting political exchanges. Our findings suggest that the potential for deliberation occurs primarily in online groups where politics comes up only incidentally, but is not the central purpose of the discussion space. We discuss the implications of our findings for the contributions of the Internet to cross‐cutting political discourse.     

Beating the News Blues: Mood Repair Through Exposure to Advertising

This paper explores mood regulation in advertising. In Experiment 1, participants made sad by previous media content experienced greater mood enhancement from exposure to a pleasant product advertisement than those made happy. Sad participants were also more likely to attribute their mood change to how they liked the ad and the product. In Experiment 2, exposure to a positively framed antismoking ad reduced negative mood more than exposure to a negatively framed ad. This was true, however, only for sad participants and not for happy and neutral participants, who were presumably less motivated to repair mood. In addition, exposure to the positively framed ad encouraged sad participants, but not happy or neutral participants, to attribute higher risks to smoking and express stronger antismoking attitudes than did exposure to the negatively framed ad.     

The Role of Actors' Race in White Audiences' Selective Exposure to Movies

Movie producers are often reluctant to cast more than a few minority actors in otherwise race‐neutral movies for fear that the White audience will largely avoid such films. Two experiments were conducted to test the idea that the racial makeup of a cast could influence White audiences' selective exposure to movies. Results revealed that actors' race does influence selective exposure in certain contexts. For nonromantic movies, participants' racial attitudes moderated the relationship between race and selective exposure. For romantic movies, regardless of racial attitudes, White participants showed significantly less interest in seeing movies with mostly Black casts than in seeing movies with mostly White casts. These findings are discussed in light of both social identity theory and social cognitive theory.     

The Choice Gap: The Divergent Online News Preferences of Journalists and Consumers

This study examines 4 online news sites to compare stories that journalists display most prominently with stories consumers read most frequently. We find that journalists' chosen stories are “soft” with respect to subject matter but not story format, and that these choices diverge from consumers' choices, resulting in a choice gap. The study design makes important methodological contributions by using the story as the unit of analysis, operationalizing “soft news” in terms of subject matter as well as format, and considering the influence of journalists' and consumers' choices on each other. This article discusses the implications of the findings on such issues as the dynamics of agenda setting, the prospects for consumer‐authored content, and the watchdog function of the media.     

Politically Motivated Reinforcement Seeking: Reframing the Selective Exposure Debate

This article seeks to reframe the selective exposure debate by demonstrating that people exhibit a preference for opinion‐reinforcing political information without systematically avoiding opinion challenges. The results are based on data collected in a national random‐digit‐dial telephone survey (n = 1,510) conducted prior to the 2004 U.S. presidential election. Analyses show that Americans use the control afforded by online information sources to increase their exposure to opinions consistent with their own views without sacrificing contact with other opinions. This observation contradicts the common assumption that reinforcement seeking and challenge avoidance are intrinsically linked aspects of the selective exposure phenomenon. This distinction is important because the consequences of challenge avoidance are significantly more harmful to democratic deliberation than those of reinforcement seeking.     

Reinforcement of the Political Self Through Selective Exposure to Political Messages

The idea that recipients prefer messages that reinforce preexisting attitudes and self‐perceptions has pervaded much communication research, but effects of selective exposure are rarely examined. This 2‐session experiment (n = 157) investigates such effects. The first session presented computerized questions on 12 political issue attitudes and political self‐concept. Accessibility data were collected based on response times. In the second session, participants browsed through an online magazine including 4 of the 12 issues, each issue being covered by 2 articles featuring opposing viewpoints. Selective exposure was logged and categorized as attitude‐consistent or counterattitudinal. Finally, a questionnaire repeated measures for attitudes and self‐concept. The results show that participants preferred attitude‐consistent over counterattitudinal messages, which strengthened the political self‐concept through increased accessibility.     

Hostile News: Partisan Use and Perceptions of Cable News Programming

Two trends have marked the development of U.S. cable television news in recent years: a blurring of hard and soft news and an increase in overt partisanship. This paper reports the results of 2 studies that provide insight into the nature and impact of these trends. The first study analyzes national survey data to identify the factors that lead political partisans to choose particular cable television news networks and programs. The second study employs experimental methods to demonstrate how viewers' partisan leanings influence their perceptions of content from CNN, Fox News, and The Daily Show. We found evidence of a relative hostile media phenomenon, in which partisans perceive more bias in programs that do not align with their own political perspective. Furthermore, the results indicate that partisanship informs viewers' perceptions of news content as interesting and informative.     

Partisan Paths to Exposure Diversity: Differences in Pro‐ and Counterattitudinal News Consumption

This study examines selective exposure to political information, arguing that attraction to proattitudinal information and aversion to counterattitudinal information are distinct phenomena, and that the tendency to engage in these behaviors varies by partisanship. Data collected in a strict online experiment support these predictions. Republicans are significantly more likely to engage in selective avoidance of predominantly counterattitudinal information than those with other partisan affiliations, while non‐Republicans are significantly more likely to select a story that includes proattitudinal information, regardless of its counterattitudinal content. Individuals across the political spectrum are receptive to predominantly proattitudinal content and to content that offers a mix of views, but the form these preferences take varies by partisanship. The political significance of these findings is discussed.     

Adolescents' Exposure to Sexually Explicit Online Material and Recreational Attitudes Toward Sex

Previous research has largely ignored the implications of adolescents' exposure to sexually explicit online material for their sexual attitude formation. To study whether adolescents' exposure to sexually explicit material on the Internet is related to recreational attitudes toward sex, we conducted an online survey among 471 Dutch adolescents aged 13–18. In line with an orientation 1 – stimulus – orientation 2 – response (O₁-S-O₂-R) model, we found a pattern of multiple mediated relationships. Male adolescents (O₁) used sexually explicit online material (S) more than female adolescents, which led to a greater perceived realism of such material (O₂). Perceived realism (O₂), in turn, mediated the relationship between exposure to sexually explicit online material (S) and recreational attitudes toward sex (R). Exposure to sexually explicit online material, then, is related to more recreational attitudes toward sex, but this relationship is influenced by adolescents' gender and mediated by the extent to which they perceive online sexual material as realistic.     

Selective Use of News Cues: A Multiple‐Motive Perspective on Information Selection in Social Media Environments

This study investigated the effects of message and social cues on selective exposure to political information in a social media environment. Based on the heuristic‐systematic model, we hypothesized that readers' selective consideration of specific cues can be explained by situational motivations. In an experiment (N = 137), subjects primed with motivational goals (accuracy, defense, or impression motivations, as well as a control group) were asked to search for information. Participants preferred attitude‐consistent information and balanced information over attitude‐inconsistent information, and also preferred highly recommended articles. Defense‐motivated partisans exhibited a stronger confirmation bias, whereas impression motivation amplified the effects of social recommendations. These findings specify the conditions under which individuals engage in narrow, open‐minded, or social patterns of information selection.     

Knowledge Acquisition Following Exposure to Cancer News Articles: A Test of the Cognitive Mediation Model

To test the cognitive mediation model (CMM), a virtual lab study was carried out where participants (N = 602) read 1 of 5 cancer news articles and completed a knowledge posttest (assessing recognition and comprehension). Results were consistent with the CMM and past news learning research, as (a) news surveillance motivation was positively related to story comprehension (but not recognition of specific facts), (b) elaboration mediated the relationship between surveillance and comprehension, and (c) attention to health news moderated the size of the indirect relationships. The results support and extend the CMM as well as validate past research suggesting a connection between attention and cancer information gain.