Media choice and political participation

Transcription

1 Media choice and political participation The role of media content preferences and media environments in explaining political participation in Europe Alexander, F. Boerboom, BSc Supervisors: Prof. dr. Peer Scheepers Dr. Paul Hendriks Vettehen Master thesis Research Master Social and Cultural Science Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen Nijmegen, August 2015

2 Media choice and political participation The role of media content preferences and media environments in explaining political participation in Europe Master thesis Alexander, F. Boerboom Supervisors: Prof. dr. Peer Scheepers Dr. Paul Hendriks Vettehen Research Master Social and Cultural Science Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, August 2015

3 Abstract Within European countries overall levels of political participation have been relatively stable in the past two decades. At the same time communication technology has expanded tremendously, and with it, the transmission and accessibility of information, including political information. An explanation for this seemingly paradoxical situation, as proposed by Prior (2005), is rooted in individuals media content preferences. In this study the influences of individual political media content preferences and media environments on political participation were analyzed across 25 European countries and a total of respondents. Multilevel regression analysis was applied to estimate the individual-level effect of political media content preferences and country-level effects of media environment characteristics on political participation. The results showed in general that preferences for political media contents relate positively to all modes of political participation. The country-level influence of the media environment was less clear. Two characteristics of media environments were analyzed: the absolute supply of information and the relative share of political information within this absolute amount of information. Regarding the absolute supply of information by media environments, the regression results were mixed. As expected, the absolute supply of information (indicated by broadband internet penetration rates) widened the voting gap between people with a preference for entertainment and people with a preference for political media content. On the contrary, the unconventional political participation gap between people with different media content preferences closed with increasing broadband internet penetration rates. Moreover, broadband internet penetration rates were positively related to voting and unconventional participation, above and beyond the effects of individual content preferences and internet access. Regarding the relative political information supply by media environments, unexpected but weak empirical evidence was found. The relative supply of political information increased the voting gap between people with different media content preferences.

4 Acknowledgements I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisors Paul Hendriks Vettehen and Peer Scheepers who were very generous with their time and provided me with useful comments and remarks throughout the learning process of this master thesis. The excellent combination of Paul s theoretical knowledge and experience in the field of communication science and Peer s methodological expertise and experience with cross-national research, have made the writing of this master thesis an educational and pleasant experience. Next, I would like to thank the students union den Geitenwollen soc. for the relaxing environment and liters of coffee I consumed there during my writing breaks, but also for all the fun informal activities and social events that made my time as a student very enjoyable. Furthermore, I wish to express my gratitude to my dear friend Ashley, for helping me collecting my data in Amsterdam and to my gym buddy Kirsten for pushing me to stay in physical shape after long days of mental labor. Last but certainly not least, I would like to thank my parents Henk en Karin for their love and support throughout the entire process and for always believing in me.

5 Table of contents Chapter 1 Introduction Introduction Research questions 8 Chapter 2 Theories and hypotheses Conceptualizations of political participation Individual-level explanations of political participation Social and psychological determinants Media content preferences and political participation Contextual-level determinants political participation Scarce empirical evidence Contextual-level effect of the media environment Cross-level interaction effects Empirical evidence Cross-level interaction effect of the media environment 22 Chapter 3 Data and measurements Individual-level data Sampling Response rates and representativeness Data selection and operations Contextual-level data Measurements of Dependent variables Independent variables: relative media content preferences a Relative Entertainment Preference (REP) b Relative Political Content Preference (RPCP) c Media-specific Relative Political Content Preference Contextual characteristics a Media choice within media environments b Absolute information supply by media environments c Relative political information supply by media environments Control variables Missing data 38

6 Chapter 4 Analyses and results Research methods Results Relative political content preferences and political participation Media-specific content preferences Controlling for individuals backgrounds The influence of political interest Political participation across different media environments Cross-level interaction effects of the media environment a RPCP and absolute content availability b RPCP and relative political media content availability Summary of the results Additional analyses Relative media content preferences and political participation Controlling for individuals backgrounds Political participation across different media environments Relative political content preferences and absolute media content availability Relative political content preferences and relative political content availability Summary of the results 71 Chapter 5 Conclusion 73 Chapter 6 Discussion 81 A: Descriptive statistics and full regression tables 85 Appendix B: Additional models 97 Appendix C: Regression models with quasi-metric media content preference measures 100 References 108 Notes 111

7 Chapter 1 Introduction 1.1 Introduction Over the past decades, there has been tremendous progress in mass communication technology. Until the nineties of the previous century, people depended on television, radio and newspapers for most of their (political) information and entertainment. Since the introduction of the internet in the 1980 and its rapid growth since the 1990s, people s access to any information has increased enormously. Nowadays, in most Western countries the internet penetration rates are somewhere between 80 and 100 per cent 1. With the recent introduction of the Smartphone and 3G+ networks that allow people to connect to the internet anywhere at any time, people have more access to information than ever before. The fast developing communication technology and the emerging new forms of communication have intrigued many scholars. Especially their effects on political engagement have been a popular research topic in the field of political communication. New communication technologies have changed the way people gather news and participate in politics (Tolbert & McNeal, 2003). It is increasingly acknowledged that media play a central role in affecting political participatory behavior (Bakker & de Vreese, 2011). According to Delli Carpini (2004), the media are one of the socializing agents that provide much of the raw material that make up social and political beliefs and attitudes. The rise of new media with the fast developing communication technology increased the availability of political information tremendously. One of the scholars that addressed the impact of new media on the political knowledge and participation of citizens is Prior (2005). Prior (2005) noticed that despite of the increases in available political information as a result of progress in mass communication technology (cable television and the internet), political knowledge and participation remained relatively stable in the American society. In order to explain this seemingly paradoxical finding, he developed a theory of how expansions of choice in the media environment affected political knowledge and participation of different segments of the electorate. Cable television and especially the internet have increased the media choice so much that Americans live in a high-choice media environment. This increase in choice has enhanced people s ability to merely expose themselves to the media content they prefer. Politically interested people are more likely to expose themselves to political information and increase their political knowledge, while people who are politically less interested are more likely to avoid political contents and become less politically knowledgeable. Thus, the increased media choice in American society, has widened the knowledge gap between people who are and people who are not politically interested. According to 1 Percentages were retrieved from: 7

8 Prior (2005) these opposite trends in political knowledge levels for people with different content preferences, explain why on average political knowledge levels have remained stable within the American society. Prior (2005) also argued that political knowledge is a strong predictor of turnout and that exposure to political information motivates turnout. Therefore, the increases in media choice are also likely to have contributed to a political participation divide between people with different media content preferences. With the increasing media choice, politically interested people who preferred political media content, gathered more political information, became more politically knowledgeable and were consequently more likely to vote, than people who were not politically interested. Prior s (2005) analyses supported the hypothesis that the relations between content preferences and political knowledge and participation are stronger when media choice increases. Both cable television access and internet access increased the gaps in knowledge and turnout between people who preferred news and people who preferred entertainment. Analyses of Prior s media choice theory with more recent data produced slightly different results. Rittenberg et al. (2012) analyzed more recent waves of the data used by Prior and found little effect of access to internet and cable television on the association between relative entertainment preferences and voter turnout at more recent presidential elections. These findings suggested that Prior s claims of how an increased media choice strengthens the negative association between a relative preference for entertainment and political participation, is not supported in all contexts. Both studies were limited to an American context. The extent to which media preferences and media choice are related political knowledge and participation in countries outside the United States, has not yet been investigated. 1.2 Research questions The media landscape is constantly evolving and the question to what extent new media technology and the increasing media choice in society affect citizens (political) behavior, remains relevant. The studies by Prior (2005) and Rittenberg et al. (2012) were solely based on American survey data, which strongly limits the external validity of their results. To the best of my knowledge, the effect of media choice has not yet been tested within other countries. Most western European countries show similar rates of progress in mass communication technology as the United States (ITU, 2015). A recent analysis of political participation in Europe (Linssen et al. 2014a) showed that, similarly to the United States, political participation within European countries has been relatively stable over time, although there are strong differences across societies. This means that European countries show the same seemingly paradoxical situation as Prior (2005) observed in the United States: mass 8

9 communication technology on the one hand is expanding while political participation on the other hand remains relatively stable. It is therefore relevant to test the assumptions of Prior s Media Choice Theory in the European context. In this contribution the role of individual s media content preferences and the media environment in explaining political participation is investigated, using data on 25 European countries from the European Social Survey (ESS) The ESS(2010) data are much different from the data Prior (2005) used and enabled explicit testing of several of Prior s implicit assumptions. Both the data and the type of analyses that was conducted might contribute to Prior s work in different ways. Prior only tested his assumptions for the American society. By using data from the European continent, the generalisability of his findings to other contexts is tested. Secondly, the ESS(2010) data enabled an alternative approach to the measurement of relative entertainment preference (REP). Whereas Prior (2005) used a single REP measure and implicitly assumed that people have the same content preferences for every media type, the ESS(2010) data distinguished between content exposure by different media types. In this research the relationships between media-specific content preferences and political participation are explored. Moreover, other relevant determinants of political participation are considered in this research next to media content preferences. The first research question reads: RQ1: To what extent are there relationships between people s preferences for political content for different types of media and political participation in European countries, over and beyond other relevant determinants? Another advantage of the ESS data, is that they included multiple countries and thereby allow for the analysis of contextual-level influences of the media-environment, regardless of individual s characteristics. To my best knowledge this approach has not yet been applied and might throw light on the question: RQ2: To what extent are there relationships between media environments in European countries and political participation within these countries? Central to Prior s (2005) work is the hypothesis that when the media choice within a media environment increases, people will increasingly be able to harmonize the media content they are exposed to with their preferences. As a result of these increases in media choice, the relations between individual preferences and political knowledge and participation will strengthen. Prior measured this influence of media choice within the media environment with individual-level access to cable TV and internet. Because the ESS data include multiple countries, I will be able to approach the media environment in a slightly different way. Instead of focusing on individual-level media 9

10 access, I will test for the influence of country-level aspects of available media choice and, moreover, test if there is an environmental effect on the relationship between preferences for political content and political participation, independently of individual-level access. The final research question reads: RQ3: To what extent do the relations between preferences for political content and political participation, vary over European countries with different levels of media choice? 10

11 Chapter 2 Theories and hypotheses 2.1 Conceptualizations of political participation Political participation of citizens is considered a pivotal element for the functioning of healthy democracies (Bakker & de Vreese, 2011). When people participate in politics, they have a voice in public affairs and are able to hold authorities accountable (Verba et al., 1995). Those who do not participate, risk being ignored when policies are made. When the interests of certain people are not considered, inequality in the political process arises. This is in contradiction with the very core of the democratic ideal that all citizens receive equal consideration in the political process (Marien et al., 2010). The concept of political participation has substantially evolved over the past decades. Over time, researchers have proposed several scales and subcategories of political participation. In general, modes of political participation are means for people to voice their needs, concerns and problems to their government (Brady, 1993). With these actions, citizens aim to influence either directly or indirectly the political choices at various levels of the political system. Through their participation, citizens are able to communicate information about their preferences and needs to public officials and pressure them to respond. According to Brady (1993), at the heart of most definitions of political participation, are four basic elements: activities or actions, politics, ordinary citizens and influence. A classic description by Verba and Nie (1967), that incorporates these elements reads: those activities by private citizens that are more or less directly aimed at influencing the selection of governmental personnel and/or the actions they take. Most definitions of political participation usually include these four elements and do not deviate much from the classic formulation (Brady, 1993). The versatile nature of the concept of political participation has resulted in a wide range of operationalisations in past research. Early research merely focused on voting and campaign activities. These are solely activities that are part of the electoral process. In later research it was emphasized that next to these traditional or conventional channels of participation, there were other ways through which citizens could attempt to influence governmental action. Political protesting, signing petitions, participating in demonstrations or even violent actions could be considered as political participation as well. In first instance, these forms of political action were classified as unconventional political participation (Barnes & Kaase, 1979). Participants in this form of political action try to influence the decision making process in a political system from outside the system. The division of conventional and unconventional political participation (although sometimes labeled differently) became the standard in research and is still widely used today. Labeling political participation as either conventional or unconventional is misleading, according to Marien et al. (2010). Many political activities that were previously classified as 11

12 unconventional have become more generally accepted and performed in society. According to these scholars it is therefore more accurate to classify political activities as being institutionalized or non-institutionalized. Political activities at which participants try to influence decision making from within the political system, are considered institutionalized. The non-institutionalized activities are not part of the system and include those activities that take place outside of the political arena which are aimed at influencing political decision making. The latter activities are becoming more prevalent in most liberal democracies while institutionalized forms of political participation such as voter turnout and party membership are in decline (Marien et al., 2010). These claims do not hold for Europe according to two recent studies on determinants of, and trends in political participation (Linssen et al., 2014a; Linssen et al., 2014b). In these studies, similar patterns for conventional and unconventional participation were observed. Both forms of participation have remained relatively stable after the turn of the millennium. The results did not show any mass withdrawal from conventional channels, nor a replacement of conventional with unconventional means of participation. With regard to the individual- and contextual-level determinants of both forms of participation, similarities were found as well. Socio-demographic characteristics and contextual mechanisms that govern conventional and unconventional participation are relatively similar (Linssen et al. 2014b). Nevertheless the scholars did note that: conventional and unconventional political participation are qualitatively different phenomena. Because both forms of participation are still considered qualitatively different, both conventional and unconventional participation are taken into account in this research and are analyzed separately. Explaining differences between both types of participation is beyond the theoretical scope of this research. Therefore differences between both types were not taken into account when formulating the hypotheses. Nevertheless, different modes of political participation were analyzed separately, because both forms are considered qualitatively different. 12

13 2.2 Individual-level explanations of political participation Social and psychological determinants It has often been demonstrated that political participation in western democracies is strongly associated with socio-economic and demographic background characteristics of citizens. The level of education, social class, age and gender of citizens have often found to be correlated to their likelihood to participate in politics (Brady et al. 1995, Marien et al. 2010, Stolle & Hooghe, 2011), both conventionally and unconventionally (Barnes & Kaase, 1979). This inequality in participation among different groups of socio-economic status suggests that not all people are equally represented in the political process and emphasizes the importance of understanding the underlying mechanisms that induce these inequalities. Why certain socio-economic categories of people are more likely to participate in politics than others has often been ascribed to psychological and attitudinal factors as political knowledge, interest and efficacy (Brady et al. 1995; Barnes & Kaase, 1979; Tolbert & McNeal, 2003). Political knowledge is essential to know where, how and whom to vote for. According to Verba et al. (1995) there is a political knowledge gap between socially advantaged and disadvantaged people. Because socially disadvantaged people are on average less informed about politics, they feel more alienated from the political system and refrain from participation. Political efficacy is considered a sociopsychological precondition of political action (Barnes & Kaase, 1979). It is the belief of citizens that they can understand and influence political affairs. Political interest is especially a strong predictor of voter turnout (Brady et al., 1995). A drawback of these measures of psychological engagement with politics is that they are very close to the activity itself. They are statistically strong predictors of political participation, but the theoretical relevance is not clear. Being politically interested is a precondition of engaging in politics. According to Brady et al. (1995), it is theoretically more meaningful and methodologically more reliable to explain political participation from a resource perspective. These scholars developed a resource model to explain the inequalities in political participation among different social categories. According to this model there is an unequal distribution of resources among people with different levels of education and income, underlying the inequalities in political participation. These resources are money, time and civic skills and are considered essential requisites for participation. The level of social stratification varies for these different resources. Money for instance, is more strongly related to socioeconomic status than time. Furthermore these different resources were found to relate differently to various types of political participation. Civic skills, for example, were associated with political acts requiring an investment of time like working in a campaign or taking part in a protest. Money was found to affect those political acts that involved an investment of 13

14 money, such as contributions to campaigns. Political participation has often been found to be strongly related to socio-economic and demographic background characteristics like education, social class, age and gender. Explanations for these associations have traditionally been ascribed to psychological and attitudinal factors and unequal distributions of resources. The focus of this study, however, is not on social and psychological determinants of political participation but on influences of media content preferences and media environments. Socio-economic and demographic background characteristics are included in the analyses to control for possible spuriousness among the relationships and avoid omitted variable bias Media content preferences and political participation Next to the traditional explanations that emphasize the importance of demographic, socio-economic and psychological determinants of political participation, there is a strand of literature that particularly focuses on the influence of mass communication technology. Empirical evidence from this body of research indicates that changes in communication technology are associated with changes in political participation. Sources of mass communication provide people with political information that influences their political knowledge and behavior. Changes in technology have changed the way many people gather news and participate in politics (Tolbert & McNeal, 2003). For a long time, the focus in this tradition of research has been on the influence of media sources such as radio, television and newspapers. With regard to these traditional media sources, the empirical evidence was mixed. Some studies indicated positive effects of newspaper reading on political knowledge and participation (Scheufele & Nisbet, 2002; Bakker & de Vreese, 2012), while others have claimed that voter turnout is not affected by newspaper reading (Gerber et al., 2007). Research on the effects of radio on political knowledge and behavior is very limited. Strömberg (2004) analyzed data on radio exposure in America from the period and showed that radio in this period positively affected voter turnout. Hoffstetter et al. (1999) showed that active listening to radio corresponded to higher levels of political knowledge, with the exception of conservative talk radio which increased the likelihood of being misinformed. Television, which received most attention in research, has often been negatively associated with political knowledge and behavior. According to Putnam (2000), television has individualized leisure time which eroded social interaction and active civil engagement. Gentzkow (2006) observed a negative association of television viewing with voter turnout in the United States. Prior (2005), on the other hand, claimed that television provides political information which has the ability to teach people about politics and increase their involvement in the political process. He emphasized the importance of taking the content that people are exposed to into account. Sheer exposure to a 14

15 medium is not informative about the transmission of political information. Exposure to political content increases political knowledge, while exposure to entertainment does not. Bakker & de Vreese (2011) indicated that news consumption through television was positively related to traditional and digital political participation. Rittenberg et al. (2012) took it a step further and distinguished between different types of news. Especially the exposure to public affairs news had a strong influence on voter turnout. These positive effects of television news, however, do not apply to everybody, since not everyone is equally exposed to news and political content. Those in charge of the remote control, decide over the amount of exposure to political information. People who prefer entertainment over political content, may tune out of politics completely and become less politically knowledgeable and less likely to vote. Thus, television can either have positive or negative effects on political knowledge and behavior depending on people s content preferences and levels of political interest. This versatility of television and other mass media sources is increasingly acknowledged in research. The need to discriminate between exposure to different types of content is well established today and explains why previous research has led to inconclusive results (Bakker & De Vreese, 2011; Rittenberg et al. 2012; Shah et al., 2001). During the last decade, the focus in research has shifted to the effects of the latest revolution in mass communication technology: the internet. Within thirty years after its introduction to the public, the internet has acquired a central place in society. Access to the internet has extended our informational and interactive capabilities. It has provided people with a massive information resource and a vehicle of social interaction (Papacharissi, 2002). In comparison to traditional media, the interactive nature of internet has given users much more control over the content they are exposed to. Content exposure is far more selective and based on users preferences. Because the internet is such an important source of information and means of interaction for many people nowadays, the question to what extent it influences their political knowledge and behavior has gained much academic attention. Some scholars are optimistic about the potential of the internet to increase political efficacy, knowledge and participation, while others argue that the internet has a negative impact (Bakker & de Vreese, 2011; Kenski & Stroud, 2010; Tolbert & McNeal, 2003; Scheufele and Nisbet, 2002). Scheufele and Nisbet (2002) found that the internet plays a very minimal role in promoting active and informed citizenship. Tolbert and McNeal (2003), on the other hand, claimed that internet exposure to election news during the presidential elections in the US in 1996 and 2000 increased people s voting probability. Other studies have also indicated positive effects of the internet on political participation (Kenski & Stroud, 2010; Bakker & de Vreese, 2011). Bakker & de Vreese (2011) argued that the medium offers people alternative and digital ways of participation. It offers many 15

16 political engagement opportunities like visiting political blogs, political websites, following online news or participating in forums. They indicated an influence of internet use on digital and traditional forms of political participation among the youth. As is the case with television exposure, the internet does not affect everyone in society equally. Among internet users much inequality exists in user patterns, which are associated with individual s interests. People who access political information via the internet are likely those who were already interested in politics (Xenos & Moy, 2007; Bimber, 2003). According to Prior (2005) this is creating a political knowledge and participation gap between politically interested and politically uninterested people. He found that media influence people s political knowledge and participation and that this influence depends on how people use these media. Prior developed a media choice theory around this relation. Starting from a simple dichotomy in media choice between the two broad genres news versus entertainment, he assumed that people constantly have to choose between news or entertainment when they use media. People with a preference for political content will consume news which includes political content and increases their political knowledge. People with a preference for entertainment on the other hand will merely consume entertainment and will not increase their political knowledge. The gap in political knowledge that occurs between people with different preferences is what in turn causes the gap in their political participation. Prior expressed the preference for either entertainment or politics in a measure he referred to as Relative Entertainment Preference (REP). It is a relative measure because a high preference for entertainment goes at the expense of political preferences. Derived from these assumptions is the first hypothesis: H1a: The higher peoples relative preference for political media content, the more likely they are to engage in political participation. Prior s (2005) analyses revealed an implicit assumption which he did not substantiate. He created a single REP measure and interacted this with cable TV and internet access. By doing so he tested whether the relation between preferences and political knowledge and participation, was different for people with and people without access to these media. However, underlying these interaction effects is the assumption that people have a preference for politics or entertainment independent from the type of media they use. Whether it is a radio, newspaper or the internet people are using, people are assumed to have a constant level of preference for political content. The ESS(2010) data that is used in this research, distinguished between media-specific preferences. This enables the testing of the implicit assumption that the relative preference for entertainment or politics is the same for all media types. Although there is theoretically no strong reason to believe that the implicit assumption is false, it could well be the case that people have different preferences for different media types. When people have read a newspaper in the morning, 16

17 they might not spend much time on reading web news if their need for political information has already been satisfied. In other words, people might have media-specific content preferences and these might be related to each other. How media-specific preferences would affect each other is not clear. They might either replace or reinforce each other. Therefore I will only test the assumption by Prior (2005) that content preferences do not differ across different media types by proposing the more specific hypothesis: H1b: The associations between relative media content preferences and political participation vary across media types. 17

18 2.3 Contextual-level determinants political participation Scarce empirical evidence The literature on political participation contains very few cross-national multi-level studies. Therefore contextual effects have not been considered much. Next to the effects of individual s backgrounds or psychological engagement with politics, citizen s propensity to vote or engage in other political activities might be affected by their environments. Linssen et al. (2014b) argued that individual characteristics such as education, class and deprivation cannot fully explain the large cross-national differences in political participation in Europe; cross-national differences that have been shown to be rather stable over time within countries since the turn of the century. Variance in political participation across these different countries might therefore be induced by factors that are specific to these countries. Jackman (1987) explained country differences in political participation by the difficulty of countries voting systems. In some countries voting is more difficult and less rewarding than in other countries. In a recent cross-national study on political participation in European countries (Linssen et al., 2014b), the importance of several other country characteristics was emphasized. The political openness of a country was positively associated with conventional forms of political participation (membership and working for political parties). Furthermore it was found that countries prosperity induced unconventional political participation. People in more prosperous countries were also more likely to work for or be members of political parties. However, no effect of prosperity on voting was found. Another minor but significant effect was indicated for countries social security systems. Countries with more elaborate social security systems had higher rates of unconventional political participation. Previous research has not yet accounted for contextual-level effects of the media environment when explaining political participation. If individual media use influences political knowledge and participation (Prior, 2005) it seems plausible that differences in media environments also play a role Contextual-level effect of the media environment Prior (2005) proposed contextual-level media environment effects but could not account for these effects because he used single country data. To account for the technological developments within the media environment, he compared people with and without individual access to cable television and broadband internet. In his theoretical framework he proposed that developments in mass communication technology within media environments increase the availability of information and contents people can choose from, including political information. This in turn should increase the political knowledge and participation of citizens. Prior (2005) noticed however, that despite of the developments in mass communication technology, political participation did not increase in America. He explained this stable political participation in the American society during a time of fast 18

19 developing mass communication technology by the concepts of media preferences and media choice. The increases in the supply of information that go hand in hand with the developments in the media environment, provide people with a higher amount of choice. This increased media choice has different effects on different groups of people, Prior claimed. The group of people with a high preference for political content will increasingly choose political content and increase their political knowledge and participation. People with a low preference for politics will focus their attention on the entertainment contents media have to offer and will not increase their political knowledge or participation. Even a negative effect of media choice on the political participation of these people can be expected due to the declining incidental news exposure. When people are better able to avoid political content due to increases in media choice, incidental political content exposure diminishes. Thus, what Prior argued, in short, is that there are two groups of people (low and high political preference) whose political participation is affected differently (negatively and positively) by media choice. Prior did not account for direct effects of the media environment on political participation. The extent to which increases in media choice (through the introduction of new media), affected political participation independently of media content preferences was not substantiated. Prior initially introduced relative media content preferences (news versus entertainment) to explain the seemingly unrelated trends of increasing political information availability on the one hand and stable political knowledge levels on the other hand. He stated that: Distinguishing between people who like news and take advantage of additional information and people who prefer other media content explains a puzzling empirical finding: despite the spectacular rise in available political information, mean levels of political knowledge in the population have essentially remained constant. (Prior, 2005, p ) People who like news, take advantage of additional information and become politically more knowledgeable he claimed. People who prefer entertainment over news will not take advantage of the additional information. Additional information therefore creates a political knowledge gap between people with different content preferences. The above statement implies that when the two groups with different media content preferences (which relate to political knowledge differently) are taken together, the opposing effects level each other out and show a stable political knowledge 19

20 trend. 2 Following Prior s reasoning, if the contextual-level concept of information supply is isolated and not interacted with individual-level political content preferences, it can be expected that: H2a: The absolute amount of information that is provided within media environments, does not affect political participation. Prior (2005) concluded that increases in media choice through technological development, increase the impact of content preferences on users choices, and make them key to understanding the political implications of new media. These increases in media choice have only been assumed and not quantified. In his analyses Prior compared users and non-users of cable television and the internet and assumed that these media offer more choice. Although these assumptions are plausible and the results indeed showed that having access to new media widened the gap between people with different preferences, the increase in media choice is still assumed and not quantified. It would be interesting to know the volume and nature of the contents that new media offer, i.e. the supply side of the media environment. Until now, research did not pay attention to this aspect of media choice. Media choice has only been approached from individuals point of view and operationalised by individuals access to new media. The use of multilevel data in this study, enables the estimation of media supply by media environments, independent from individual-level media access. In this research I propose a new contextual-level measure of relative political information supply by media environments. People constantly have to choose between entertainment or news contents when using media and these media choices relate to political knowledge and participation differently (Prior, 2005). The choice of media users to consume either entertainment or news is inextricably linked to the supply of media content. People can only choose to watch the evening news if their media environment provides them with evening news. Media choice is affected by media supply and therefore a relative supply measure that takes the entertainment/news ratio into account is desirable. Especially in Europe, where since the 1980s television broadcasting shifted from public service domination to a multichannel environment commanded by commercial providers. With the introduction of cable television in Europe, commercial television flourished. The contents provided by commercial television channels were strongly focused on entertainment (Wieten et al., 2000). This means that while the total supply of media contents increased (more television channels) in Europe, the entertainment/news ratio probably shifted towards less news and more entertainment. It seems that for television in Europe, the total supply of media content and the 2 By assuming that stable levels of political participation over time actually hide two diverging trends for different preference groups, Prior implicitly assumed stable relationships between the sizes of both groups and between the strengths of their associations with political knowledge. 20

21 relative supply of political information are negatively associated. In this study both the absolute and relative supplies of media content are taken into account to test their relations to political participation in Europe simultaneously. With respect to the relative supply of political media contents the hypothesis is that: H2b: The relative amount of political information that is supplied within media environments positively affects political participation. 21

22 2.4 Cross-level interaction effects Empirical evidence Previous research indicated that effects of individual-level characteristics on voting, differ across national contexts. Gallego (2010) showed that in many European democracies, there was little to no effect of education and income on voter turnout. This is contradictory to most empirical evidence from the United States, where a positive correlation between these characteristics and voter turnout has often been found (Barnes & Kaase, 1979; Brady et al. 1995). These between-country differences in the extent to which education and income affect voter turnout, suggest that the effects of individual characteristics on turnout rates are to some extent dependent on context-specific factors. Previous research on cross-national differences in political participation has identified several contextual characteristics that foster inequality in political participation between groups of different social status. A study by Anduiza (2002) provided evidence that when voting becomes more cognitively challenging, for example when citizens are confronted with more choices, people with less resources and motivation are less likely to vote. The number of political parties in elections was found to positively affect the relation between resources and political participation. Contextual-level media effects have only been predicted, but not tested for in previous research. Prior (2005) proposed different effects of the media environment on the political knowledge and participation likelihoods of people with different media content preferences. His use of individual-level data has left the question unanswered to what extent the relationships between different media content preferences and political participation vary across different media environments Cross-level interaction effect of the media environment Prior (2005) argued that with developments in mass communication technology, the provision of information within media environments increases. As a consequence media users have more media choice and are better able to expose themselves to the contents they prefer. People who prefer political content will tune in to politics and people who prefer entertainment will avoid the news. A political knowledge and participation gap between people with different preferences results from an increasing media choice. Therefore the first interaction hypothesis reads: H3a. The absolute amount of information that is provided within media environments, strengthens the positive relations between relative political content preferences and political participation. 22

23 In a previous section (2.3.2) it was argued that media choice is a relative concept that depends on the availability of media contents. If a higher share of the total available media content is considered political, people with a preference for political media content are better able to consume these contents. They are likely to increase their political knowledge and participation by consuming more political media contents. Another result from a higher share of political media content might be that people with a preference for entertainment over politics, are less able to avoid political content. It is likely that their accidental exposure to political content will increase which increases their political knowledge and their likelihood to participate politically. Higher relative amounts of political information within media environments can therefore be expected to close the political knowledge and participation gap between people with different content preferences. H3b. The relative amount of political information within media environments, weakens the positive relations between relative political content preferences and political participation. 23

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25 Chapter 3 Data and measurements 3.1 Individual-level data In order to test the hypotheses formulated in the previous chapter, data from the European Social Surveys (ESS) were used. These are cross-national surveys that monitor social change across Europe and have been conducted every two years since The surveys cover the attitudes, beliefs and behavior patterns of diverse populations in over thirty European nations. Between 2002 and today, six waves of the ESS have been published. Taken together these different waves provided data for 36 European countries. For this thesis I used the fifth wave, because this was the most recent ESS wave including information on respondents internet use. The fieldwork for the fifth wave was targeted between September and December This target was not achieved and the fieldwork was gathered in the period between September 2010 and August Sampling The 2010 ESS wave included 27 European countries. The population consisted of all people in the residential population of each country aged 15 years or older, regardless of nationality, citizenship or legal status, that were selected randomly. Countries with a population of two million residents were required to achieve an effective sample size of minimal 1500 completed interviews. Countries with less than 2 million inhabitants had to achieve a sample size of 800 respondents. The data were collected by face-to-face interviews, between September and December in Response rates and representativeness A response rate of 70 percent per country was targeted in the 2010 Survey. In order to achieve these high response rates, several measures were used, such as advance letters to respondents, multiple attempts of contacting each potential respondent and the use of incentives. Various kinds of conditional and unconditional incentives were awarded in a monetary or non-monetary (minicomputer lottery participation) form (ESS, 2010b). Despite of the many efforts to maximize response rates, the 70% target was only achieved for five out of the 27 countries. The average of countries actual response rates was 60.18% 3. The survey was aimed to be representative of all people in the residential population of each country aged 15 years or older, regardless of nationality, citizenship or legal status. In order to test for the representativeness of the sample, analyses have been conducted in which the sociodemographic sample composition of the ESS data was compared with more accurate external benchmark data from the European Union Labor Force Survey (LFS). These analyses revealed small 3 The percentages were retrieved from 25