HOW ONLINE MEDIA
FORMATS CAN
POLITICALLY ENGAGE
YOUNG CITIZENS
A Study on the Influence of Different Online Media Formats on
the Intention to Vote and the Intention for Civic Messaging
Anja Höchle (11351462) Master’s Thesis University of Amsterdam Graduate School of Communication Master’s programme Communication Science Supervisor: Dr. Ruud Wouters Date of Completion: 30. June 2017
Abstract
Two facts have been changing Western democracies: First, the emergence of the internet has opened the spectrum of the media’s possibilities to act as fourth power. Second, the increasing political passivity among young adults represents a serious threat for the well-being of democracies. This study investigates on the effect of different online news formats on the intention to vote and on the intention for civic messaging of Swiss youth. Also, this research aims to determine how this effect can be altered by internal political efficacy and political interest. Moreover, the mediating effect of political knowledge is examined. The goal is to provide insight how news organizations can use media formats to stimulate political participation among young citizens. On the topic of the national voting about the Energy Act, an experiment consisting of three conditions was held among Swiss students (n=109). Evenly distributed, participants were exposed either to a raw article (n=35) or to the same article including an infographic (n=37) or a hyperlink (n=37). All the information that was shown was in German. Results do not show a direct impact of media formats on political
participation nor the expected mediating or moderating effects. Therefore, this study concludes that the media’s potential to politically engage youth has to be improved through another approach than by the format political content is presented.
Keywords: voting intention, intention for civic messaging, infographic, hyperlink, text,
Introduction
Democracy cannot be taken for granted. Next to corruption and bad policies, youth’s disconnections from conventional politics have set the alarm bells ringing (Kaid et al., 2007; Bennett, 2008a). To the youngest generations of citizens, political processes seem to be so abstract and complicated that they don’t feel competent enough to participate in it (Moeller et al., 2014). Western democracies such as the United States, Germany, Sweden, and the United Kingdom face fundamental youth dissatisfaction with traditional politics (Bennett, 2008b) leading to passivity regarding their conventional political participation such as casting a vote (Bennet, 2008a). Also, Switzerland represents an alarming case: In 2015, only 43% of all Swiss citizens entitled to vote participated in the national votings (Bundesamt für Statistik, 2017). The voter turnout among young Swiss citizens was even below 40% (Sozialbericht, 2016). According to normative theory of democracy, this passivity among young adults represents a serious threat for democracy (Berelson, 1952). Since the future of democratic countries lies in the hand of youth, there is a particular need in finding solutions to overcome these difficulties. This study aims to contribute insight about how young citizens can become politically engaged.
In solving this problem, the rapidly advancing technologies of the last decades play a key role for two reasons. First, the cascading advance of online media facilitates
unprecedented levels of production and distribution of ideas, public deliberation, and network organization (Bennet, 2008a). Therefore, the Internet and its forms of digital media have become important contributors to political socialization and a way to bring especially young citizens – the digital generation – closer to the political process (Quintelier & Vissers, 2008). Second, the rapidly advancing technology of the last decades goes in-line with the increasing importance of online journalism: Due to increased internet penetration, the newspaper
formats attracting their readership. Based on these developments, this study experimentally examines the effect of different formats of the online version of a print newspaper on political participation among youth. For this purpose, Switzerland represents a unique country to study: Due to referenda and initiatives as direct forms of democracy, Swiss citizens can actively participate in politics. Next to national elections taking place every four year, there are four annual national votings. Thus, the low voter turnout as well as the unique political system requiring an increased amount of citizen’s engagement make Switzerland to a particularly interesting case to investigate. Analyzing the example of Switzerland, this study contributes to the implementation of media’s responsibility of civic education, i.e. how to present political content in order to put young readers’ knowledge into practice by casting a vote.
Theoretical Background
Examining young people’s disengagement from politics, Pasek et al. (2006) found that information as well as entertainment media use facilitates civic engagement, whereas news outlets are particularly effective in promoting general political knowledge. Political
knowledge is closely linked with Internal Political Efficacy (IPE), i.e. the electorates’ confidence in their own political knowledge (Kaid et al., 2007). Investigating on first-time voters, Moeller et al. (2014) found IPE as significant predictor of voting participation
suggesting media to play a key role in solving the problem of how adolescent can learn about politics in order to feel qualified enough to cast a vote. Over the last ten to twenty years, the Internet and its form of new media have become important contributors to political
socialization and a way to bring especially young citizens – the first generation of digital natives – closer to the political process (Quintelier & Vissers, 2008). This goes in line with Bakker and de Vreese’s (2011) results indicating different forms of political participation being positively linked more strongly with a variety of internet uses than with traditional
media use. For instance, youth’s active participation in the online communication process of political information has the strongest effect on IPE whereas this is the case for newspaper reading among traditional media (Moeller et al., 2014). Therefore, media seem to have main responsibility in finding a solution for low voter turnout among youth.
Based on these findings, this study aims to examine how formats of political online news predict political participation. For this purpose, different formats of the online version of a traditional Swiss newspaper will be examined in an experiment and their effect on two forms of political participation will be tested: intended voter turnout and civic messaging, i.e. the chance of the article’s ‘shareability’ and ‘likeability’. Moreover, the mediating effect of political knowledge on this relation be considered. Furthermore, it will also be examined how pre-existing IPE and political interest moderate the association between media format and the two forms of political engagement. This leads to the following research questions: Which
format of political online news content is the most effective in predicting different forms of political participation of Swiss youth? How can this effect be explained through political knowledge and its strength be altered by the participant’s internal political efficacy and political interest?
In the following paragraphs, the concepts of the research questions introduced above will be theoretically explored and hypotheses will be deducted from existing research findings.
Online news formats’ impact on political participation
Among others, normative democracy theory requires electorates to “take anappropriate share of responsibility” by actively participate in the process of political decision (Berelson, 1952, p. 316). Since this prerequisite directly leads to democratic outcomes, it is of special importance (ebd.). The view on political participation differs among generations: older generations of dutiful citizens see voting as an obligation and the core democratic act
(Bennett, 2008a). In Switzerland, every citizen passed the 18th birthday and in possession of the ability to judge has the right to vote (Ch.Ch – Die Schweizer Behörden Online, 2017). In contrast, voting is less meaning to today’s youth favoring personally defined and loose networks of community actions – maintained by interactive information technologies (Bennett, 2008a). Civic messaging is a type of digital active participation (Bakker & de Vreese, 2011) defined as one’s online reaction to an article or one’s active engagement in discussions by forwarding or commenting on an article (Moeller et al., 2014). Investigating on online media and online forms of political participation, the youngest age group eligible to vote represents an interesting sample for two reasons. First, young citizens in the age of 18 to 20 years represent the digital generation who has grown up with advanced digital technologies and social functions of the internet (Taipale, 2016). Second, today’s youth shapes tomorrow’s democracy and insights about how to increase the political participation of this age group are therefore of a special importance.
The emergence of the internet has fueled the competition the media market faces today by offering unlimited news access and a vast range of news presentation. In order to evoke reader’s interest and promoting their understanding of news, media organizations have started visualizing complex issues (Bucy, 2003). Several studies have investigated on different media effects of news format (Yang & Grabe, 2011; Lee & Kim, 2015; Krishen et al., 2016). Due to the positive link between political participation and online media use (Bakker & de Vreese, 2011; Pasek et al., 2006; Xenos & Moy, 2007), the way online news is presented, i.e. the format of news content, remains a contemporary crucial variable to examine political engagement. Literature suggests two core features of visualized context representation affecting individuals’ news processing: multimodality and interactivity. Multimodality refers to the combination of different methods of presentation appealing to different human
perceptual systems, as e.g. text, pictures, audio, and video (Sundar & Limperos, 2013). On the other hand, interactivity describes computer-mediated social interaction and impersonal
engagement with media content such as e.g. the use of hyperlinks (Bucy, 2004). Both
multimodality and interactivity are expected to positively affect news knowledge acquisition through an increased engagement with the content of such media formats (Lee & Kim, 2015). There is some evidence for visualized content increasing public involvement (Delli Carpini, 2000; Slotterback, 2010). However, existing literature barely investigates on media formats directly affecting political participation and emphasizes the supporting role of visualized content and interactive elements for information processing as well as knowledge acquisition (Eveland et al., 2004; Yang & Grabe, 2011; Lee & Kim, 2015; Crick & Hartling, 2015). Therefore, this study aims first to fill this void and second to elaborate the role of knowledge for the effect between media formats and political participation. The latter impact will be elaborated below. This study uses the multimodal combination of text and infographic as well as the inclusion of an interactive hyperlink in a text to investigate this research gap.
According to the studies elaborated above, the infographic and the hyperlink condition will have a stronger positive impact on political participation. However, the hyperlink provided in this study represents only a basic form of interactivity and is therefore expected to have a smaller effect than the infographic:
H1a: An online media format including an infographic will lead to a higher intention for political participation than the exposure to a pure text format or the exposure to a format including a hyperlink.
H1b: A pure text format will lead to a lower intention for political participation than the exposure to a format including a hyperlink.
Moderating roles of political interest and internal efficacy
Of course, other variables will moderate the direct effect of news format on political participation. Existing literature found political interest to moderate the relationship between online political information and political participation (Boulianne, 2009; Xenos & Moy, 2007). Moreover, individuals with a higher level of political interest are more likely to develop a richer political information repertoire leading to more political participation (Wolfsfeld et al., 2016). These findings can be explained by Petty and Cacioppo’s (1986)
Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) suggesting motivation as one factor influencing the
choice of the information processing route (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). The ELM proposes that people tend to use one of two so-called routes to any kind of information: either the central or the peripheral route. Both pathways represent the poles of a continuum of different
information-processing styles without being considered as exhaustive or exclusive forms. The motivation and the ability to elaborate represent two factors influencing the extent of one’s elaboration of an information. When the recipient of a message is motivated and able think about the message’s content, the central route is activated. Due to the cognitive elaborations of the information perceived, the central route of information processing results in a reasoned attitude. In the case of inability or low motivation to process information effectively, the peripheral route is used. Peripheral information processing does not thoroughly examine information and relies therefore more on heuristic cues. Thus, attitudes formed through central route processes are more likely to be persistent over time than attitudes formed via the peripheral route (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986).
This study assumes that a reasoned attitude gained through the central route is likely to lead to action and that the extent of the motivation to process and to elaborate the information content via the central route is represented by the participant’s level of political interest. Political interest is therefore an individual prerequisite influencing the direct effect of this study by its impact on information processing. Next to political interest, the concept of
political efficacy summarizes the core of beliefs and values needed to participate in
democracies. As a personality trait, it is acquired during childhood and youth and affects the degree of citizen’s participation in politics (Moeller et al, 2014). In other words, it describes “the feeling that political and social change is possible, and that the individual citizen can play a part in bringing about the change” (Campbell, et al., 1971, p. 187). The ‘beliefs about one’s own competence to understand and to participate effectively in politics’ (Niemi, et al., 1991, p.1408) are defined by IPE. People with a high level of IPE tend to be more interested and active in political participation (Craig, 1979; Vecchione & Caprara, 2009). In contrast, individuals with a low level of IPE are less confident in their capabilities to understand and judge political issues and less motivated to politically participate, and therefore more likely to be vulnerable to external influences. For instance, Lee (2014) found low-IPE citizens to be less influenced by other’s opinions in online discussions. Therefore, the effect of media format on political participation is expected to be stronger for citizens with a low level of IPE because they are more likely to be influenced by different ways of news presentation making the content easier or harder to digest. Based on these findings, the following two hypotheses regarding the moderating roles of political interest and IPE have emerged:
H2a: A higher level of political interest is expected to reinforce the effect of media
format on political participation.
H2b: A lower level of IPE is expected to enhance the effect of media format on
political participation.
Online formats, political knowledge and participation
Whether individuals process information via their central or their peripheral route impacts the level of their political knowledge which in turn is often manifested in political participation (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986, Wolfsfeld et al., 2016). Thus, this study considers political knowledge as mediating variable. To be politically knowledgeable represents another
key characteristic of good citizens required by normative democracy theories (Theiss-Morse & Hibbing, 2005). Political knowledge can be gained through media use and can be predicted through preexisting political interest (Eveland, 2005). More precisely, the exposure to news outlet with high levels of political content contributes the most to the acquisition of
knowledge and increases the intention of voting participation (de Vreese & Boomgarden, 2006). Research on political knowledge has differentiated between factual political knowledge – to be informed about events, institutions, or personalities – and structural political knowledge enabling citizens to interpret political issues (Elo & Rapeli, 2010;
Sheppard, 2015; McAllister, 2016). The associations between online media formats, political knowledge and political participation are elaborated in the following two paragraphs.
How online media format shapes political knowledge
Findings of Hildon et al. (2012) suggest that the nature of information processing depends more on the format the data is displayed than on the type of information. This is in line with Dur (2012) who found that human mind perceives and transfers visual information in a more effective and permanent way in comparison to written or verbal information
content. Especially complex content accumulated with ratios, numbers and miscellaneous data informs citizens better in the form of visualizations than long articles (Dur, 2012). Therefore, the multicodal character of infographics represents a helpful tool for news media to increase reader’s knowledge and understanding by visually presenting information in a combination of verbal text and graphics (Lee & Kim, 2015). Moreover, infographics are considered as
aesthetically appealing for summarizing evidence and increasing topic related knowledge if they are targeted to specific user’s preferences and needs (Crick & Hartling, 2015). For instance, tables and pictographs are generally found to be the most effective representation of information in terms of comprehension (Hildon et al., 2012). Arcia et al. (2016) show that carefully designed infographics can be useful tools to increase understanding and help people
to engage with the related topic. Since a text including an infographic requires participants not only reading but also following arrows and understanding visualized data, the information processing is expected to take place via the central route leading to an increased factual knowledge.
Interactive features in online news such as hyperlinks promote a more connected and integrated comprehension of politics: Eveland et al. (2004) found that nonlinear web designs (i.e., format allowing viewing in multiple orders) increase knowledge structure density (i.e., the ability to link nodes in a given domain). Reason for this is the internet’s offer of countless sources of information presented in a hyperlinked fashion. Thus, it is easy for internet users to find additional information, compare different news sources, and see connections between issues and political actors (Dalrymple, 2007). On the other hand, print-like linear Web
presentations – as presented in the three conditions of this study – enhance information recall, i.e. factual political knowledge (Eveland et al., 2004). So far, existing research has not yet investigated on hyperlinks as independent variable and how factual knowledge mediates its effect on political participation. To cover this research gap, the examination of the hyperlink-plus-text condition represents a core interest of this study. Its empirical foundation is provided by Petty and Cacioppo’s (1986) ELM. Based on the ELM, this study expects participants to more likely use their central route to process the information, if they consciously click on a hyperlink asking them to read more information (see Lee & Kim, 2015). In other words, if people have to click on a “Read more…” hyperlink, they will tend to process the information in a more elaborated and time persistent way than when the same information is presented as pure text as in the text condition. Due to the lack in existing literature, it remains open whether in the hyperlink-plus-text or in the infographic condition more factual knowledge is acquired. To fill in this gap represents another key interest of this study.
The level of political knowledge’s impact on political participation
In addition to the ELM, Eveland’s (2001) Cognitive Mediation Model claims that elaborative information processing mediates the effects of communication on political outcomes. Since young knowledgeable people have less difficulties with retention of new information and to become engaged in problem solving (Shavelson, 1974), they are more likely to put their knowledge into practice by political participation. This explains why among youth, the internet use during an election campaign enhances political factual knowledge leading to an increased chance to cast a vote (McAllister, 2016). Thus, hyperlinked media format and infographics are not only expected to increase political knowledge more than the raw text condition (see Eveland et al, 2004; Arcia et al., 2016) but also the intention to vote. Nevertheless, this expectation is also valid for civic messaging since it is positively influenced by factual political knowledge (Jung et al., 2011). Assuming that knowledge is gained through the central route of the ELM (see Petty & Cacioppo, 1986), more knowledgeable participants are expected to more likely use civic messaging due to their more elaborated information processing (see Eveland, 2001). Citizens are expected to be more knowledgeable when they expose themselves through civic messaging as individual and active online engagement (Bakker & de Vreese, 2011). These considerations demonstrate the mediating role of political knowledge on the effect of media formats on political participation. Based on the results of existing studies introduced above, this research tests the following mediation hypotheses:
H3a: Political knowledge mediates the effect of media format on the intention to vote and the intention for civic messaging.
H3b: Due to an expected increased level of political knowledge, this mediation effect is stronger for participants exposed to an article including an infographic or a hyperlink than for participants exposed to a pure article.
Methods
This section presents the sample and its characteristics, introduces the research design, and explains the operationalization of the concepts.
Research Design
To test the causal effect indicated in the research question, an experiment represents the appropriate research method. The experiment was constructed online through the research software Qualtrics and distributed via a link. The experimental study is a 3x1 design with ‘Format of political online news’ as between-subjects variable (experimental factor, 3 levels, namely: Text, Text plus infographic, and Text plus Hyperlink), ‘Intention to vote’ (quasi-experimental factor, rated on 1 to 5 scale indicating ‘very unlikely’ to ‘very likely’) and ‘Intention for Civic Messaging’(quasi-experimental factor, 4 levels, namely: ‘Intention to share article’, ‘Intention to like article’, ‘Intention to comment on article’, and ‘Intention to comment in topic-related online discussions’; each of the levels rated on 1 to 5 scale indicating ‘very unlikely’ to ‘very likely’). Moreover, Political knowledge as a mediator variable is examined to find out whether a specific media format favors knowledge gain and if more knowledgeable people are more likely to politically participate online and offline. This research also studies the moderating influence of Political interest and IPE on the effect of media format on political participation. These two moderating variables are considered as individual predispositions unlikely to be affected by the stimuli used in this study. Figure 1 visualizes the presented research design. The experiment as well as the instructions were in German and can be found in Appendix I (incl. English translation).
Media Format: Text-only
Text plus Infographic Text plus Hyperlink
Intended Political Participation: Intention to vote
Intention for Civic Messaging
Internal Political Efficacy Political Interest Factual Political Knowledge
Figure 1 - Visualization of the Research Design
To test the direct effect of media formats on political participation, an ANOVA will be conducted. The moderating impact on it will be evaluated by analysis of the interaction effect for political interest and IPE. Hayes’ PROCESS analysis is the appropriate method to test the mediation effect of political knowledge. By creating three dummy variables representing the experimental conditions and applying the filter function, Hayes’ PROCESS analysis can be applied by comparing two conditions at a time. Therefore, Hayes’ PROCESS analysis must be run several times.
Sample
To investigate on the youngest Swiss citizens eligible to vote, from 09.05.2017 until 20.05.2017 data was collected of 126 students of two levels of Swiss Sek II schools. Teachers of humanities in the corresponding schools were directly contacted and briefed in order to enable them to supervise the online conductance of the experimental survey. Due to ethical reasons, minors were excluded from the experiment. Thus, only students in the last or second last year of school were targeted. Moreover, if the first item ‘How old are you today?’ was answered by ‘Younger than 18’, the experimental survey automatically ended for the
of which 94% hold a Swiss passport and are therefore eligible to cast a vote. 85% of the sample are students of the High School Matura (Gymnasiale Maturität) whereas the rest is enrolled at the Vocational Matriculation Qualification (Fachmaturität) (EDK, 2017).
Moreover, the sample has ha 57%-43% female-male share and an even number of participants was exposed to each condition: 35 participants to the Text condition whereas the Text plus infographic and the Text plus hyperlink condition consist both of 37 participants. To examine if Gender and Education are randomized over the conditions, Chi2-tests were conducted. Gender and Education served as dependent variables. Chi2-tests showed that neither Gender (Chi2=.87, df=2, p=.648) nor Education (Chi2=.114, df=2, p=.944) differ among the three experimental conditions, i.e. participant’s age and educational level are evenly distributed over all conditions (see Appendix III).
Measures
To test the hypotheses elaborated above and to answer the research question, the following research units have been selected: Format of political online news content
(independent variable), Intention to vote (dependent variable), Intention for civic messaging (dependent variable), Political knowledge (mediating variable), Political interest (moderating variable), and IPE (moderating variable). The measures of these items base on existing English literature. The items were translated into German and proofread by a German native journalist. The construction of the corresponding answer scales was inspired by Rössler (2011).
Intention to vote. This dependent variable was assessed as intended behaviour. After
the stimulus exposure, the survey asked, ‘How likely are you going to cast your vote in the upcoming voting about the Referendum against the Energy Act?’. The question was answered by a 5-point Likert scale (5=‘very likely’, 1=‘very unlikely’). On average, all participants scored 3.92 (SD=1.37) indicating a high intention to cast a vote (see Appendix II).
Intention for civic messaging. In this study, four levels kind of civic messaging as
dependent variable were assessed as a self-reported attitude: the likelihood of sharing, liking, and commenting on this article or in topic related online discussions. After the stimulus exposure, the survey asked, ‘How likely would you share this article or other political content on one of your social media accounts?’, ‘How likely would you like this article on one of your social media accounts?’, ‘How likely would you comment on this article on one of your social media accounts?’ and ‘How likely would you comment on a topic-related online discussion?’. All questions were answered by a 5-point Likert scale (5=‘very likely’, 1=‘totally unlikely’). To check if the four items measure the same, i.e. the Intention for civic messaging, a factor analysis with varimax rotation was conducted (see Appendix IV). The results of this Principal Component Analysis show that the four items constitute a single uni-dimensional scale (see Table 1): only one component has an eigenvalue above 1 (eigenvalue=2.60) and there is a clear point of inflexion after this component in the scree plot. All items correlate positively with the component ‘How likely would you comment on a topic-related online discussion??’ that has the strongest association (factor loading is .91). The four items explain in total 65% of variance and are all above .6. Cronbach’s alpha of .78 represents a reasonable reliability of the scale. Therefore, a new variable indicating the overall score of the Intention for civic messaging was created by calculating the mean of the four items of each participant. Overall, the participants tend to have a low intention for civic messaging illustrated by their mean 1.35 (SD=0.55).
Table 1
Component Matrix of the four items measuring the Intention for civic messaging
How likely would you comment on this article
on one of your social media accounts?
How likely would you share this article or other political content on one of your social
media accounts?
How likely would you like this article on one
of your social media accounts?
How likely would you comment on a topic-related online
discussion?
Component 1 .91 .83 .76 .72
By summing up the scores of the Intention to vote and for civic messaging and calculating the mean, a variable measuring the overall Intention for political participation was created (M=2.63, SD=.73) (see Appendix II).
Format of political online news content. The media formats considered in this study are
inspired by the research of Lee and Kim (2015). Based on their study, the independent
variable of this study is conceptualized by the following three levels whose operationalization is elaborated below:
Text-only
Text plus hyperlink Text plus infographic
The interface of 20min.ch served to visualize these different levels of the experimental factor. 20min.ch is the online version of 20 Minuten, a Swiss free tabloid which is daily distributed at public transport places as train stations or bus and tram stops. Among all Swiss daily and Sunday papers, 20 Minuten had in 2016 the highest daily circulation of 442’994 copies and the highest readership of 1’369’000 recipients. Moreover, its digital counterpart
20Min.ch is one of the most frequently used news website in the German part of Switzerland
(Schweizer Medien, 2017). Due to its popularity – especially among young people – the surface of 20min.ch served as visualization for this study. The content of all the formats
remained the same and covered the upcoming national voting on 21. May 2017 about the Referendum Against the Energy Act (Schweizerische Eidgenossenschaft, 2017). The Swiss parliament has revised the Energy Act in order to implement a sustainable national energy strategy by 2050. However, opponents fear restrictions due to weakening of nuclear power and have therefore taken the referendum. Therefore, the Swiss population voted on the 21.05.2017 whether the revised Energy Act should be approved (i.e. voting against the
referendum) or rejected (i.e. voting for the referendum). The article created showed both sides of the argument equally and was inspired by information of the official website of the Swiss government (Schweizerische Eidgenossenschaft, 2017) as well as content related articles by 20 Minuten (Schawalder, 2017; Waldmeier, 2017) and the news portal of renewable energies and energy efficiency (EE-News, 2017). The created article was proofread by a German native journalist. In the Text-only condition, the article was presented in a verbal text
describing content related facts in words. In contrast, the article for the Text plus infographic condition consists of the same written article but includes an infographic visualizing some of the contents. To create the infographic with pictograms and a line graph, the online program Canva (2017) was used. For the Text plus hyperlink condition, the meaningful lead of the article is presented with a hyperlink labelled “To read more, click on the orange box…”. By clicking the orange box, the remaining parts of the full-version of the initial article appeared. Both, the operationalization of the Text plus infographic and the operationalization of the Text plus hyperlink were inspired by the study of Lee and Kim’s (2015). The entire stimuli material can be found in Appendix I.
Political Knowledge. In this study, political knowledge is examined as factual political
knowledge and treated as a mediator variable. After the stimuli exposure, participants had to answer to five multiple choice questions directly related to the content of the article shown beforehand. The evaluation of their answers shows if a media format favors knowledge gain and if more knowledgeable people are more likely to politically participate online and offline.
Each question offers four answer possibilities of which only one is correct (0=wrong, 1=true). The sum of all the right answers indicate a high level of factual political knowledge with an overall mean of 3.79 (SD=1.01) (see Appendix II).
Political Interest. Before stimuli exposure, Political interest as a moderating variable
was measured using one item, asking ‘How interested are you in politics?’. A 4-point scale will provide the answer to this question: ‘Very interested’, ‘Somewhat interested’, ‘Not very interested’ and ‘Not at all interested’ (World Value Survey, 2016). The participants scored on an average of 2.85 (SD=0.743) indicating a tendency towards a political interested sample (see Appendix II).
Internal Political Efficacy (IPE). To measure the moderating variable IPE, the
respondents had to indicate how strongly they agree with five the following five statements (Craig et al., 1990): ‘I consider myself well-qualified to participate in politics’, ‘I feel that I have a pretty good understanding of the important political issues facing Switzerland.’, ‘Other people seem to have an easier time understanding political issues than I do.’, ‘I feel that I could do as good a job in public offices as most other people of the Swiss population.’, and ‘I don’t feel sure of myself when talking with other people about politics and the Swiss
government.’. On a slide bar, participants could decimally determine their position between 5 ‘strongly agree’ and 1 ‘strongly disagree’. The third and the fifth item were re-coded to match a high score with a high level of IPE. The results of this Principal Component Analysis show that the four items constitute a single uni-dimensional scale (see Table 2): only one
component has an eigenvalue above 1 (eigenvalue=2.81) and there is a clear point of inflexion after this component in the scree plot. All items correlate positively with the component ‘I feel that I have a pretty good understanding of the important political issues facing
Switzerland.’ that has the strongest association with a factor loading of .85. The five items explain in total 56% of variance and represent with a Cronbach’s alpha of .78 reasonable
reliability of the scale (see Appendix IV). Thus, an overall IPE variable was created (M=3.45, SD=.72). Participants with a score below the mean of the overall level of IPE are classified as ‘low IPE’ (n=50) whereas participants scored above the mean belong to ‘high IPE’ (n=59).
Table 2
Component Matrix of the four items measuring IPE
I consider myself
well-qualified to participate in
politics.
I feel that I have a pretty good understanding of the important political issues facing Switzerland. Other people seem to have an easier time understanding political issues than I do.
I feel that I could do as good a job in public offices as most other people of
the Swiss population.
I don’t feel sure of myself when talking with other
people about politics and the
Swiss government.
Component 1 .86 .85 .71 .47 .82
Results
Before addressing the hypotheses, the variables were tested for normality. According to the histograms, Political Interest, IPE, and Political knowledge are relatively normal distributed (see Appendix V). In contrast, the distribution of Intention to vote, Intention for Civic Messaging, and the general Intention for political participation don’t show a normal distribution. For these six variables, a randomization check by a one-way ANOVA was conducted. Results show that for all three experimental conditions, the means of these six variables do not significantly differ from each other. This means, participants of all conditions score in average similarly in their level of Political Interest, IPE, Political knowledge,
Intention to vote, Intention for civic messaging and the intended political participation (see Appendix III).
To assess the hypotheses, a Univariate ANOVA was conducted with the overall level of Political participation as dependent variable and the Media format, Political interest and IPE as independent variables (see Appendix V). Since the design of the study compares
different groups of participants, the analysis only tested between-subjects effects. The model as a whole was significant, F(18)=1.89, p=.03, η2=.28. The main effect of the Media format as independent variable on the overall level of political participation as dependent variable was statistically not significant, F(2)=.88, p=.42, η2=.02. This means, that the mean of the overall level of the Intention of political participation of participants exposed to the pure article (M=2.63, SD=.70) does statistically neither differ from the mean of participants exposed to a format including an infographic (M=2.68, SD=.74) nor from the mean of participants exposed to a format with a hyperlink (M=2.59, SD=.77). These results reject H1a as well as H1b. However, it should be noted that the assumption of equal variances in the population has been violated and the results should be interpreted cautiously, since Levene's test is significant,
F(18, 90) = 2.78, p = .00. Additionally, no main effect is found if the two forms of political
participation of this study are regarded separately: The different media formats do not lead to differences in participants’ intention to vote, F(2)=1.53, p=.22, η2
=.03, nor to their intention for civic messaging, F(2)=.42, p=.66, η2=.01. Therefore, it cannot be stated that the exposure to different media formats alters the level of the intention of political participation. However, significant main effects of IPE on the intended political participation, F(1)=3.87, p=.05, η2
=.04, and on the Intention for civic messaging, F(1)=5.27, p=.02, η2=.06, were found. The corresponding tables can be found in Appendix VI.
In contrary to the expectation of H2b, the moderating power of IPE on the effect of media formats and on the intended political participation is not significant, F(2)=.19, p=.83, η2=.00. In other words, there is no significant difference between the means of the overall level of the Intention for political participation among the participants of the experimental conditions (see Table 3). Moreover, the means of the intended political participation suggest that a lower level of IPE tends to enhance the effect of Media format on political participation. This contradicts the expectation of H2b which must thus be fully rejected. Furthermore, the mean differences in Table 3 demonstrate that the interaction effect of Media format and
Political interest tends to have the smallest moderating impact on the intended political
participation in the hyperlink condition. Also, the expectation of H2a is not met by the results: Political interest does not moderate the strength of the effect of media formats on the intended political participation turned out to be not significant, F(4)=1.24, p=.30, η2=.05. This
suggests, that the means of the intention to politically participate don’t differ among the experimental conditions (see Table 4). To sum up, neither participants’ IPE nor their Political interest do pronounce the effect of articles including an infographic or a hyperlink on the intention of political participation. In other words, both Political interest and IPE do not moderate the main effect of media formats on the intended political participation (see Appendix VI).
Table 3
Means and Standard Deviations for Interaction Effect of Media Format and IPE on the Intention of Political Participation
IPE
M(SD) MD
Media Format
M(SD) Low High Total MD
Article plus infographic 2.35 (.80)
2.93 (.59)
2.68
(.74) .58
Article plus hyperlink 2.47 (.83) 2.69 (.72) 2.59 (.77) .22 Article 2.38 (.75) 2.86 (.57) 2.63 (.70) .48 Total 2.40 (.78) 2.83 (.63) 2.63 (.73) .43
Table 4
Means and Standard Deviations for Interaction Effect of Media Format and Political Interest on the Intention of Political Participation Political Interest M(SD) Media Format M(SD) Very interested Somewhat interested Not very interested Not at all interested Total
Article plus infographic 3.09 (.32) 2.71 (.79) 2.37 (.76) - 2.68 (.74)
Article plus hyperlink 2.51 (.95) 2.80 (.61) 2.44 (.81) 1.30 (-) 2.59 (.77) Article 3.14 (.20) 2.70 (.62) 2.24 (.77) - 2.63 (.70) Total 2.92 (.62) 2.74 (.67) 2.35 (.76) 1.30 (-)
In contrast to the expectations of H3a and H3b, the mediation analysis using
PROCESS shows no mediation effect of political knowledge for neither of the conditions (see Appendix VII). Indicated by the Sobel tests, the reduction in the effect of media formats, after including political knowledge in the model, is for all conditions not significant (see Table 5). In other words, political knowledge does not mediate the Media formats’ predicting power neither on the Intention to vote nor on the Intention for civic messaging or on the overall Intention for political participation. Thus, H3a is rejected. The differences of the means of Political knowledge between the three experimental groups are minimal and therefore, not significant (see Table 6). In other words, the results of the t-test show that participants do not differ from each other regarding their political knowledge among conditions. Due to the fact of participants of all conditions seem to be equally knowledgeable about politics, the non-significance of the mediation effect reported above is not surprising and H3b has to be rejected as well.
Table 5
Results of Sobel test – a normal theory test for indirect effect, i.e. mediation effect of political knowledge
Comparison between independent variables (experimental conditions)
Dependent variables Text-only vs. Text plus
infographic
Text-only vs. Text plus hyperlink
Text plus infographic vs. Text plus hyperlink
Intention to vote Z=.32, p=.75, К2
=.05 Z=.07, p=.94, К2
=.09 Z=-.64, p=.52, К2
=.11
Intention for civic messaging Z=-.09, p=.93, К2
=.02 Z=.03, p=.98, К2
=.02 Z=.45, p=.65, К2
=.03
Intention for political participation Z=.28, p=.78, К2
=.03 Z=.07, p=.94, К2
=.05 Z=-.60, p=.55, К2
=.05
Table 6
Comparing means of political knowledge between experimental conditions
Comparison between subjects (experimental conditions)
Political Knowledge
Text-only (M=3.86, SD=1.06) vs. Text plus infographic
(M=3.68, SD=1.03)
Text-only vs. Text plus hyperlink (M=3.84, SD=.96)
Text plus infographic vs. Text plus hyperlink
t-test t(70)=.73, p=.46 t(70)=.08, p=.94 t(72)=-.70, p=.49
Nevertheless, additional analysis and data exploration show some tendencies which might help future researches tackling a similar problem. If only considering the prediction of intended political participation through Political knowledge controlling for Media formats, the following tendencies can be reported: Politically knowledgeable participants exposed to the pure article report a higher Intention to vote compared to the individuals of the Text plus hyperlink condition, b=.32, t(69)=2.04, p=.04. However, this result has to be interpreted with caution since the overall model is not significant, F(2/69)=2.40, p=.10, R2=.07. Between these two experimental groups, the same is the case regarding the overall Intention for political participation, b=.17, t(69)=2.04, p=.05, where the overall model is also not significant,
F(2/69)=2.11, p=.13, R2=.06. On the other hand, the political knowledge level participants of the Text plus infographic condition show compared to the participants of the Text plus hyperlink condition a higher Intention to vote, b=.43, t(71)=2.68, p=.01. In this case, also the overall model is significant, F(2/71)=3.75, p=.03, R2=.10. Moreover, politically
knowledgeable individuals of the Text plus infographic condition significantly show a higher general Intention for political participation compared to the Text plus hyperlink condition, b=.18, t(71)=2.03, p=.05. Since the overall model is not significant, F(2/71)=2.20, p=.12, R2=.06, these results must also be interpreted cautiously. In short, political knowledge can only predict the Intention to vote controlling for media formats in the direct comparison between the Article plus infographic and the Article plus hyperlink condition. Political knowledge seems to play a certain role in the general Intention for political participation whereas it seems to be an unimportant factor predicting civic messaging.
Conclusion & Discussion
This study provides insight about how online media format predict political
participation of Swiss youth and considers the mediating role of political knowledge as well as the moderating influence of political interest and IPE. To approach the study’s research design, an online experiment was conducted on the topic of the Swiss Referendum on the Energy Act. Three formats presenting the same political content in different ways constitute the experimental conditions. The Energy Act was approved by the Swiss population voting against the Referendum on the 21. May 2017 (Die Schweizerische Eidgenossenschaft, 2017). The analyses show null results regarding all expected effects. Consequently, the hypotheses of this study must be rejected. In the following paragraphs, limitations of the study potentially leading to the null results are discussed and on this basis, some suggestions for future research are being made. This section will close with theoretical and practical implications as well as the societal relevance of the study.
Discussion and limitations
The first two hypotheses stated that there is a direct effect of media formats on intended political participation whose emphasis differs among the different format styles. Their rejection support existing research suggesting no effect of media formats on political participation if information processing and knowledge acquisition are not taken into account (Eveland et al., 2004; Yang & Grabe, 2011; Lee & Kim, 2015; Crick & Hartling, 2015). In other words, media formats do not directly affect individuals’ intended political participation in any way. This is in line with the communication mediation model O-S-R-O-R
(Orientations-Stimulus-Reasoning-Orientations-Response) that serves therefore as explanatory foundation for the null findings and future research suggestions (Markus & Zajonc, 1985; McLoed et al. 1994; Cho et al. 2009). The rejection of H1a and H1b points towards the main assumption of the O-S-R-O-R model: Mass communication’s impact is strong but indirect, shaping political participation only through its effect on discussion about public affairs (Shah et al., 2005). Moreover, the sample of the current study is considered as very homogeneous not only regarding their demographics but also their motivation, i.e. political interest, and cognitive capacities. According to their age, all participants are studying in the highest level of school and are therefore used to process and recall written information regarding a complex topic. Thus, participants do not differ regarding the first ‘O’ representing the “structural, cultural, cognitive, and motivational characteristics the audience brings to the reception situation that affect the impact of the message“ (McLeod et al., 1994, p.146). These homogeneous characteristics of the participants might have caused similar responses despite the differences in stimuli.
Another reason why the expectations of the hypotheses are not being met might be found in the stimulus material representing the ‘S’ of the O-S-R-O-R model. For instance, Jankowski and Van Selm (2008) found visualization of complex numerical data to be of great importance for the understanding of political communication. Since the stimulus article of the
current study did not include numbers or any statistical results, the content tended to be easy to understand only by reading the text. Therefore, the visualization of the article through an infographic might have been redundant. Moreover, the hyperlink in this study and the
knowledge acquisition did not differ among conditions. Also, the hyperlink used in the current study only allowed to move forward and did not include a ‘back’ button such as for instance in Eveland et al.’s (2004) study concerning factual knowledge acquisition. Thus, participants of the hyperlink condition read the same content in the same order as individuals of the other conditions. These minimal differences of the three types of media format of this study explain the insignificant findings of the direct effect expected in H1a and H1b. However, what
multimodal and interactive media formats do influence is information recall and factual political knowledge (Graber, 1990; Eveland et al., 2004), i.e. through which route of the ELM content is perceived (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). This means that the results should report a mediating effect of political knowledge as expected by the two last hypotheses. However, statistical analysis does not lead to this conclusion. The rejection of H3a and H3b can be explained through the first ‘R’ and the second ‘O’ of the O-S-R-O-R model: The first ‘R’ stands for reasoning (Cho et al., 2009). Since the demographics are homogeneous and the stimulus material similar among conditions, it is likely that most participants activated the same route of information processing. Due to their daily educational habits, participants seem to have activated their central route during stimuli exposure what lead to rather high means of political knowledge. Political knowledge mediating communication and participation
represents the second ‘O’ of the O-S-R-O-R model (McLeod et al., 1999). Due to the similar level of political knowledge among conditions, its mediating effect is omitted leading to a similar intention of political participation.
The second ‘O’ provides also explanations for the null findings for H2a and H2b. Instead of a moderating effect, the results report a direct effect of IPE on the Intention for political participation as well as for civic messaging. This significant result points in the
direction of scientific evidence suggesting IPE as part of the second ‘O’ does not moderate but mediates the effect of mass media on political participation (McLeod et al., 1999; Jung et al., 2011). Reason for that provide for instance Semetko and Valkenburg (1998) who found a causal relationship from media use to IPE. Why Political interest as the other moderating variable of this study leads to null results is also likely to be due to the homogeneity of the sample.
Future research suggestions
The limitations of this study imply promising suggestions for future research. First, the mediating role of IPE on the main effect between media formats and political participation should be examined (McLeod et al., 1999; Jung et al., 2011). Another approach to extend the current study represents the consideration of topic related prior political knowledge as a moderator as Lee and Kim (2015) in their study did. According to the significant results of the predicting power of political knowledge on intended voting and political participation, its relationship with different media formats has to be further examined. Second, there is a need in future research to create a news content which can represented more diverse than in the current study, e.g. by including complex numbers which can be visualized or by creating more sophisticated hyperlinks. Third and most importantly, a bigger and more heterogeneous
sample of young citizens will help to find significant results. For instance, more diversity regarding educational background might lead to more variety in the way the stimulus material is processed and put in to practice through voting participation or civic messaging.
Implications and societal relevance
This study aimed to provide insight about how media can contribute increasing youth voter turnout in Switzerland through the online presentation of political articles. Importantly, this study found that the media’s contribution to politically engage highly educated youth must be improved through another approach than by the format political content is presented. More
specifically, if the content consists only of describing text, infographics or hyperlinks do not help to politically engage young readers. The results indicate further that Switzerland’s struggle of low voter turnout among young citizens cannot mainly be solved by the media. Despite media’s key role for the political socialization (Quintelier & Vissers, 2008), a higher-level exchange with other stakeholders such as politicians and civil educators is indispensable in order to find solutions for the low youth voter turnout. However, in a digital world, online media host an enormous potential to reviving democratic citizenship through online voter mobilization (Vaccari, 2017; Haenschen, 2016). This implies an additional suggestion for future research: Next to the online version of a print newspaper, the entire diversity of online media supply should be examined to completely understand the different facets of it’s
potential to reach and politically engage digital natives in Western democracies.
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Appendices
Appendix I – Experiment
German versionHerzlichen Dank für Ihre Teilnahme! ‘NEXT’
Wenn Sie, um weiterzukommen, unten auf das orange Kästchen klicken, bestätigen Sie, die folgenden Teilnahmebedingungen gelesen zu haben und damit einverstanden zu sein:
Ich erkläre hiermit, dass ich auf verständliche Art und Weise über diese Studie und die entsprechende Verfahrensweise informiert wurde.
Ich erkläre mich damit einverstanden, freiwillig an dieser Studie teilzunehmen. Ich behalte mir das Recht vor, mein Einverständnis jederzeit und ohne die Angabe von Gründen zurückziehen zu können. Ich bin mir bewusst, dass ich die Teilnahme an der Umfrage jederzeit beenden kann.
Falls meine Resultate für wissenschaftliche Publikationen oder sonstigen Veröffentlichungen gebraucht werden, ist meine Anonymität zu jedem Zeitpunkt gewährleistet. Meine
persönlichen Daten werden nicht an Dritte weitergegeben.
Falls ich jetzt oder in Zukunft weitere Informationen über dieses Forschungsprojekt erhalten möchte, kann ich Anja Höchle (anja_hochle@student.uva.nl) kontaktieren. Sollte ich irgendwelche Beschwerden über dieses Forschungsprojekt haben, kann ich ein Mitglied des Ethikkomitees der ASCoR an der folgenden Adresse kontaktieren: ASCoR Secretariat, Ethics Committee, University of Amsterdam, Postbus 15793, 1001 NG Amsterdam; 020‐525 3680; ascor‐secr‐fmg@uva.nl.
‘NEXT’
Zuerst benötige ich Angaben über Ihr Alter:
Wie alt sind Sie heute? (1=18 oder älter, 0= jünger als 18)
Aus ethischen Gründen werden keine Daten von Minderjährigen generiert, deshalb endet die Umfrage hier für Sie. Vielen Dank für Ihre Zeit. ODER
In dieser Umfrage geht es um Schweizer Politik und Ihre persönliche Haltung dazu. Deshalb fahren wir mit der folgenden Frage fort:
Wie stark sind Sie an Schweizer Politik interessiert?
(4=sehr interessiert, 3=eher interessiert, 2=weniger interessiert, 1=gar nicht interessiert) ‘NEXT’
Als nächstes geht es darum, wie Sie zu Politik im Allgemeinen stehen. Ich würde gerne wissen, wie stark Sie mit den folgenden Aussagen einverstanden sind. Es geht dabei um Ihre Meinung, d.h. es gibt keine richtige oder falsche Antwort.
Ich schätze mich als kompetent genug ein, um mich am politischen Geschehen zu beteiligen. (5=stimme sehr zu, 4=stimme zu, 3=weder noch, 2=nicht einverstanden, 1=gar nicht
