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The glut of media coverage prior to a presidential election requires individuals to selectively expose themselves to some messages and not others. The study involves a two-session online quasi-experiment with 205 participants that was conducted before the 2008 presidential election. Hypotheses on confirmation bias and information utility driving selective exposure prior to an election are tested. Results confirm that information utility can override a confirmation bias and motivate exposure if a government change is likely and the favored party is likely to lose the election. Moreover, participants with frequent habitual online news use do not exhibit a confirmation bias. However, participants whose favored party was likely to win the election and participants with infrequent online news consumption show a significant confirmation bias.

The informational utility model states that (a) message utility increases as the intensity of the magnitude, likelihood, and immediacy of outcomes conveyed in the message increases, and that (b) increased utility leads to increased selection of the message. This study tests the model with radio news. Respondents listened to stories reflecting high or low intensity of one informational utility dimension. Afterward, respondents reported their retention and perceived relevance of each story. Results showed that individuals recalled more facts about stories of high, as opposed to low, utility; however, perceived relevance findings were nonsignificant.

This study examined the joint effect of message and personality attributes on online news sharing. In two experiments ( N = 270, N = 275), readers indicated their likelihood to share news representing two content domains and three informational utility dimensions. A moderated mediation path analysis was used. On average, news consumers shared news containing informational utility. Opinion leaders shared news irrespective of informational utility because they discerned informational utility in news that, objectively speaking, lacked such utility. In one experiment, opinion leaders also were more likely than nonleaders to share news perceived to contain informational utility.

An Internet newsmagazine was created to ascertain effects of three dimensions of news salience—magnitude, likelihood, and immediacy of events—on selective news exposure. In an overview, leads of half the articles were manipulated along the salience dimensions (low vs. high). Remaining leads and all articles were held constant. While readers sampled articles, their selective exposure was automatically recorded. Independent manipulation of salience dimensions resulted in increased exposure to associated articles for all three dimensions. Their joint manipulation yielded the same results for magnitude and likelihood. The absence of interactions in the joint manipulation suggests additive dimension effects.

Selective exposure to Internet news articles was hypothesized to increase with higher informational utility of news, defined by the informational-utility model according to dimensions of magnitude, likelihood, and immediacy of consequences. Data were collected in Germany and the United States to investigate the robustness of predictions for both positive and negative news, as the model pertains to reports on opportunities and threats. The computerized 2×3×2 experiment manipulated utility intensity (low/high) and utility dimension (magnitude/likelihood/immediacy). Country (United States/Germany) was incorporated as a moderating variable. Online news exposure was unobtrusively recorded as repeated measures. Findings show high informational utility increased selective exposure to both negative and positive news, regardless of cultural setting.

Contemporary democracies are increasingly shaped by a surge of populism, posing serious threats to the idea of liberal democracy. Particularly in the run-up to elections, knowledge of such threats is essential for citizens to cast an informed vote. Against this background, the present study examined the likelihood of media users to engage with political news providing critical perspectives on populist movements in a 24-hour social media field experiment during the 2017 federal election campaign in Germany (N = 210). Based on two selective exposure measures, findings suggest that exposure to critical news is contingent upon the conceptualization of populist partisanship as a political orientation of either high commitment (i.e., voting intention) or high affinity (i.e., sympathy for a party). While high commitment triggered a rather classic confirmation bias, especially regarding click decisions, high affinity caused selection patterns to be more strongly guided by informational utility, particularly during newsfeed browsing, with counter-attitudinal information receiving more attention. When public sentiment cues were present, however, attitudinal patterns disappeared. These findings imply that partisan news use in times of political upheaval is best gauged by taking a closer look at the particular type of partisanship that guides selective exposure, as both types of partisanship caused contrary exposure patterns, and that today's news environments potentially override attitudinal influences by providing additional social monitoring cues.

The up-take rate of internet adoption in rural China still hovers at a low level, and the informational divide between urban and rural areas remains wide. This book addresses the digital divide by exploring the reasons behind the lagging adoption of the internet in rural communities in China.

"This chapter reviews literature on selective exposure in political communication. It first points to the importance of selectivity given an unprecedented amount and diversity of media sources. The chapter then focuses on the antecedents, psychological processes (e.g., confirmation bias), and outcomes of selective exposure to media content. The relevance of media credibility and hostile media perceptions, of tendencies to self-confirm, and of informational utility for selective exposure are discussed. The chapter then reflects on the consequences of selective exposure for the accessibility of attitudes and partisanship. The author concludes that selective exposure is in fact governed by attitude importance and a confirmation bias, even though informational utility may override this tendency under certain circumstances." (publisher's description)

"This chapter reviews literature on selective exposure in political communication. It first points to the importance of selectivity given an unprecedented amount and diversity of media sources. The chapter then focuses on the antecedents, psychological processes (e.g., confirmation bias), and outcomes of selective exposure to media content. The relevance of media credibility and hostile media perceptions, of tendencies to self-confirm, and of informational utility for selective exposure are discussed. The chapter then reflects on the consequences of selective exposure for the accessibility of attitudes and partisanship. The author concludes that selective exposure is in fact governed by attitude importance and a confirmation bias, even though informational utility may override this tendency under certain circumstances." (publisher's description).

SUMMARYA model of the response to subjective novelty represented by the Wundt curve was first informally introduced to economists by Scitovsky [1976]. The present paper operationalizes the subjective novelty concept using information theory. A distinction is drawn between informational utility and physical utility in the standard model. A successful empirical test is performed using a measure of consumer sentiment.

Stiglitz (1977) established three well-known features of monopoly insurance markets subject to adverse selection: (i) at least one market segment is served, despite the informational asymmetry; (ii) there is always some screening of risk classes; and (iii) efficiency is sacrificed to achieve screening. We modify Stiglitz's model, replacing his expected utility assumption on consumer behavior with a version of Quiggin's (1982) rank-dependent utility model that has received strong experimental support. We show that none of the conclusions (i)—(iii) is robust to this revision. In particular, asymmetric information need not lead to any loss in efficiency.