Abstract
This paper analyzes the result of a nationwide public opinion survey conducted by NHK in 2018 with an aim to examine the impact of the diversification of news media on people’s contact with political news as well as their political awareness. - The most-used media (main media) for accessing news content varies depending on the gender and age group, with responses including “newspaper,” “NHK news programs,” “commercial broadcasters’ news programs,” “commercial broadcasters’ talk shows and information programs ,” “Yahoo! News,” and “LINE NEWS .”- The following trends were found from an analysis by the main media: (1) those using “newspaper” or “NHK news” as the main media tend to access political news voluntarily and proactively and have high degrees of contact frequency, interest in politics, and willingness to vote, (2) those citing “Yahoo! News” or “commercial broadcasters’ news” show middle degrees of the above, and (3) those citing “commercial broadcasters’ information programs” or “LINE NEWS” are passive about contacting political news, with low degrees of contact frequency, interest in politics, and willingness to vote. Differences are also found among online media users such that those whose main media is “LINE NEWS” are less concerned about news sources than those using “Yahoo! News” as the main media. - Evaluations on politics and attitudes towards specific issues also differ by the media use, but no particular political orientation (such that people using a certain media are consistently positive about the policies hammered out by the government or are more likely to be highly conservative) was found, which suggests that the difference in political awareness is influenced not only by the difference in media use but also by gender, age group, and party affiliation. However, there is a possibility that the difference in the information contact behavior will widen the gap in the quality and quantity of individual contact with political news, which may enlarge the gap in the political attitudes of the public in the future.
