Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Studies of political discussion explain who people discuss politics with and why political discussion typically takes place among citizens with similar views. These conclusions usually concentrate on the nature of relationship among political discussants or the contextual situation of political discussants. Less attention has been paid to how individual characteristics affect patterns of discussion and the likelihood to engage in political discussion. Are there measureable personality characteristics that make it more or less likely for some individuals to discuss politics and/or disagree about politics? We concentrate on the notion of risk sensitivity as a possible determinate of political discussion avoidance. As has been illustrated in numerous anthropological and historical cases, some citizens demonstrate sensitivity to risk-prone behaviors compared to other citizens. Based on these models, we use American National Election Study data to calculate the likelihood of risk-taking and gauge whether this affects the frequency of political discussion generally, and/or the tendency toward disagreement in political discussion.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Understanding how adolescents come to be informed participants in democracy is a key concern in political socialization. However, our understanding of this process is hampered by limited research on the antecedents of a sufficiently wide array of communication behaviors and cognitions, in addition to a limited repertoire of knowledge outcomes in adolescent research. This study seeks to further the literature by addressing how discussion frequency, elaboration, and network diversity are related to factual and structural knowledge among adolescents. In addition, we utilize multilevel modeling to assess both school and parental effects on the various elements of political discussion. Results suggest that frequency of discussion is related to both factual and structural knowledge, whereas discussion elaboration is related only to structural knowledge. The multilevel models suggest that both aspects of both schools and families are related to discussion frequency, elaboration and network diversity.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Political communication scholars have put forward contrasting theories and produced contradictory evidence in attempts to explain the impact of heterogeneity of political discussion on active citizenship. However, most of these studies examined the effects of heterogeneous discussion independently of homogenous discussion. This is overly simplistic, of course, given that most citizens are likely to be mobilized through discussion with both likeminded and non-likeminded discussion partners. This study examines the opposing claims on the civic consequences of heterogeneous political discussion empirically and directly compares the influence of heterogeneous and homogeneous political discussion on indicators of active citizenship. Overall, two general findings emerged. First, heterogeneous political discussion does encourage democratic citizenship and, second, heterogeneous political discussion and homogeneous political discussion have different effects on indicators of active citizenship.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: In this paper we evaluate common approaches to the measurement of political discussion in the survey literature. We compare the use of “discussant generators” and, for lack of a better term, “general” approaches to the measurement of network size, agreement, and disagreement. We further evaluate various criteria for assessing agreement, including shared party identification, shared gender, shared race, and respondent self-assessment of tendency to politically agree with specific discussion partners. We assess the extent to which research conclusions about the size of networks and the extent of exposure to political disagreement are likely to vary based on these different measurement approaches in the literature. We also evaluate the extent to which associations between network size, agreement, and disagreement and outcomes such as political knowledge and political participation are likely to vary depending on the measurement approach. We conclude that descriptive assessments are probably only weakly affected, but relationship assessments may well be more substantially affected by measurement technique, especially for network size.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: In an attempt to explore empirical conditions under which on-line deliberation produces ideal outcomes for democracy, this study focused on the efficacy of discussion as an outcome of on-line discussion. ‘Display of social identity cues,’ ‘intervention of moderators in discussion’ and ‘reinforcement of discussion efficacy’ were assumed to function as structural and regulative conditions for producing subsequent outcomes. We argue that these conditions will affect communicator’s efficacy of deliberation as well as the quantity and quality of deliberation. A field experiment was conducted to test of the impacts of the structural and regulative conditions upon political discussion efficacy. We found that the efficacy increased under the conditions of ‘display of social identity cues’ and ‘reinforcement of discussion efficacy.’ The quantity and quality of deliberation also had independent effects on the efficacy. The implications of the findings were discussed in terms of possible contributions of heightened political discussion efficacy for democracy.