Browsing by Person "Schmitt, Josephine B."

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    Vom Glauben, Berge versetzen zu können : subjektive Beurteilung von Medienqualität und Selbstwirksamkeit als Wegbereiter politischen Wissens
    (2016) Schmitt, Josephine B.; Trepte, Sabine
    The Internet has become a significant source for political information especially for younger generations. However, the evaluation and selection of relevant information becomes increasingly difficult as a growing number of diverse sources and content are available. Based on this observation, the present study aims to get to the bottom of the questions (1) how adolescents navigate through the vast amount of available information on the Internet (i.e., evaluation and selection of information sources) and (2) how they acquire political knowledge. More precisely the study analyzes which psychological factors contribute to adolescents’ political learning from online information sources and how these processes may be supported by media literacy programs in school. The book draws from and connects different lines of existing theoretical and empirical research: studies on perceived information quality (Wolling, 2009), social-cognitive theory (Bandura, 1986; Niemi, Craig, & Mattei, 1991) as well as research from learning psychology (e.g., Salomon, 1984). I propose that perceived information quality, media self-efficacy, internal political efficacy, and political knowledge should be understood as consecutively linked. To address the mentioned questions, I conducted a three-wave panel study with adolescents (9th to 13th grade). Moreover, a subsample participated in a media literacy intervention that took part before the second wave. Results demonstrate that perceived information quality of online news sources influences media self-efficacy, which, in turn, is related to internal political efficacy. Furthermore, internal political efficacy is being shown to positively influence political knowledge. Perceived information quality engenders trust in an individual’s media-related and political abilities, which leads to a more successful processing of political information among young adults. However, results regarding the effectiveness of the media literacy intervention are mixed. I found no direct effect of the media literacy intervention, nevertheless, a significant improvement in knowledge of the experimental group may indicate some indirect effects. All in all, these findings underline the importance of analyzing not only news media exposure but also perceived information quality as a predictor of political knowledge. Moreover, the results shed some light on the mediating role of media self-efficacy and political efficacy in the context of political knowledge acquisition. It can be concluded that not only exposure to qualitatively good sources for political information leads to an increase in political knowledge but also giving young adults the feeling that they are using sources of high quality.