An APPetite for APPs: A Comparison of Heavily Reliant and Light Reliant App Users on Political Activity and Media Reliance

Abstract

The ubiquity of mobile devices and the apps that power them has spurred concerns that they are contributing to the decline in news media use. Mobile devices, however, have been credited with spurring political participation. In its examination of app-reliant individuals, this study found that reliance on apps positively predicts political participation, and respondents who rely heavily on mobile apps for political information are more politically active than light app users on six of the seven measures of nononline participation and three of the six measures of online political activity. Heavy-reliant users also rely more heavily on all six online-only media tested than light app users and rely more heavily on broadcast television news, CNN, and news magazines. Data were collected from October 31, 2016, through November 2, 2016, from 644 respondents of a national online panel.

Keywords

mobile device apps reliance on apps media reliance displacement theory online political activity offline political activity political information

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