An issue public’s confirmation-biased news feeding in changing political constellations: A quasi-experimental field study in the German conflict over genome editing
Restricted accessResearch articleFirst published online February, 2025
An issue public’s confirmation-biased news feeding in changing political constellations: A quasi-experimental field study in the German conflict over genome editing
Contributing to the study of curated news flows, we investigated how conflicting participants in an issue public fed mainstream news into their Twitter networks. In a quasi-experimental field study in the context of the 2018 European Court of Justice’s ruling on genome editing, we combined standardized manual content analyses of a universe of legacy media news items (N = 165), users’ tweets (“feeds”) linking these news items (N = 2014), and users’ profiles (N = 1070). Confirming existing knowledge, opponents and proponents of genetically modified organisms largely fed news items confirming their issue attitudes. Extending existing knowledge, we show that counter-attitudinal news feeding became more likely when users had a political disadvantage rather than a political advantage in the controversy. However, this was only true for the more active but not for the more inactive news feeders.
AndersonAABrossardDScheufeleDA, et al. (2014) The “nasty effect”: online incivility and risk perceptions of emerging technologies. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication19(3): 373–387.
2.
ArugueteNCalvoEVenturaT (2023) News by popular demand: ideological congruence, issue salience and media reputation in news sharing. The International Journal of Press/Politics28(3): 558–579.
3.
BennettWLIyengarS (2008) A new era of minimal effects? The changing foundations of political communication. Journal of Communication58(4): 707–731.
4.
Brenes PeraltaCWojcieszakMLelkesY, et al. (2017) Selective exposure to balanced content and evidence type: the case of issue and non-issue publics about climate change and health care. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly94(3): 833–861.
5.
BrüggemannMEngesserSBüchelF, et al. (2014) Hallin and Mancini revisited: four empirical types of western media systems. Journal of Communication64(6): 1037–1065.
6.
BrüggemannMKunertJSprengelmeyerL (2022) Framing food in the news: still keeping the politics out of the broccoli. Journalism Practice. Epub ahead of print 12 December. DOI: 10.1080/17512786.2022.2153074.
7.
BurgerK (2018) “Die Diskussion beginnt bei null.” Available at: https://taz.de/!5520197/ (accessed 17 February 2023).
8.
ChenH-T (2013) Capturing the nature of issue publics: selectivity, deliberation and activeness in the new media environment. Doctoral Dissertation, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX.
9.
ConversePE (1964) The nature of belief systems in mass publics (1964). In: ApterDE (ed.) Ideology and Discontent. New York: Free Press, pp. 206–261.
DahlgrenPMShehataAStrömbäckJ (2019) Reinforcing spirals at work? Mutual influences between selective news exposure and ideological leaning. European Journal of Communication34(2): 159–174.
12.
DavisJL (2020) Theorizing curation. In: RohlingerDASobierajSDavisJL (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Digital Media Sociology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 40–60.
13.
DonsbachW (1991) Exposure to political content in newspapers: the impact of cognitive dissonance on readers’ selectivity. European Journal of Communication6(2): 155–186.
14.
Dvir-GvirsmanS (2019) Political social identity and selective exposure. Media Psychology22(6): 867–889.
HanuschF (2018) Political journalists’ corporate and personal identities on Twitter profile pages: a comparative analysis in four Westminster democracies. New Media & Society20(4): 1488–1505.
22.
HöligS (2018) Eine meinungsstarke Minderheit als Stimmungsbarometer?! Über die Persönlichkeitseigenschaften aktiver Twitterer. Medien & Kommunikationswissenschaft66(2): 140–169.
IyengarSSoodGLelkesY (2012) Affect, not ideology. Public Opinion Quarterly76(3): 405–431.
27.
JohnsonTJZhangWBichardSL (2011) Voices of convergence or conflict? A path analysis investigation of selective exposure to political websites. Social Science Computer Review29(4): 449–469.
KarnowskiVKümpelASLeonhardL, et al. (2017) From incidental news exposure to news engagement. How perceptions of the news post and news usage patterns influence engagement with news articles encountered on Facebook. Computers in Human Behavior76: 42–50.
KimKS (2011) Public understanding of the politics of global warming in the news media: the hostile media approach. Public Understanding of Science20(5): 690–705.
32.
KimYM (2009) Issue publics in the new information environment. Communication Research36(2): 254–284.
33.
Knobloch-WesterwickSKleinmanSB (2012) Preelection selective exposure. Communication Research39(2): 170–193.
34.
Knobloch-WesterwickSMengJ (2009) Looking the other way. Communication Research36(3): 426–448.
35.
Knobloch-WesterwickSLiuLHinoA, et al. (2019) Context impacts on confirmation bias: evidence from the 2017 Japanese snap election compared with American and German findings. Human Communication Research45(4): 427–449.
36.
Knobloch-WesterwickSMothesCJohnsonBK, et al. (2015) Political online information searching in Germany and the United States: confirmation bias, source credibility and attitude impacts. Journal of Communication65(3): 489–511.
KrosnickJA (1990) Government policy and citizen passion: a study of issue publics in contemporary America. Political Behavior12(1): 59–92.
39.
KümpelASKarnowskiVKeylingT (2015) News sharing in social media: a review of current research on news sharing users, content and networks. Social Media + Society1(2): 1–14.
MothesCOhmeJ (2019) Partisan selective exposure in times of political and technological upheaval: a social media field experiment. Media and Communication7(3): 42–53.
45.
MukerjeeSMajó-VázquezSGonzález-BailónS (2018) Networks of audience overlap in the consumption of digital news. Journal of Communication68(1): 26–50.
46.
NaurothPGollwitzerMBenderJ, et al. (2015) Social identity threat motivates science-discrediting online comments. PLoS ONE10(2): e0117476.
NuernbergkC (2014) Follow-up communication in the blogosphere. Digital Journalism2(3): 434–445.
49.
NuernbergkCSchmidtJ-H (2020) Twitter im Politikjournalismus. Publizistik65(1): 41–61.
50.
PostS (2019) Polarizing communication as media effects on antagonists. Understanding communication in conflicts in digital media societies. Communication Theory29(2): 213–235.
51.
PostSRamirezN (2018) Politicized science communication: predicting scientists’ acceptance of overstatements by their knowledge certainty, media perceptions and presumed media effects. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly95(4): 1150–1170.
52.
PriceVDavidCGoldthorpeB, et al. (2006) Locating the issue public: the multi-dimensional nature of engagement with health care reform. Political Behavior28(1): 33–63.
53.
RöperH (2020) Tageszeitungen 2020: Schrumpfender Markt und sinkende Vielfalt: Daten zur Konzentration der Tagespresse im I. Quartal 2020. Media Perspektiven50(6): 331–352.
54.
ŠadlUSankariS (2017) The elusive influence of the advocate general on the court of justice: the case of European citizenship. Yearbook of European Law36: 421–441.
55.
Schmid-PetriHReberUArltD, et al. (2020) A dynamic perspective on publics and counterpublics: the role of the blogosphere in pushing the issue of climate change during the 2016 US presidential campaign. Environmental Communication14(3): 378–390.
56.
ShahDVScheufeleDA (2006) Explicating opinion leadership: nonpolitical dispositions, information consumption and civic participation. Political Communication23(1): 1–22.
57.
ShinJThorsonK (2017) Partisan selective sharing: the biased diffusion of fact-checking messages on social media. Journal of Communication67(2): 233–255.
58.
SiebertRHerzigCBirringerM (2022) Bioeconomy and genome editing: a comparison between Germany and the Netherlands. In: LanzerathDSchurrUPinsdorfC, et al (eds) Bioeconomy and Sustainability. Cham: Springer, pp. 183–198.
TaberCSLodgeM (2006) Motivated skepticism in the evaluation of political beliefs. American Journal of Political Science50(3): 755–769.
61.
TajfelHTurnerJC (2004) The social identity theory of intergroup behavior. In: JostJTSidaniusJ (eds) Political Psychology: Key Readings. London: Routledge, pp. 276–293.
ThorsonKWellsC (2016) Curated flows: a framework for mapping media exposure in the digital age. Communication Theory26(3): 309–328.
64.
ToepflFPiwoniE (2015) Public spheres in interaction: comment sections of news websites as counterpublic spaces. Journal of Communication65(3): 465–488.
65.
TorgersenHHampelJ (2012) Calling controversy: assessing synthetic biology’s conflict potential. Public Understanding of Science21(2): 134–148.
WagnerM (2016) Selective exposure, information utility and the decision to watch televised debates. International Journal of Public Opinion Research29(4): 534–553.
68.
WassersteinRLSchirmALLazarNA (2019) Moving to a world beyond “p < 0.05”. The American Statistician73(suppl. 1): 1–19.
69.
WeeksBELaneDSKimDH, et al. (2017) Incidental exposure, selective exposure and political information sharing: integrating online exposure patterns and expression on social media. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication22(6): 363–379.
WischnewskiMBrunsAKellerT (2021) Shareworthiness and motivated reasoning in hyper-partisan news sharing behavior on Twitter. Digital Journalism9(5): 549–570.
72.
WojcieszakMGarrettRK (2018) Social identity, selective exposure and affective polarization: how priming national identity shapes attitudes toward immigrants via news selection. Human Communication Research44(3): 247–273.
73.
YangTMajo-VazquezSNielsenRK, et al. (2020) Exposure to news grows less fragmented with increase in mobile access. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences117(46): 28678–28683.
