"Exposure to News in the Digital Age"

Access to diverse news strengthens democratic citizenship. Whether digital technologies narrow or widen news diets still fosters contentious debates. In this talk, I will discuss evidence supporting four claims: (1) mobile access to news leads to higher exposure to diverse content; (2) ideological self-selection explains only a small percentage of co-exposure to news; (3) the vast majority of internet users do not use online news; and (4) different online channels create different news ecosystems in terms of prevalent news. I will discuss the implications of the divide between informed citizens and news avoiders, and the need to measure exposure across media channels to identify populations that are most likely to be vulnerable to misinformation campaigns.

This event is sponsored by the Center for Social Data Analytics and the Department of Political Science.