Widespread Reach, not much Influence: Online News and Mass Political Attitudes and Behaviour in the UK

In spite of the concern about the political influence of the new digital media, especially social media, a large amount of circumstantial evidence suggests that their impact on mass political attitudes and behaviour, which is the focus of this article, may be small. Online news is less widely trusted than the news consumed via the legacy media (TV, radio, newspapers and magazines) and social media are least trusted of all. Most people rely heavily on the mainstream legacy media for their news, which are also the most popular online news sources—especially the BBC and much the same news is accessed on the new and old media. The majority of people have a fairly mixed diet of politically neutral and partisan news and there is little evidence of political ‘echo chambers’—even among the small minority that rely heavily on a single, partisan source. All age groups gather their news in similar ways, including the youngest, who make heavy use of the social media. Nevertheless, in the absence of rigorous research on causal effects on mass political attitudes and behaviour, we do not know whether the impact of the new media is strong or weak. The circumstantial evidence suggests they are likely to be weak.