0000000000255513

AUTHOR

Toril Aalberg

0000-0001-5461-1470

sj-pdf-1-nms-10.1177_14614448211045666 – Supplemental material for Does the platform matter? Social media and COVID-19 conspiracy theory beliefs in 17 countries

Supplemental material, sj-pdf-1-nms-10.1177_14614448211045666 for Does the platform matter? Social media and COVID-19 conspiracy theory beliefs in 17 countries by Yannis Theocharis, Ana Cardenal, Soyeon Jin, Toril Aalberg, David Nicolas Hopmann, Jesper Strömbäck, Laia Castro, Frank Esser, Peter Van Aelst, Claes de Vreese, Nicoleta Corbu, Karolina Koc-Michalska, Joerg Matthes, Christian Schemer, Tamir Sheafer, Sergio Splendore, James Stanyer, Agnieszka Stępińska and Václav Štětka in New Media & Society

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Cognitive Responses to Populist Communication

This chapter investigates the cognitive effects of different populist messages on blame attributions and stereotyping in the 15 countries participating in the study. It first gives an overview about whether respondents blamed politicians, the wealthy, immigrants, or ordinary people for the future economic decline described in the experimental stimulus. In addition, general stereotypical perceptions of those groups among respondents are presented. With respect to populist message effects, the analyses show that these were generally rather weak. But the analyses were also able to show that left-wing anti-out-group cues blaming ‘the rich’ and economic elites were most influential in this exper…

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Navigating high-choice European political information environments : a comparative analysis of news user profiles and political knowledge

The transition from low- to high-choice media environments has had far-reaching implications for citizens’ media use and its relationship with political knowledge. However, there is still a lack of comparative research on how citizens combine the usage of different media and how that is related to political knowledge. To fill this void, we use a unique cross-national survey about the online and offline media use habits of more than 28,000 individuals in 17 European countries. Our aim is to (i) profile different types of news consumers and (ii) understand how each user profile is linked to political knowledge acquisition. Our results show that five user profiles – news minimalists, social m…

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Does the platform matter? Social media and COVID-19 conspiracy theory beliefs in 17 countries

While the role of social media in the spread of conspiracy theories has received much attention, a key deficit in previous research is the lack of distinction between different types of platforms. This study places the role of social media affordances in facilitating the spread of conspiracy beliefs at the center of its enquiry. We examine the relationship between platform use and conspiracy theory beliefs related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Relying on the concept of technological affordances, we theorize that variation across key features make some platforms more fertile places for conspiracy beliefs than others. Using data from a crossnational dataset based on a two-wave online survey cond…

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Does a Crisis Change News Habits? A Comparative Study of the Effects of COVID-19 on News Media Use in 17 European Countries

Abstract: Exogenous shocks like the COVID-19 pandemic unleashes multiple fundamental questions about society beyond public health. Based on the classical concept of 'need for orientation' and the literature on the role of the media in times of crisis, we investigate to what extent the COVID-19 pandemic affected news consumption in comparative perspective. Based on a two-wave panel survey in 17 mostly European countries, our study targets the role of both legacy news brands (TV, radio, newspapers) and so-called contemporary news media (Internet-based and social media) during this global health crisis. Our results show an overall rise of news use across countries, but only for some types of n…

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ONLINE_APPENDIX_(1) – Supplemental material for Start Spreading the News: A Comparative Experiment on the Effects of Populist Communication on Political Engagement in Sixteen European Countries

Supplemental material, ONLINE_APPENDIX_(1) for Start Spreading the News: A Comparative Experiment on the Effects of Populist Communication on Political Engagement in Sixteen European Countries by Michael Hameleers, Linda Bos, Nayla Fawzi, Carsten Reinemann, Ioannis Andreadis, Nicoleta Corbu, Christian Schemer, Anne Schulz, Tamir Shaefer, Toril Aalberg, Sofia Axelsson, Rosa Berganza, Cristina Cremonesi, Stefan Dahlberg, Claes H. de Vreese, Agnieszka Hess, Evangelia Kartsounidou, Dominika Kasprowicz, Joerg Matthes, Elena Negrea-Busuioc, Signe Ringdal, Susana Salgado, Karen Sanders, Desirée Schmuck, Jesper Stromback, Jane Suiter, Hajo Boomgaarden, Keren Tenenboim-Weinblatt and Naama Weiss-Yani…

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sj-pdf-1-nms-10.1177_14614448211045666 – Supplemental material for Does the platform matter? Social media and COVID-19 conspiracy theory beliefs in 17 countries

Supplemental material, sj-pdf-1-nms-10.1177_14614448211045666 for Does the platform matter? Social media and COVID-19 conspiracy theory beliefs in 17 countries by Yannis Theocharis, Ana Cardenal, Soyeon Jin, Toril Aalberg, David Nicolas Hopmann, Jesper Strömbäck, Laia Castro, Frank Esser, Peter Van Aelst, Claes de Vreese, Nicoleta Corbu, Karolina Koc-Michalska, Joerg Matthes, Christian Schemer, Tamir Sheafer, Sergio Splendore, James Stanyer, Agnieszka Stępińska and Václav Štětka in New Media & Society

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sj-docx-1-hij-10.1177_19401612211012572 - Supplemental material for Navigating High-Choice European Political Information Environments: a Comparative Analysis of News User Profiles and Political Knowledge

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-hij-10.1177_19401612211012572 for Navigating High-Choice European Political Information Environments: a Comparative Analysis of News User Profiles and Political Knowledge by Laia Castro, Jesper Strömbäck, Frank Esser, Peter Van Aelst, Claes de Vreese, Toril Aalberg, Ana S. Cardenal, Nicoleta Corbu, David Nicolas Hopmann, Karolina Koc-Michalska, Jörg Matthes, Christian Schemer, Tamir Sheafer, Sergio Splendore, James Stanyer, Agnieszka Stępińska, Václav Štětka and Yannis Theocharis in The International Journal of Press/Politics

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Start Spreading the News: A Comparative Experiment on the Effects of Populist Communication on Political Engagement in Sixteen European Countries

Although populist communication has become pervasive throughout Europe, many important questions on its political consequences remain unanswered. First, previous research has neglected the differential effects of populist communication on the Left and Right. Second, internationally comparative studies are missing. Finally, previous research mostly studied attitudinal outcomes, neglecting behavioral effects. To address these key issues, this paper draws on a unique, extensive, and comparative experiment in sixteen European countries (N = 15,412) to test the effects of populist communication on political engagement. The findings show that anti-elitist populism has the strongest mobilizing eff…

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