Self-Interest and Attention to News Among Issue Publics

Abstract

To what extent are groups selectively exposed to news that affects their self-interest? We theorize that having an interest at stake in an issue increases the importance of related information, promoting selective exposure to politics. The framework we develop generates hypotheses we test with data from 29 U.S. public opinion surveys conducted between 1997 and 2007 with a combined sample size of over 40,000 respondents. We find that though the propensity to follow news is a general predisposition, people's exposure to specific issues varies based on whether or not information is relevant to their interests, as defined by social group (or issue public) membership. While general awareness of political matters is normatively desirable, exposure to issues relevant to one's self-interest is an equally important and necessary precondition for political engagement and issue public formation. Evidence from this study suggests that citizens with low levels of general news exposure may, nonetheless, attend to personally relevant information, enabling democratic accountability across dynamic information environments. [Supplementary material is available for this article. Go to the publisher's online edition of Political Communication for the following free supplemental resource(s): iPoll survey identifiers for the data used in this article and full regression results for all statistical models reported in the article.]