Learning Political News From Social Media: Network Media Logic and Current Affairs News Learning in a High-Choice Media Environment

Abstract

With the migration from traditional news media to social media, understanding how citizens learn about politics and current affairs from these sources has become increasingly important. Based on the concept of network media logic, distinct from traditional mass media logic, this study investigates whether using social media as a source of political news compensates for not using traditional news media in terms of political and current affairs learning. Using two panel studies conducted in two different political contexts—an election setting and a nonelection setting—the results show positive learning effects from using traditional news media and online news websites, but not from using social media. Taken together, the findings suggest that using social media to follow news about politics and current affairs does not compensate for not using traditional news media in terms of learning a diverse and broad set of general political news.