More Web Proxy on the site http://driver.im/

research-article

Media use during conflicts: information seeking gratifications & efficacy during 2012 Mexican elections

Authors:

Andrea L. Kavanaugh,

Steven D. Sheetz,

Rodrigo Sandoval-Almazan,

John C. Tedesco,

Edward A. FoxAuthors Info & Claims

dg.o '14: Proceedings of the 15th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research

Pages 205 - 214

https://doi.org/10.1145/2612733.2612738

Published: 18 June 2014 Publication History

Abstract

Public access to accurate and reliable information is fundamental to democracy and democratic decision-making. In conditions of uncertainty and imperfect information, such as during political crises or controversial elections in emerging democracies, reliable information is often difficult to obtain. We investigated the uses and gratifications obtained from diverse information sources available to citizens during the months leading up to Presidential elections in Mexico in July 2012. Uses and gratifications theory states that information seeking is one of several primary needs or motivations for using different media. Reliability of information sources is key to gratification of this need. We conducted a survey about diverse information sources and their reliability with an opportunity sample of young adults at a public state university in Mexico. Our findings indicate that face-to-face and telephone communication with members of a respondent's social network, as well as social media and online news sites, were the most reliable sources of information about the elections. Television broadcasting, especially from government channels, was the least reliable. These results suggest that in conditions of relative uncertainty and imperfect information, social media and alternative (online) news sources about political events are essential to sustaining an informed public.

References

[1]

Meikeljohn, A., Free Speech and its Relation to Self-Government 1948, New York: Harper & Brothers.

[2]

Lau, R. and D. Redlawsk, How Voters Decide: Information processing during election campaigns 2006, New York: Cambridge University Press.

[3]

Newman, B. I., The Mass Marketing of Politics: Democracy in an age of manufactured images 1999, Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.

[4]

McQuail, D., Mass Communication Theory. 1st edition ed1983, London: Sage.

[5]

Blumler, J. and E. Katz, The Uses of Mass Communication1974, Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

[6]

Schramm, W., Mass Media and National Development: The role of information in the developing countries 1964, Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.

[7]

Blumler, J., The role of theory in uses and gratifications studies. Communication Research, 1979. 6: p. 9--36.

[8]

Siebert, F. S., T. Peterson, and W. Schramm, Four Theories of the Press 1963, Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.

[9]

Kavanaugh, A., The Social Control of Technology in North Africa: Information in the global economy 1998, Westport: Praeger.

Digital Library

[10]

Dahdal, S. Social Media and the Arab Spring: The historical context and the role of Aljazeera satellite station. in Conference for E-Democracy and Open Government (CeDEM). 2012. Krems, Austria: Donau-Universitat Krems.

[11]

Noueihed, L. and A. Warren, The Battle for the Arab Spring: Revolution, counter--revolution and the making of a new era 2012, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

[12]

Al-Kandari, A. and M. Hasanen, The impact of the Internet on political attitutdes in Kuwait and Egypt. Telematics and Informatics, 2012. 29(3): p. 245--253.

Digital Library

[13]

Lotan, G., et al., The Revolutions were Tweeted: Information flows during the 2011 Tunisian and Egyptian Revolutions. International Journal of Communicaiton, 2011. 5: p. 1375--1405.

[14]

Saletan, W. Springtime for Twitter: Is the Internet driving the revolutions of the Arab Spring? Slate.com 2011 {cited 2011 December 13}; Available from: http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2011/07/springtime_for_twitter.html.

[15]

Fox, R. and J. Ramos, eds. iPolitics: Citizens, elections and governing in the new media era. 2011, Cambridge University Press: New York.

[16]

Maarek, P., Campaign Communication and Political Marketing 2011, Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.

[17]

Howard, P., New Media Campaigns and the Managed Citizen 2006, New York: Cambridge University Press.

[18]

Shah, D., et al., Information and expression in a digital age. Communication Research, 2005. 32(5): p. 531--565.

[19]

Shah, D., N. Kwak, and R. L. Holbert, "Connecting" and "Disconnecting" with Civic Life: Patterns of Internet use and the production of social capital. Political Communication, 2001. 18: p. 141--162.

[20]

Moy, P. and J. Gastil, Predicting deliberative conversation: The impact of discussion networks, media use and political cognitions. Political Communication, 2006. 23: p. 443--460.

[21]

Papacharissi, Z. and A. M. Rubin, Predictors of Internet Use. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 2000. 44(2): p. 175--196.

[22]

Katz, E., J. Blumler, and M. Gurevitch, Uses and Gratifications Research. The Public Opinion Quarterly, 1973. 37(4): p. 509--523.

[23]

Kaye, B. and T. Johnson, Online and in the Know: Uses and Gratifications of the Web for Political Informaiton. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 2002. 46(1): p. 54--71.

[24]

Jungherr, A., P. Jurgens, and H. Schoen, Why the Pirate Party won the German election of 2009 or the trouble with predictions. Social Science Domputer Review, 2012. 30(2): p. 229--234.

Digital Library

[25]

Conover, M., et al. Predicting the political alignment of Twitter users. in IEEE Third International Conference on Social Computing (SocialCom). 2011. Boston, MA: IEEE Computer Society.

[26]

Gayo-Avello, D., P. Metaxas, and E. Mustafaraj. Limits of electoral predictions using social media data. in AAAI Fifth International Conference on Weblogs and Social Media. 2011. Barcelona, Spain: AAAI Digital Library.

[27]

Harfoush, R., Yes We Did! An inside look at how social media built the Obama brand 2009, Berkeley, CA: New Riders.

[28]

Towner, T. L., Campaigns and Elections in a Web 2.0 World: Uses, effects and implicaitons for democracy, in Web 2.0 Technologies and Democratic Governance, C. G. Reddick and S. K. Aikins, Editors. 2012, Springer: New York. p. 185--199.

[29]

Stromer-Galley, J., Presidential Campaigning in the Internet Age 2014, New York: Oxford University Press.

[30]

Kavanaugh, A., et al., Between a Rock and a Cell Phone: Communication and Information Technology Use during the 2011 Uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt. International Journal of Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management, 2013. 5(1): p. 1--21.

[31]

Jamal, A. and S. Melkote, Viewing and avoidnce of the Al-Jazeera satellite television channel in Kuwait: A uses and gratifications perspective. Asian Journal of Communication, 2008. 18: p. 1--15.

[32]

Starbird, K. and L. Palen. Pass it on? Retweeting in mass emergency. in International Systems for Crisis Response and Management (ISCRAM). 2010. Seattle, Washington.

[33]

Hughes, A. L. and L. Palen. Twitter adoption and use in mass convergence and emergency events. in Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management. 2009. Gothenburg, Sweden.

[34]

Delli Carpini, M. X. and S. Keeter, What Americans know about politics and why it matters1996, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. xiii, 397 p.

[35]

Bandura, A., Self-efficacy: The exercise of control 1997, New York, NY: W. H. Freeman. ix, 604 p.

[36]

Kaid, L. L., M. S. McKinney, and J. C. Tedesco, Political information efficacy theory and younger voters. American Behavioral Scientist, 2007. 50(9): p. 1093--1111.

[37]

Niemi, R. G., S. C. Craig, and F. Mattei, Measuring internal political efficacy in the 1988 National Election Study. American Political Science Review, 1991. 85: p. 1407--1413.

[38]

Tedesco, J., Political information efficacy and Internet effects in the 2008 US Presidential election. American Behavioral Scientist, 2011. 55(6): p. 696--713.

[39]

Teresi, H., Friending your way to political knowledge: A field experiment of computer-mediated social networks, in Political Science Department 2009, Georgia State University.

[40]

Gunther, A., Y.-H. Hong, and L. Rodriguez, Balancing trust in media and trust in government during political change in Taiwan. Journalism Quarterly, 1994. 71(3): p. 628--636.

[41]

McIntyre, B., Trust in media and government: A recursive model for natives of Hong Kong and Mainland China. Communication Research Reports, 1993. 10(2): p. 203--208.

[42]

Botan, C. and M. Taylor, The role of trust in channels of strategic communicatin for building civil society. Journal of Communication, 2005. 55(4): p. 685--702.

[43]

Ackerman, S. Egypt's Internet shutdown can't stop mass protests. Wired Magazine 2011 January 23, 2014}; Available from: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/01/egypts-internet-shutdown-cant-stop-mass-protests/.

[44]

Mosca, L., From the Streets to the Net? The political use of the internet by social movements. International Journal of E-Politics (IJEP), 2010. 1(1): p. 1--21.

[45]

Lara, T., Social networks, digital media revolutionize Mexican electoral coverage, in Journalism in the Americas 2013, Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas, University of Texas at Austin: https://knightcenter.utexas.edu/blog/00-10288-social-networks-digital-media-revolutionize-mexican-electoral-coverage.

[46]

WorldBank. World Development Indicators. The World Bank; Available from: http://databank.worldbank.org/data/views/reports/tableview.aspx?isshared=true & ispopular=country & pid=5.

[47]

INEGI. Instituto Nacional de Estadistica y Geografia (National Institute of Geographic Statistics). 2013 {cited 2014 January 27}; Available from: http://www.inegi.org.mx.

[48]

Sandoval-Almazan, R. and R. Gil-Garcia. I'm Number 132. in 46th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS-46). 2013. Maui: IEEE Computer Society.

[49]

T. W. Mexico Election Diary: The students are revolting. The Economist 2012 {cited 2014 January 20}; Available from: http://www.economist.com/blogs/americasview/2012/05/mexico-election-diary.

[50]

RSF. Reporters without Borders for Freedom of Information: Mexico 2013 {cited 2014 January 30}; Available from: http://en.rsf.org/report-mexico,184.html.

[51]

Gomez, R. and G. Sosa, La concentracion en el mercado de la television restringida en Mexico. Communicacion Sociedad, 2010. 14: p. 109--142.

[52]

CIA. CIA Factbook: Mexico. 2013 {cited 2014 January 20}; Available from: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/mx.html.

[53]

IWS. Internet World Stats: Usage and Population Statistics. 2011 {cited 2014 January 17}; Available from: http://www.internetworldstats.com.

[54]

CNNExpansion. Mexico tiene 10.7 milliones de twitteros. 2012 {cited 2014 January 15}; Available from: http://www.cnnexpansion.com/tecnologia/2012/03/21/mexico-tiene-107-millones-de-twitteros.

[55]

AMIPCI. Mexico Habitos de Internet. Associacion Mexicana de Internet 2012 {cited 2014 January 29}; Available from: http://www.amipci.org.mx/?P=editomultimediafile & Multimedia=348 & Type=1.

Cited By

Park SPark SKim JHan KFarzan RLópez CCardoso Llach DQuercia DMustafa MNiu SWong-Villacrés M(2024)Exploring the Impact of AI-Generated Images on Political News Perception and UnderstandingCompanion Publication of the 2024 Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing10.1145/3678884.3681907(565-571)Online publication date: 11-Nov-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3678884.3681907
Sandoval-Almazan R(2019)Political Messaging in Digital SpacesCivic Engagement and Politics10.4018/978-1-5225-7669-3.ch060(1203-1221)Online publication date: 2019
https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-5225-7669-3.ch060
Sandoval-Almazan R(2017)Political Messaging in Digital SpacesPolitics, Protest, and Empowerment in Digital Spaces10.4018/978-1-5225-1862-4.ch005(72-90)Online publication date: 2017
https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-5225-1862-4.ch005
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Media use during conflicts: information seeking gratifications & efficacy during 2012 Mexican elections
1. Information systems
  1. World Wide Web
    1. Web applications
      1. Internet communications tools

Recommendations

Uses and gratifications of social networking sites for bridging and bonding social capital

Applying uses and gratifications theory (UGT) and social capital theory, our study examined users of four social networking sites (SNSs) (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat), and their influence on online bridging and bonding social capital. ...
Using Social Media to Inform and Engage Urban Dwellers in La Paz, Mexico

Engaging residents in local affairs continues to be a challenge for cities around the world. Under a call for more open government, many cities have adopted web-based strategies, including social media, to inform, serve, and engage residents. ...
Social Media Use by Government in Canada: Examining Interactions of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada on Twitter and Facebook
#SMSociety17: Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Social Media & Society

In 2011, the Government of Canada acknowledged the need to use social media to interact with the public for the first time. The Open Dialogue stream of initiatives within the Canada's Action Plan on Open Government called for a two-way dialogue between ...

Comments

Please enable JavaScript to view thecomments powered by Disqus.

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Other conferences

dg.o '14: Proceedings of the 15th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research

June 2014

365 pages

ISBN:9781450329019

DOI:10.1145/2612733

General Chairs:
Gabriel Puron-Cid
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
,
Scott Robertson
University of Hawaii
,
Program Chairs:
Jing Zhang
Clark University
,
J. Ramon Gil-Garcia
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas

Copyright © 2014 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

Sponsors

Digital Government Society of North America

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 18 June 2014

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Request Permissions

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Research-article

Funding Sources

National Science Foundation

Conference

dg.o '14

Sponsor:

dg.o '14: 15th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research

June 18 - 21, 2014

Aguascalientes, Mexico

Acceptance Rates

dg.o '14 Paper Acceptance Rate 36 of 62 submissions, 58%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 150 of 271 submissions, 55%

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

5
Total Citations
View Citations
212
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)15
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)1

Reflects downloads up to 13 Jan 2025

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Park SPark SKim JHan KFarzan RLópez CCardoso Llach DQuercia DMustafa MNiu SWong-Villacrés M(2024)Exploring the Impact of AI-Generated Images on Political News Perception and UnderstandingCompanion Publication of the 2024 Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing10.1145/3678884.3681907(565-571)Online publication date: 11-Nov-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3678884.3681907
Sandoval-Almazan R(2019)Political Messaging in Digital SpacesCivic Engagement and Politics10.4018/978-1-5225-7669-3.ch060(1203-1221)Online publication date: 2019
https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-5225-7669-3.ch060
Sandoval-Almazan R(2017)Political Messaging in Digital SpacesPolitics, Protest, and Empowerment in Digital Spaces10.4018/978-1-5225-1862-4.ch005(72-90)Online publication date: 2017
https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-5225-1862-4.ch005
Sandoval-Almazán RValle-Cruz D(2016)Understanding Network Links in TwitterProceedings of the 17th International Digital Government Research Conference on Digital Government Research10.1145/2912160.2912204(122-128)Online publication date: 8-Jun-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2912160.2912204
Kavanaugh ASheetz SSkandrani HTedesco JSun YFox E(2016)The Use and Impact of Social Media during the 2011 Tunisian RevolutionProceedings of the 17th International Digital Government Research Conference on Digital Government Research10.1145/2912160.2912175(20-30)Online publication date: 8-Jun-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2912160.2912175

View Options

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Publication

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

eReader

View online with eReader.

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

View Table of Contents