The Role of Political Sophistication in Learning From News

Abstract

Accounting for learning from news has focused on media attention, media gratification, content-specific exposure, and prior knowledge. One measure of prior knowledge is political sophistication, measuring components of both knowledge and ideology. Two studies evaluated the reliability, concurrent validity, and comparative predictive validity of political sophistication in comparison to those of exposure, attention, and civics knowledge. Study 1 focused on the 1993-1994 health care reform debate. Those higher in political sophistication learned more from broadcast and print news, and had more differentiated constructs and higher quality arguments about health policy issues in open-ended essays. These findings were replicated in Study 2, which was conducted within a simulated mayoral election campaign. The results suggest that political sophisticates do not simply consume more news but process it differently than their less-sophisticated counterparts.