The Efficacy of News Browsing: The Relationship of News Consumption Style to Social and Political Efficacy

Research on audience uses of news media points to the presence of two basic types of audience news gathering processes: information browsing—choosing a range of news topics when using the media—and information selecting—limiting news consumption to a few specific topics. This study examines antecedents and normatively important consequences of these behavior patterns. The study shows that news browsing is associated with relative emphasis on a medium for news. Newspaper browsing predicts the variety of topics about which people feel they are informed, their social self-efficacy, and their internal political efficacy.