%0 Journal Article
%T Reinforcing spirals at work? Mutual influences between selective news exposure and ideological leaning
%A Adam Shehata
%A Jesper Str£¿mb£¿ck
%A Peter M Dahlgren
%J European Journal of Communication
%@ 1460-3705
%D 2019
%R 10.1177/0267323119830056
%X The growth of partisan news sources has raised concerns that people will increasingly select attitude-consistent information, which might lead to increasing political polarization. Thus far, there is limited research on the long-term mutual influences between selective exposure and political attitudes. To remedy this, this study investigates the reciprocal influences between selective exposure and political attitudes over several years, using a three-wave panel survey conducted in Sweden during 2014¨C2016. More specifically, we analyse how ideological selective exposure to both traditional and online news media influences citizens¡¯ ideological leaning. Findings suggest that (1) people seek-out ideologically consistent print news and online news and (2) such attitude-consistent news exposure reinforces citizens¡¯ ideological leaning over time. In practice, however, such reinforcement effects are hampered by (3) relatively low overall ideological selective exposure and a (4) significant degree of cross-cutting news exposure online. These findings are discussed in light of selective exposure theory and the reinforcing spirals model
%K Political ideology
%K political polarization
%K reinforcing spirals model
%K selective exposure
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0267323119830056