Why we stopped listening to the other side
How partisan cues in news coverage undermine the deliberative foundations of democracy
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 22693302 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Florian Arendt (0000-0003-1107-8682, University of Vienna, corresponding author), Temple Northup (0000-0002-6359-0584, San Diego State University), Michaela Forrai (0000-0003-2498-1969, University of Vienna), Dietram A Scheufele (0000-0002-9914-5407, University of Wisconsin–Madison), Dietram Scheufele (University of Wisconsin–Madison) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 73 |
| Issue | 5 |
| Pages | 413-426 |
| Publication date | 2023-10-03 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Communication (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0021-9916 • E-ISSN: 1460-2466 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1093/joc/jqad007 |
| OpenAlex | W4324328504 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 59 |
Recent theorizing on deliberative democracy has put political listening at the core of meaningful democratic deliberation. In the present experiment (N = 827), we investigated whether news media can improve diverse political listening in the United States via a reduction in party cue salience. Although Republican (Democratic) participants showed a strong preference for listening to speeches given by Republican (Democratic) politicians when party cues were highly salient, this bias in selective political listening was reduced or even absent when news items provided no or only low-salience cues. Conditional process analysis indicated that (automatically activated) implicit and (overtly expressed) explicit party attitudes mediated this effect. There are important implications: Current journalism practices tend to exacerbate tribal us-vs-them thinking by emphasizing partisan cues, nudging citizens toward not listening to political ideas from the other political camp. A more helpful news-choice architecture tones down partisan language, nudging citizens toward more diverse political listening.
Active listening · Cognitive psychology · Deliberation · Deliberative democracy · Democracy · Economics · Political efficacy · Political science · Politics · Preference · Salience (neuroscience) · Communication · Law · Misinformation and Its Impacts · Psychology · Social and Intergroup Psychology · Social Media and Politics · Social Psychology
Semantic Priming
Republic
Spiral of Cynicism
A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance
The Dissonance of Democracy
Post-Broadcast Democracy
Stimulating the Quasi-statistical Organ
Science communication as political communication
Implicit social cognition
Exposure to opposing views on social media can increase political polarization
Reflective Democracy
Confirming Bias Without Knowing? Automatic Pathways Between Media Exposure and Selectivity
Red Media, Blue Media
Partisan Paths to Exposure Diversity
Dose-Dependent Media Priming Effects of Stereotypic Newspaper Articles on Implicit and Explicit Stereotypes
Implicit and Explicit Attitudes as Predictors of Gatekeeping, Selective Exposure, and News Sharing
Selective Use of News Cues
Democracy Based on Difference
Politically Motivated Reinforcement Seeking
The structural transformation of the public sphere
The Associative–Propositional Evaluation Model
Listening for Democracy
Beyond Empathy and Inclusion
Attitudes
Democracy for Realists
A unified theory of implicit attitudes, stereotypes, self-esteem, and self-concept
Polarization and Partisan Selective Exposure
Niche News
Hearing the Other Side
Does Information about Bias Attenuate Selective Exposure? The Effects of Implicit Bias Feedback on the Selection of Outgroup-Rich News
Twenty-Five Years of the Spiral of Silence
Associative and propositional processes in evaluation
Why partisan warriors don't listen
Visual Cues to the Hidden Agenda
Structure or Predisposition? Exploring the Interaction Effect of Discussion Orientation and Discussion Heterogeneity on Political Participation
The Single Category Implicit Association Test as a measure of implicit social cognition
The source attribution effect
Measuring Democratic Listening
Social Structure and Citizenship
Helpfulness as Journalism's Normative Anchor
News from the Other Side
Perceived Support for One's Opinions and Willingness to Speak Out
Does Partisan Bias Modulate Neural Processing of Political Information? An Analysis of the Neural Correlates of Corruption and Positive Messages
Choosing to Avoid? A Conjoint Experimental Study to Understand Selective Exposure and Avoidance on Social Media
A Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Cross-Cutting Exposure on Political Participation
Listening During Political Conversations
Motivated Skepticism in the Evaluation of Political Beliefs
An inkblot for attitudes
Selecting Our Own Science
The case for motivated reasoning
Elite Influence on Public Opinion in an Informed Electorate
Birds of a Feather
| Unique citing works | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2 |
| Citation span | 2024 - 2026 (3) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 4 |