Volume 43, Issue 4

The perception that many other people are being reached and affected by political communication can be a reason for intensifying one’s own communication activities. An online survey among German citizens (n = 2,957) was carried out to determine whether this is also true for political communication activities via social media. Results show that the presumed reach and the presumed influence of Facebook and Twitter with regard to the individual’s circle of friends/acquaintances affect the intensity of online communication. However, perceptions concerning the population in general are not relevant. This indicates that individuals primarily address their own social environment with their political social networking practices. Thus, by concentrating on perceptual processes, the findings contribute to shedding light on the causes and motives for political communication activities in the social media world.

Being attentive to European Parliamentary (EP) elections is a decisive prerequisite in becoming more knowledgeable about EU affairs as well as eventually participating in EU politics. Even though attentiveness to politics is a common way of acquiring political information en passant, empirical studies in this realm are scarce. By systematically integrating content analysis data (N = 6432 news stories) with a three-wave panel survey (N = 1497), this study examines the explanatory factors for citizens’ attentiveness to the 2014 EP election. OLS regression models demonstrate that turnout intention and political activity predict citizens’ attentiveness to the election. Media consumption of EU news marginally drives attention to the election.

In recent years we have witnessed in several countries the rise of new and unexpected forms of collective mobilization and activism. The main goal of this article is to discuss the role played by digital devices and online platforms in how activism is currently being represented and practiced by young people. Our reflection is empirically grounded on a recent exploratory research project carried out in Portugal. This project, using an array of qualitative methods (ethnographic observation, in-depth interviews, etc.), had as its main purpose to explore young people’s digital activism. In this article we will discuss this project’s findings, analyzing not only the uses of digital media within a set of activist practices, but also the social representations built around this issue by different social actors participating in several activist groups.

Research on media and information literacy has been growing exponentially over the past years, but it has focused more on the examination of media practices than on the assessment of media and information literacy skills. In this paper we describe the process of designing and implementing a Media and Information Literacy Test comprising 20 items. We present the results of the analysis carried out to validate the items and to construct a scale of media and information literacy skills using Item Response Theory (IRT). Findings indicate that the conceptual framework adopted is adequate to measure media and information literacy and that the test has good discrimination and difficulty parameters. The test is based on a more comprehensive framework used to assess media and information literacy skills than those used in previous studies and can be used on an item-by-item basis. In this sense, it is a novel contribution to current efforts to measure media and information literacy skills.

This study investigates the influence of season of birth on media use and media genre preferences later in life. An impressive body of research in Europe and Japan shows that the month of birth has a significant impact on one’s temperament: People born in the winter of the northern hemisphere, for instance, tend to be less cheerful, lively and self-assured. Reasons seem to be the experience of less light, of coldness and of living mostly inside the home. Mood-management theory suggests that media entertainment may be used to compensate for that lack of cheerfulness and liveliness. In this explorative study, we assume that in countries north of the equator, but with extremely hot temperatures, summer is the season with fewer outdoor activities. So, there, individuals with more summer months in their first half year of life should be comparatively less cheerful – which they may regulate by using more media entertainment. Indeed, a secondary analysis of large-scale surveys in six countries in the Middle East and North Africa in 2016 supports this assumption, albeit conditionally: In the countries with particularly hot summers, but also for younger people in general, the duration of summer directly after birth is correlated significantly with consuming more media entertainment as well as with preferring comedy and drama as genres on TV and online video.