In about 30 minutes I’m presenting “Political Cynicism, Political Uses, and Information Efficacy Among Readers of Celebrity Weblogs “, a paper that came out of my dissertation that I co-authored with Dr. Lynda Lee Kaid from University of Florida:
This study tests the effects of personalized and “stealth” political discourse on weblogs, or blogs, and its affect levels of political trust, information efficacy, and political uses/gratifications. By surveying readers of three different blogs (N = 1838), this study identified significant effects as a result of exposure to political statements on blogs. Indeed, there are differences in the levels of political cynicism depending on how political statements were communicated. Readers of non-political blogs are more confident in their level of political information and their ability to participate in politics. Finally, political uses/approaches and avoidances were examined, as were differences based on gender and age.
Before going into the specific findings, let me explain a bit more about the method. We looked for the association of political cynicism, information efficacy and political uses & gratifications (approach/use of blog for political information & avoiding blog’s political content) based on the type of political messages one reads on celebrity blogs. We used 3 celebrity blogs: blog with clearly labeled & somewhat traditional political messages (Wil Wheaton), blog with satirical and “under the radar” political messages (Dave Barry), & a blog with no political messages (Roger Avary). Respondents were recruited for the survey from a post by the celebrity on his blog.
The basic findings here are that
- Respondents who read the blog that never made political messages (Avary) were least cynical & there were differences between each blog group.
- Respondents who read the blog that never made political statements (Avary) reported the highest level of information efficacy.
- Respondents who reported the highest level of approach to the blog or use of the blog to obtain political messages were those read the blog that contained political messages in a very clear & straight-forward manner.
- Respodents who said that they were least likely to use the blog for obtaining political messages were those that read the non-political blog (Avary).
- There was no relationship between use/approach of a blog for political information & cynicism.
- There was a statistically significant - but very weak - relationship between avoiding political messages and cynicism.
I’m off to present this!