The Threats and Potentials of a Changing Political Information Environment

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Christian Schemer
• Subject Area: Communication Sciences ; Political Science
• Term: from 2020 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 440394263

This project examines how the current changes in the political information environments in European democracies affect the conditions for a healthy democracy. As a theoretical background we employ the concept of ‘political information environment’ (PIE) that includes both the supply and demand of political news and information. Supply refers to the quantity and quality of news and public affairs content provided through traditional and new media sources, demand captures the amount and type of news and information the public wants or consumes. Recent changes in the political information environment may lead to a growing number of uniformed, misinformed and selectively informed citizens, potentially endangering the functioning of democracy. To examine these concerns, the study aims at investigating the following: (1) how do citizens today gain political information and how does this relate to their political attitudes and behaviour; (2) what is the content and quality of the information citizens are exposed to; (3) where do divides between being informed and not being informed exist, across and within European societies, and (4) how can citizens be empowered to navigate and find valuable information. We will do this through a series of comparative, innovatively designed studies, including web tracking, comparative surveys, focus groups and survey-embedded experiments in 14 European countries and the US. These countries vary on a number of key contextual factors relevant for the study, covering both “young” and established democracies with different democratic traditions, media systems, and news consumption habits.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Belgium, Denmark, France, Netherlands, Poland, Spain, United Kingdom
• Cooperation Partners: Professor Dr. Peter van Aelst; Professorin Dr. Ana Sofía Cardenal; Professor Dr. David Hopmann; Professorin Dr. Karolina Koc-Michalska; Professor Dr. James Stanyer; Professorin Dr. Agnieszka Stepinska; Professor Dr. Claes de Vreese