Tabloidization of News Programs and Political Efficacy
Focusing on Contact with Strategic Frame News
2017 Volume 33 Issue 2 Pages 73-87
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2017 Volume 33 Issue 2 Pages 73-87
Recently, researches on the influence of tabloid-style news on political consciousness and voting behavior have been advanced due to diversification of mass media coverage. In this paper, we examine the relationship between contact with strategic frame news and voter’ s political efficacy, considering the interaction with the level of political knowledge. As a result of analysis using the Japanese Election StudyⅢ (JESⅢ) 2003 data, we found that voters with high level political knowledge showed negative correlations between contact with strategic frame news and political efficacy (both external and internal). However, for voters with low level political knowledge, contact with strategic frame news showed no correlation with external efficacy, while positive correlation with internal efficacy. We discussed psychological mechanism that produces these results and its implication for the democratic political process.
