Soft News Effects – Matthew Baum Examples of soft news shows: ET Tonight, Leno, Letterman, Oprah, Inside Edition, Current Affair

Baum’s positive view of soft news Draws in viewers, politically those who are not especially interested in politics (he studied foreign affairs coverage in particular) Soft news minimizes the cost of learning about politics – presented in an accessible, undemanding format but does contain politically relevant information Political information becomes an incidental byproduct of tuning in to an entertainment show

Baum continued People watch to be entertained but end up learning about politics without much cognitive effort Examples: coverage of Israel- Lebanon War, US military involvement in Bosnia, antiterrorism efforts Stories covered in personal, dramatic terms but do convey information about political events/conflicts Concerns: How deep is this learning? How good is the information?

Internet Pros of Internet (versus other forms of media transmission such as reading a newspaper, watching TV) Interactivity Independence Depth of information (contrast to soft news/entertainment shows)

Internet continued Cons (versus other forms of media) Access Overload Filterlessness Cocooning (decline of social capital argument) Democratic or Digital Divide: Internet may expand the division in political participation that exists between groups in society

Democratic or Digital Divide Internet may expand the division in political participation that exists between groups in society Those who already are inclined toward political involvement learn more about politics and get more involved through the Internet, gap between them and the less-involved grow Who uses social media sites for political info? Young, liberals/moderates, Caucasians, college educated

SOCIAL MEDIA AND CAMPAIGNS

Social media and campaigns Edgerly study of social media in 2008 campaign – Facebook, Youtube and Twitter - how have these changed campaigns, perhaps for the better? 4 “patterns of emergent campaign practices facilitated by digital and social media”

Microtargeting of voters, e. g Microtargeting of voters, e.g. specific ads targeted to voters based on their Facebook info Personalization of candidates (disclose personal info about candidate via social media) Increased interactivity (e.g. voters can communicate in real time with campaign via Google Plus Hangouts, communicate with fellow supporters of a candidate Sustained engagement. Today campaigns provide info to facilitate offline participation (attend rallies/meetings) and online participation (donate money, “like” campaign posts, upload videos, etc.)

How does social media affect voting, political info, & participation? *Impact on vote choice is unclear; FB presence seems to increase vote share but many candidates make good use of SM and still lose (Ron Paul). *Exposure to information: they conclude SM can “increase likelihood that users will be exposed to and learn from divergent points of view” (not just select like-minded info) – some disagree… (echo chamber)

SM use by campaigns, effects continued How do SM affect “conventional offline political participation? (volunteering, wearing campaign buttons). - Early research suggest negative impact on participation (“slactivism” – you can click to sign petition, but “easy” participation would replace hard participation such as volunteering for a campaign) Later research: online activities including use of SM COMPLEMENT, rather than substitute for, traditional political participation, AND increase external efficacy AND decrease political cynicism.

Social media and the 2012 election *Obama v. Romney- *Obama made better use of SNS (social networking sites) than Romney- Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Reddit *Note demographics of social media use *Social media can hurt, not just help… (Romney “47 percent”)

Social media and political knowledge *Towner and Dulio – Online newspapers and online websites of network TV DID contribute to factual political knowledge BUT political blogs, Twitter, Yotuube did not and Facebook and Google Plus were associated with LESS political factual knowledge

Fake news (meaning not “biased” new but factually completely inaccurate, made up news) How popular is it? How much do people believe it? Where does it come from? Why do people produce it? How can you distinguish fake from real news?

How confusing? December 2016 survey by Pew Research Center -64% said fabricated news creates “a lot of confusion” -24% said “some confusion” -Only 11% say “no confusion” -14 percent said they have knowingly shared fake news, 16 percent said they shared something they later realized was fake. -39% “very confident” they can recognize fake news -45% “somewhat confident” -15% said “not very confident” they can tell the difference