Internal political efficacy has long been associated with news use and political discussion. Yet, as more people are inadvertently exposed to news and political discussion online, it remains unclear whether incidental news exposure also has a discursive effect on political efficacy. In a two-wave panel study, we applied the O-S-R-O-R model of communication effects to test these relationships. We found that political discussion with weak ties, but not strong ties, is a mediator between incidental news exposure and internal political efficacy.
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