A study conducted across the Netherlands, the United States, and Poland found that approximately 66% of the political content people are exposed to comes from non-news websites. People rarely visit news websites, and they search for political topics on these sites even less frequently. However, non-news websites also feature political topics, and the relationship between exposure to these topics and participants’ political views and behaviors is at least as strong as that of exposure to political news. The paper was published in Political Communication.
The media plays a crucial role in the political life of every society by serving as a bridge between the government and the general public. It informs citizens about political events, decisions, and policies, enabling them to make informed choices. Through investigative journalism, the media holds politicians and institutions accountable, exposing corruption and misconduct. In a democracy, a free and independent media ensures that diverse viewpoints are represented, promoting open debate and dialogue. It also encourages political participation by fostering public involvement in discussions about policies and governance.
However, biased or manipulated media can distort facts and influence public opinion, thereby undermining democratic processes. Studies also show that a significant portion of the American population views news as complex or boring. This group, generally uninterested in partisan politics, tends to avoid political news altogether. However, not all political information comes from news media.
Study author Magdalena Wojcieszak and her colleagues sought to explore how much political content people encounter outside of news domains. They also aimed to compare the amount of political content people encounter within news and non-news sources and to examine the effects of this exposure. The study involved participants from three countries: Poland, the U.S., and the Netherlands.
A total of 7,266 participants from these three countries took part in the study. Every three months (over a total of three waves), participants completed a 20-minute survey and provided browsing data to the researchers. By analyzing the browsing data, the researchers gathered information about participants’ online news exposure and political content exposure (including political content encountered outside of news sites). The survey also included questions that allowed the researchers to assess various factors related to participants’ political behavior and attitudes, such as political participation, support for compromise (between politicians and political parties), attitude polarization, affective polarization, endorsement of misinformation, attribution of malevolence (towards opposing parties), and perceived polarization (between political factions).
The results showed that only 3.4% of participants’ website visits were to news sites. The percentage was highest in the Netherlands (4.2%) and lowest in the U.S. (2.4%). Of these visits, only around 26% were to political content within news websites, representing less than 1% of overall visits to all websites. Interestingly, the Dutch, who visited news websites most frequently, visited political news the least (14% of visits to news websites), while Americans, who visited news websites the least, visited political news more than participants from the other two countries (36% of visits to news websites).
Meanwhile, 1.6% of non-news website visits were to content related to politics. This percentage was highest in the U.S. (2% of all visits) and lowest in the Netherlands (1.2% of all visits). This suggests that participants were exposed to more political content through non-news websites than through news websites. In fact, approximately 66% of the political content participants encountered came from non-news websites.
Further analysis revealed that participants exposed to more political content outside of news websites were more likely to express intentions to participate in politics (e.g., by protesting or signing a petition), but this effect was observed only in the U.S. and Poland. In the Netherlands, exposure to political content outside of news sites was linked to increased extremity of political attitudes, while in the U.S., this exposure was associated with increased hostility towards supporters of other parties and those with opposing views. In contrast, in the Netherlands, exposure to political content outside of news websites was linked to a decrease in affective polarization towards supporters of other parties.
In all three countries, participants who were exposed to more news and political content outside of news websites tended to endorse less misinformation, meaning they were generally better informed.
“We find that citizens prefer online entertainment, shopping sites, and celebrity gossip over news and public affairs. That may be nothing new. Yet, our data also show that citizens’ visits to non-news sites are the dominant source of political information. Even though politics in these kinds of sites comprised only 1.6% of all visits, the aggregate popularity of webmail, entertainment, shopping sites, or celebrity gossip means that an average citizen encounters most political content outside news. People, especially Americans and especially those with low political interest, encounter politics more frequently outside news outlets than within,” the study authors concluded.
This study contributes to the scientific understanding of how individuals obtain political information from online sources. However, it should be noted that the design of the study does not allow for causal conclusions. As a result, it remains unclear whether exposure to political content shapes political behaviors and attitudes, or whether people with specific political attitudes and behaviors seek out certain types of political content.
The paper, “Non-News Websites Expose People to More Political Content Than News Websites: Evidence from Browsing Data in Three Countries,” was authored by Magdalena Wojcieszak, Ericka Menchen-Trevino, Bernhard Clemm von Hohenberg, Sjifra de Leeuw, João Gonçalves, Sam Davidson, and Alexandre Gonçalves.
