Stroud, Natalie Jomini. (2011). Niche News: The Politics of News Choice.

New York: Oxford University Press, Inc. Natalie Jomini Stroud is a professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Texas-Austin, and in her book, Niche News: The Politics of News Choice (2011), she examines the tendency for people to select sources of information in their news consumption based on pre-existing partisan political beliefs, which she labels partisan selective exposure. She relies on significant survey data and existing research on selective exposure to discuss the implications that this process of self-segregating information has for democratic participation, political knowledge, and citizens political attitudes and beliefs. Much research and publication has been done in the area of selective exposure. But Stroud argues that an exploration into partisan selective exposure is long overdue. Isolating citizens political news choices is a challenge. She used the National Annenburg Election Surveys (NAES), a random-sample surveying tens of thousands Americans during the 2000, 2004, and 2008 presidential campaigns, along with supplemental data sources to explore media use over radio, television, newspaper, magazine, and Internet content. Established theories of selective exposure from various disciplines argue that partisan selective exposure should occur. Cognitive dissonance theory holds that people experience a psychological discomfort when experiencing challenging considerations (15); the theory of lay epistemics shows how people s motivations to act will influence the occurrence of selective exposure and vary based on their own [1] need for closure versus a need to avoid closure and (2) specific versus nonspecific closure (17); the cognitive miser theory proposes that people adopt political heuristics in order to conserve their own cognitive resources to reach political conclusions; finally, partisan selective exposure should occur because studies show that people select likeminded information as the highest quality information and perceive non-likeminded information as biased (21). As Stroud puts it, quality judgments are rather subjective (20). Stroud creates two primary partisan news media categories: liberal Democrat media use, and conservative Republican media use (she acknowledges that there are other partisan leanings and creates a third category though small of not clearly partisan media outlets). To craft these categories she considers several factors which have substantial research support: political endorsements, story framing and content analysis, outlet selfdisclosure of partisan leaning, and political events viewers tune into like party conventions. From this schema she finds that 21 % of respondents don t use sources in either category. But of the 50 percent of respondents identifying as either conservative republicans or liberal democrats, 16 % reported using only non-likeminded sources; 34 % reported using only likeminded sources (emphasis added), which was the largest category and shows that political leanings predict media preferences (63). Stroud argues that in 2004 Liberals and Democrats were more likely to read newspapers endorsing Kerry, to listen to liberal talk radio, to watch CNN or MSNBC, and to access liberal Web sites after the election, even after taking into account use of the media before the election (65). The same holds true for conservatives and Republicans. 1

Based on growing media use, Stroud argues that partisan selective exposure may be getting worse. Given that the prevalence of partisan selective exposure is substantial Stroud finds clear evidence to suggest, Political leanings predict media preferences (65). There are several important implications this may have for democracy not all intuitive upon first thought: Partisan selective exposure may energize citizen participation in politics (8). Media use exposes viewers to many opportunities for political participation, but most are partisan in nature (i.e. donating money, giving to a campaign, canvasing and attending political events). This may help explain why Stroud found that more selective exposure leads to more political participation. Three main theses for why this is so are explored. First, partisan selective exposure may enable participation (as described above); it may also inspire participation (through certain visceral or more emotional reactions), and it may make partisans feel obligated toward certain participation standards (based on their partisan bent) (121). The most partisan people are likely the most politically knowledgeable which leads to partisan selective exposure, and partisan selective exposure motivates political participation. Second, partisan selective exposure may affect what citizens know about politics (9). The National Annenburg Election Survey included a section that measured participants general level of contemporary political knowledge. This included questions about current candidates issue stances and about the U.S. system of government. It s important to remember that partisan selective exposure is not the exclusive use of partisan media, but the tendency to use it. Partisans do view nonlikeminded media, but their net consumption is toward likeminded sources. This may help explain why partisans are the most politically knowledgeable citizens. Third, partisan selective exposure may influence citizens political attitudes and beliefs (10). One particular consequence of selective exposure is that partisans tend to perceive more media bias than others. They tend to see a media environment filled with hostile outlets which leads them to select more likeminded sources (111). Given the prevalence of this occurrence, and the fact that 34 percent of respondents used only likeminded media, the larger implications for agenda setting within conservative Republican and liberal Democrat media outlets seems plausible. Whereas past research has looked mostly at agenda setting at large (i.e. the transition of a single agenda from the media to the audience ) Stroud believes that few have analyzed agenda setting in the context of partisan selective exposure (146). This is called first-level agenda setting and has been primarily measured in terms of how frequently issues are presented by the media. If a segment of the population is self-selecting to partisan media outlets, what are the implications toward Americans political beliefs and attitudes? Stroud addresses this question by analyzing the tendency of partisan outlets to cover candidates issue priorities. She uses data from the NAES to test participants tendency to identify issues a certain way which she supplements with data of campaign rhetoric and 2

story headlining. At least in the campaigns of Bush/Kerry and the issue of Iraq War/Terrorism, there is a relationship between partisan selective exposure and issue importance. Over the course of the campaign season, those using liberal media were less likely than other respondents to name terrorism as the most important problem, and those using conservative media were more likely than other respondents to name terrorism as the most important problem (158). One of the explanations for this is in how the issues are covered by outlets (i.e. with partisan bent, positive, negative, etc.). This is called second-level agenda setting. This points to important implications. Partisan selective exposure is leading certain segments of the population to name and frame issues in divergent ways (164-165). This may have implications for addressing challenging public problems. The Kettering Foundation s research has emphasized the tendency of citizens in communities to name and frame problems differently than elites. That may point to a problem in analyzing the media s framing of the Iraq war and/or terrorism and citizens identification with the terms; it may be that there is an inherent misalignment there. In community settings where citizens are able to interact with each other citizens may be more likely to name security or safety as their concern. While there is much research to suggest U.S. Americans are divided on key public issues, Daniel Yankelovichs (2006) work suggests a word of caution. His work reminds us the difference between public opinion and public judgment. Still, Stroud s research points that a specific group of U.S. Americans partisans (about 34%) has divergent media preferences, name issues in divergent ways, and participate in politics more. Perhaps these are more likely political elites; but in any case, they are clearly not a majority of U.S. Americans. Reviewed by Jack A. Becker