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ABSTRACT
A widely believed claim is that citizens tend to selectively expose themselves to like-minded information. However, when individuals find the information useful, they are more likely to consume cross-cutting sources. While crises such as terror attacks and pandemics can enhance the utility of cross-cutting information, empirical evidence on the role of real-world external threats in selective exposure is scarce. This paper examines the COVID-19 pandemic as a case study to test the extent to which citizens were exposed to information from cross-cutting sources on traditional and social media after the outbreak. Utilizing a two-wave panel survey among 14,218 participants across 17 countries – conducted before and after the initial outbreak – we show that citizens concerned about COVID-19 were more exposed to cross-cutting information on traditional and social media. The positive relationship with cross-cutting exposure to traditional news was stronger in countries where governments adopted less stringent policy responses, and in countries with greater pandemic severity and weaker democratic institutions. Our comparative approach thus sheds light on the social and political contexts in which cross-cutting exposure can occur.
Data Availability
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
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Disclosure Statement
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Supplementary Material
Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website at https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2022.2107745.
Notes
1. The relationship between individual pandemic concerns and greater cross-cutting exposure may be reciprocal. While existing observational and experimental evidence indicates that uncertainty under perceived threats increases citizens’ tendency to seek relevant information (e.g., Goodall & Reed, Citation2013; Van Aelst et al., Citation2021), others point to a reversed causal order, suggesting that intense media exposure can increase anxiety (e.g., Garfin et al., Citation2020). However, in this article, we focus on exposure to cross-cutting (rather than general) information. Based on previous studies, we posit that during external threats, cross-cutting exposure helps increase – rather than decrease – citizens’ orientation in response to the new environment (e.g., Knobloch-Westerwick & Kleinman, Citation2012; Valentino et al., Citation2009; Wagner, Citation2017). Nonetheless, we are more cautious in making strong causal claims as our two-panel design cannot fully account for the causal order. We encourage future research to help disentangle and provide more fine-grained analyses of such complex relationships.
2. In total, 4,470 respondents identified themselves as left-leaning and 5,203 as right-leaning; 3,241 located themselves at the ideological center.
3. The overall agreement among the three experts across counties was acceptable (67%). In some countries, however, agreement scores were below 70%, indicating higher variability in the experts’ assessment of each news outlet. Therefore, we utilized an alternative measure to determine a news outlet’s ideology: instead of the original average score among the three experts, we marked a news outlet’s political affiliation according to the majority’s coding. Findings, which are reported in Online Appendix E, show that our original conclusions remain the same.
4. Out of 194 news outlets in total, 52 were left-oriented, 70 were right-oriented, and 72 were coded at the ideological center by all three expert coders.
6. The two consumption variables are only moderately correlated (r = .26; no collinearity was observed in the regression models).
7. We follow the conventions of Cohen (Citation1988) for interpretation of effect sizes (small: d = .20; medium: d = .50; large: d = .80)
8. The only exception is the interactions for predicting like-minded exposure on traditional media. Although the interaction terms are in the same direction, they are insignificant.
9. We are thankful to the anonymous reviewer for suggesting this additional test.
Additional information
Funding
Notes on contributors
Alon Zoizner
Alon Zoizner is an assistant professor at the Department of Communication at the University of Haifa. His research bridges digital technologies, modern information environments, and current political developments, utilizing computational content analysis, experiments, survey analysis, and elite interviews.
Tamir Sheafer
Tamir Sheafer is a professor in the Department of Political Science and the Department of Communication and Journalism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His research focuses on actor-centered perspectives in political communication, such as information processing and personalization; on the role of political value proximity between actors; on political narratives; and on developing new methods for automated textual analysis.
Laia Castro
Dr. Laia Castro is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and Constitutional Law at University of Barcelona. Previously, she was Assistant Professor at Universitat Internacional de Catalunya and Senior Researcher and Teaching Associated at IKMZ, University of Zurich. Dr. Laia Castro obtained her PhD from University of Fribourg. She specializes in political communication, comparative media research & public opinion, with a particular focus on cross-cutting exposure and communication across political lines.
Toril Aalberg
Toril Aalberg is a Professor at the Department of Sociology and Political Science at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim, Norway. Her research interests include political communication, political behavior and comparative research.
Ana S. Cardenal
Ana S. Cardenal is a Professor of Political Science at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) and a Lecturer at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF). She has published two books in the field of Comparative Politics and has worked as a consultant for the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). Her current research interests focus on digital and social media, online news audiences, preferences and opinion formation, and the use of computational methods in the social sciences.
Nicoleta Corbu
Nicoleta Corbu is professor at the College of Communication and Public Relations, National University of Political Studies and Public Administration (SNSPA). She currently coordinates, as executive director, the Center for Research in Communication. She is the Head of the Doctoral School of SNSPA. Her research interests focus on political communication, media effects, and education policies. She is member of Network of European Political Communication Scholars (NEPOCS) since 2018.
Claes de Vreese
Claes H. de Vreese is Distinguished University Professor of AI & Society with a special focus on media at Democracy at the University of Amsterdam where he also holds the chair in Political Communication. He is also Scientific Director of the Digital Democracy Centre, University of Southern Denmark.
Jörg Matthes is Professor of Communication and chair of the Department of Communication at the University of Vienna. His research interests include digital media effects, advertising, political persuasion, and empirical methods.
Frank Esser
Frank Esser is professor of International & Comparative Media Research in the Department of Communication and Media Research at the University of Zurich. His research focuses on cross-national studies of news journalism and political communication.
Christian Schemer is a professor of Communication at the Department of Communication of the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany. His research is focused on political communication use and effects.
David Nicolas Hopmann
David Nicolas Hopmann is Professor at the Centre for Journalism and the Centre for Digital Democracy at the University of Southern Denmark in Odense.
Sergio Splendore (Ph.D.) is an Associate Professor of media sociology at the University of Milan. His research interests include epistemology in journalism, digital journalism and media trust. On those subjects he has published several articles in various international journals.
Karolina Koc-Michalska
Karolina Koc-Michalska is a Full Professor at Audencia Business School and has affiliations with CEVIPOF Sciences Po Paris, France, and University of Silesia, Faculty of Social Sciences, Poland. Her research focuses on the strategies of political actors in the online environment and citizens’ political engagement. She employs a comparative approach focussing on the United States and European countries.
James Stanyer is Professor of Communication and Media Analysis at the School of Social Sciences and Humanities at Loughborough University, UK.
Jörg Matthes
Jörg Matthes is Professor of Communication and chair of the Department of Communication at the University of Vienna. His research interests include digital media effects, advertising, political persuasion, and empirical methods.
Christian Schemer
Christian Schemer is a professor of Communication at the Department of Communication of the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany. His research is focused on political communication use and effects.
Sergio Splendore
Sergio Splendore (Ph.D.) is an Associate Professor of media sociology at the University of Milan. His research interests include epistemology in journalism, digital journalism and media trust. On those subjects he has published several articles in various international journals.
James Stanyer
James Stanyer is Professor of Communication and Media Analysis at the School of Social Sciences and Humanities at Loughborough University, UK.
Agnieszka Stępińska
Agnieszka Stępińska is a professor at the Faculty of Political Science and Journalism at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland. Her research interests include political communication (particularly election campaign communication), media/journalists performance, and comparative research.
Václav Štětka
Václav Štětka is Senior Lecturer in Communication and Media Studies at the School of Social Sciences and Humanities, Loughborough University. His research interests encompass political communication, social media, polarization, and democracy in Central and Eastern Europe. He is currently Principal Investigator of the project “The Illiberal Turn” (2019–2022).
Jesper Strömbäck
Jesper Strömbäck is professor in journalism and political communication at the Department of Journalism, Media and Communication, University of Gothenburg, Sweden.
Yannis Theocharis
Yannis Theocharis is Professor and Chair of Digital Governance at the Department of Governance, Technical University of Munich, where he is also a member of the Munich Data Science Institute. His work focuses on political behaviour, political communication, and computational social science.
Peter Van Aelst
Peter Van Aelst is a Professor in Political Communication, Member of the research group ‘Media, movements and politics’ (M²P), Faculty of Social sciences, University of Antwerp.