| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
© 1998 World Association for Public Opinion Research
research-article |
THE IMPACT OF ATTENTIVENESS ON POLITICAL EFFICACY: EVIDENCE FROM A THREE-YEAR GERMAN PANEL STUDY
Holli A. Semetko is Professor and Chair of Audience and Public Opinion Research at the Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR), in the faculty of Social Sciences, at the University of Amsterdam, where she also serves as Chair of the Department of Communication. ASCoR is an institute for advanced study and research and offers an international Ph.D. program in communication science. Her research interests include media content and effects in elections, media effects on public opinion, political communication, and cross-national comparative research.
Parti M. Valkenburg is Professor and Dutch Royal Academy Fellow at the Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR), at the University of Amsterdam. Her research interests include applied survey and experimental research methodology, framing effects of the news, and the effects of media on the cognitive, affective, and social development of children.
Correspondence about this article should be addressed to Holli A. Semetko, Amsterdam School of Communications Research, University of Amsterdam, Oude Hoogstraat 24, 1012 CE Amsterdam, The Netherlands. semetko{at}pscw.uva.nl
This study established the longitudinal relationships between attentiveness to political news and an individual's sense of internal political efficacy. Respondents were surveyed at one-year intervals in 1992, 1993, and 1994, resulting in N = 1,268 in West Germany and N = 1,001 in East Germany. Structural equation modeling (EQS) was used to investigate the longitudinal relationship between attentiveness and internal political efficacy. Our results indicated that respondents' initial internal political efficacy did not affect their subsequent attentiveness to news. However, initial attentiveness to news did enhance subsequent feelings of efficacy. The causal-correlational relationships between attentiveness and efficacy held true for East and West German populations, and when controlling for key demographic variables. These findings suggest that political efficacy should be reconceptualized in the context of research on political learning in adulthood, and that habits of information acquisition can be important for the socialization process. The findings raise questions about the effects of news in mature democracies as well as societies in transition.
CiteULike 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us What's this?
This article has been cited by other articles:
|
|
 |
|
  H. Gil De Zuniga, E. Puig-I-Abril, and H. Rojas Weblogs, traditional sources online and political participation: an assessment of how the internet is changing the political environment New Media Society, June 1, 2009; 11(4): 553 - 574. [Abstract] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 F. L. F. Lee Collective Efficacy, Support for Democratization, and Political Participation in Hong Kong Int. J. Public Opin. Res., September 1, 2006; 18(3): 297 - 317. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 M. T. Stephenson and R. L. Holbert A Monte Carlo Simulation of Observable Versus Latent Variable Structural Equation Modeling Techniques Communication Research, June 1, 2003; 30(3): 332 - 354. [Abstract] [PDF]
|
|