Advances in communication technology have led to sharp increases in sports betting via smartphones and other mobile devices around the world. At the same time, legal changes in places such as the United States have drastically altered the media ecosystem surrounding sports. As a result, sports betting now permeates many facets of sports media coverage and the broader culture of sports. Despite these developments, mobile sports gambling has received relatively little attention from communication scholars. In this agenda-setting commentary, we argue that communication researchers are uniquely positioned to elucidate the causes and consequences of mobile sports betting and build and test theory related to this issue. In doing so, we illustrate research opportunities for studying mobile sports gambling across the field. We begin by documenting the rapid increase in mobile sports betting and gambling-related media content in society. We then explain why features of mobile sports betting and the contemporary media ecosystem combine to create complexities that require the attention of communication scholars. Finally, we bolster our arguments with survey data from a sample of 1,075 American adults who reported using a mobile device to gamble on sports in the past year.

Political discussion is often considered essential for a healthy democracy, but what motivates people to engage in it? Traditionally, objective political knowledge-holding factually correct beliefs about politics-has been considered a crucial prerequisite for political action, such as political talk. Recent research challenges this conventional wisdom, arguing that subjective knowledge-individuals' metacognitive perceptions of their own knowledge-may be a more accurate predictor of political engagement more broadly. Thus, in this study, we sought to better understand how both objective and subjective political knowledge relate to political discussion with different audiences (in-group, out-group, strong ties, and weak ties). Results from a 2-wave survey (YouGov) of U.S. adults (W1 = 1,800; W2 = 1,265) showed that people who think they know a lot about politics are more willing to engage in all types of political discussion. In contrast, objective knowledge is only associated with political discussions with political in-group members and strong ties. Thus, discussions with the out-group members and weak ties may be motivated by a flawed perception of knowledge that is not supported by actual facts and information (i.e., knowledge illusion).

Algorithms are now an important part of news curation, but questions remain about how news audiences perceive algorithms and whether those perceptions are associated with more general news attitudes and behaviors. Using a survey (N = 1,800) with a diverse sample of adults in the United States, this study first examined the demographic, political, and behavioral predictors of familiarity with and concern about news algorithms. Second, it tested the impact of familiarity with and concern for algorithmic influence on use of and trust in different curators and creators of the news. Results highlight important demographic differences regarding a basic understanding and concern for algorithms' influence online. More importantly, people who were more concerned about news algorithms were more likely to avoid news from systems that utilize algorithms (e.g. search, news apps). Further, concerns about news algorithms were also related to a general decrease in trust for traditional sources of the news, including mainstream media and journalists. The findings suggest that concern about news algorithms may limit certain types of news use and generate a larger sense of distrust in those who curate and create the news.

Political cynicism is rising in many democracies throughout the world. At the same time, people increasingly use social media to access news and political information. However, much of the political content people see on these platforms is hostile, uncivil, and attacking. This study examines whether exposure to these political attacks on social media is associated with political cynicism and, if so, whether negative emotions like anger and anxiety play a mediating role in this process. Using data from a panel survey of American adults (N = 1,800) collected during the 2020 U.S. presidential election, this study examines whether exposure to political attacks on social media is related to both emotions about the state of the country and political cynicism. Data indicate that people who were exposed to more political attacks on social media were more politically cynical. Further, perceived exposure to political attacks on social media was associated with more anger about the state of the United States, which was subsequently related to greater levels of political cynicism. The results provide evidence that exposure to political attacks on social media might contribute to both negative emotions about the country and political cynicism.

The Internet and social media create an environment in which individuals can selectively approach information supporting their political worldviews while also being incidentally exposed to socially shared information that challenges their beliefs. These competing information consumption patterns may help explain whether and how digital media contribute to affective polarization (i.e. affect-based division between political groups). This study examines how pro-attitudinal selective exposure and counter-attitudinal incidental exposure in tandem influence political emotions. Using data from 2, two-wave panel surveys conducted during the 2016 and 2020 US presidential elections, our findings demonstrate that seeking consonant political information is consistently associated with anger toward political opponents and enthusiasm toward like-minded partisans. In contrast, despite the purported democratic benefits endowed on political disagreement, cross-cutting incidental exposure does not temper political emotional responses associated with pro-attitudinal selective exposure. However, we find little evidence that unexpected exposure to disagreeable information backfires either.

Polarization and hostility between political parties is a dominant feature of politics in the United States and is growing in many other democracies worldwide. Yet, there remain questions of who the public blames for this hostility and how those attributions of blame emerge. This study examines the role of partisan strength, political media exposure, and political discussion on blame for partisan hostility. Analyses of survey data (YouGov) collected during the 2020 U.S. presidential election suggest that political discussions play a particularly strong role in shaping attributions of blame, while partisan strength and political media exposure are relatively less influential. The data also indicate that who one talks to about politics matters for placing blame, as conversations with like-minded partisans lead to more blame placed on the out-party and less blame on the in-party, whereas political discussions with people who hold different views can temper out-party blame. Overall, findings suggest that political discussion may matter more than political media exposure for attributions of blame for partisan hostility.

While social media provide opportunities for political expression, many people may be reluctant to share their opinions if they fear personal or professional repercussions for posting political views. Fear of social sanctions (FOSSs) therefore represents a promising approach to investigate why people often avoid expressing political opinions online. Using panel survey data collected during the 2020 U.S. election, this study examines the predictors of FOSSs, as well as its relationship with several forms of online political expression. Results indicate that the ideological diversity of people's online networks fosters their FOSSs, which in turn is associated with decreases in several types of online political expression. Thus, FOSSs may be an important determinant in individuals' calculations to express political opinions online and may also hinder lower commitment forms of political engagement. Social media allow people to publicly express their political views, but many say they do not take advantage of this opportunity because they are afraid that sharing their political opinions online could lead to negative consequences in their personal or professional lives, such as damaging their relationships with friends and family or jeopardizing their job. This study has two goals. First, we examine whether characteristics of people's social media environments impact their fears about sharing their political views online. Second, we test whether fears about the social and professional consequences of sharing political views online actually make it less likely that people express their political opinions on social media. We find that people who have more politically diverse social media environments are more fearful of sharing their political views online. We also find that people who are more afraid of the social and professional consequences of sharing their political views on social media often engage in self-censorship, becoming less likely to share news or their political opinions online, including liking or commenting on political posts made by others. This suggests that fears about the negative consequences of sharing political views on social media can limit political expression online.

This paper adopts a repertoire approach to studying inequalities in political use of social media, focusing on patterns of political behavior on Facebook. A Latent Class Analysis of a 2016 two-wave survey of Americans identified four distinct political repertoires on Facebook; 1) Disengaged, 2) All-engaged, 3) Expressers (only likely to do expressive behaviors) and 4) Likers (only likely to "like" content). Using these classes of users, we reexamined prominent hypotheses in the literature related to whether political social media use is a) stratified by education and political interest and b) associated with increased political knowledge and participation.

This study investigates the potential role both untrustworthy and partisan websites play in misinforming audiences by testing whether actual exposure to these sites is associated with political misperceptions. Using a sample of American adult social media users, we match data from individuals' Internet browser histories with a survey measuring the accuracy of political beliefs. We find that visits to partisan websites are at times related to misperceptions consistent with the political bias of the site. However, we do not find strong evidence that untrustworthy websites consistently relate to false beliefs. There is also little evidence that visits to less partisan, centrist news sites are associated with more accurate political beliefs about these issues, suggesting that exposure to politically neutral news is not necessarily the antidote to misinformation. Results suggest that focusing on partisan news sites-rather than untrustworthy sites-may be fruitful to understanding how media contribute to political misperceptions.

Political memes have become a common way for people to be exposed to political content and express their political views online. However, little is known about who shares political memes online or whether exposure to memes is associated with key attitudinal, emotional, and behavioral political outcomes. To address these gaps, this study uses data from a two-wave survey (YouGov) of American adults fielded during the 2020 U.S. presidential election ( N = 1800) to investigate (a) predictors of creating and sharing political memes on Facebook and (b) associated outcomes of exposure to political memes on Facebook. Results reveal that sharing political memes is a form of political expression employed by a variety of people in the United States, including political moderates and people both politically interested and noninterested. The data suggest that people who circulate political memes are motivated to make fun of politicians, but also to persuade and inform others in some cases. Results also highlight potential consequences of exposure to political memes, such as heightened online opinion expression, political participation, and anger toward the opposing presidential candidate. Taken together, the results provide insights into how people engage with memes and their associations with key political outcomes and offer an important foundation for future work on the effects of political memes.

Search engines are one of the most trusted and used sources of political information. Yet there is limited research on how often people search for political topics in the real world, the search strategies they use to find information, and the results people select. We use a combination of survey and online behavioral data to illuminate how often people search for political content, what queries they use, how autocomplete affects political queries, how searches vary by political characteristics, and what types of results people view. We holistically investigate the political search process of 45 politically diverse individuals in the U.S., selected from a larger sample of 564, by observing 6-months of their online behavior. While politically interested people do most political searching and tend to favor their own side in the queries they compose and the results they visit, it is not overwhelmingly so. In fact, there is a substantial amount of cross-party searching and result visiting. Autocomplete and trending topics play a small role in political search overall. People visit a wide variety of results after searching for political information beyond national news sites. These findings extend our understanding of political search and have both theoretical and practical implications.

Abstract This chapter argues that emotions play a pivotal role in whether people are exposed to, engage with, and believe scientific, health, and political misinformation online. It advances an emotion-centered approach to understanding misinformation by examining how different conceptualizations of emotions, such as core affect and dimensional approaches, discrete emotions (e.g., anger, anxiety, fear), feelings-as-information, and intuition, are applied to investigate the spread and belief of false information online. The chapter also discusses how emotions impact the effectiveness of corrections to falsehoods. It concludes with a call to place more emphasis on emotions in misinformation research, offering a series of unanswered questions about emotion and misinformation to be addressed in future work. Together, the chapter offers a comprehensive overview for why and how emotions can promote public misinformation about key social issues.

Concerns persist over the potential for the fragmented media environment to promote motivation-based political knowledge gaps between those who are interested in politics and those who are not. Yet, there is also evidence that the Internet can provide opportunities for individuals to incidentally encounter and learn from news, which may decrease these knowledge gaps. The current study tests this possibility using two, two-wave panel surveys of adults in the United States conducted during the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections. Across two distinct electoral contexts, we find evidence that incidental exposure to online news and political information promotes learning about presidential candidates’ policy positions over the course of the campaign. In addition, the data suggest the least politically interested benefit the most from this incidental exposure, as they see the largest gains in political knowledge. These findings indicate that opportunities to learn via incidental exposure have the potential to reduce motivation-based knowledge gaps.

This study examines how two distinct patterns of online political information exposure-pro-attitudinal selective exposure and counter-attitudinal incidental exposure-can work together to influence engagement in online cross-cutting political discussion. Using panel data from a two-wave national survey conducted in 2012, we test two competing theoretical accounts. Findings suggest that incidental exposure affects selective exposure's contribution to cross-cutting discussion in a curvilinear way. Incidental exposure strengthens the impact of selective exposure on cross-cutting discussion up until a certain point, after which it begins to attenuate its impact. Results emphasize the need to account for the multiple ways people encounter political information online.

Social media, as sources of political news and sites of political discussion, may be novel environments for political learning. Many early reports, however, failed to find that social media use promotes gains in political knowledge. Prior research has not yet fully explored the possibility based on the communication mediation model that exposure to political information on social media facilitates political expression, which may subsequently encourage political learning. We find support for this mediation model in the context of Facebook by analyzing a two-wave survey prior to the 2016 U.S. presidential election. In particular, sharing and commenting, not liking or opinion posting, may facilitate political knowledge gains.

Communication technologies have expanded the range of actors who participate in public debates about science. When experts communicate with the public, scientifically-derived statistical evidence competes with the testimony of non-experts. This study investigates how competing statistical and testimonial evidence affect attitudes toward an issue and the debating speakers. Our findings suggest an advantage to asserting statistical evidence in competitive debates about science; a dissenting lay person is considered more credible when asserting statistical evidence in response to an expert's testimony than when they assert testimonial evidence. Additionally, prior support for the issue affects evaluations of speakers and issue attitudes.

Social endorsement cues (SEC) offer information about how online users have engaged and evaluated online content. Some view that SEC thus can serve as useful heuristics when users evaluate the credibility of news content on social media. At the same time, SEC can be manipulated by a variety of commercial and political actors on social media. This study examines whether SEC influence individuals' credibility judgments of political news on social media, and how the salience of concerns that SEC can be manipulated by others can undermine the perceived credibility. Using an experiment, we found that SEC had a negative influence on news credibility, regardless of whether or not SEC manipulability concerns were primed. An independent effect of SEC manipulability concerns was also found, such that priming thoughts about the manipulability of SEC led participants to rate the news post as less credible, regardless of whether that post included SEC. These results suggest a spillover effect whereby concerns over the manipulation of SEC can create doubt about the authenticity of other cues from the news (e.g., source and message), and lead to perceptions that news shared on social media can be manipulated more generally.

Research on political misinformation is booming. The field is continually gaining more key insights about this important and complex social problem. Academic interest on misinformation has consistently been a multidisciplinary effort. But perhaps political communication researchers are particularly well situated to be the leading voices on the public’s understanding of misinformation and many are heeding the call. With that responsibility in mind, in this brief article we offer six observations for the future of political misinformation research that we believe can help focus this line of inquiry to better ensure we address some of the most pressing problems. Our list is not exhaustive, nor do we suggest that areas we do not cover are not important. Rather, we make these observations with the goal of spurring a conversation about the future of political misinformation research.

Research has long considered the role interpersonal persuasion plays in shaping how citizens form their political opinions and cast their votes. Yet few studies have examined how experiences with online persuasion might influence broader deliberative orientations. We propose the “Persuasion-Openness” model, in which both attempting and being the target of online political persuasion encourage individuals to engage in online cross-cutting discussion with those who hold differing political views. These more deliberative exchanges are in turn associated with increased “dialogic openness”—a broader orientation toward political dialog. We test this model using original panel survey data collected during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Findings show that both types of persuasion experiences can indirectly lead to dialogic openness, by stimulating online cross-cutting discussion. However, the mediated pathway for those targeted for online persuasion is only significant in online environments with low levels of attitude-challenging information.

Scholars have often used generational changes in citizenship norms to theorize new forms of youth political expression on social media. Public opinion data has been employed to demonstrate that young people’s perceptions of what it means to be a “good citizen” (i.e., injunctive citizenship norms) have shifted toward models of citizenship that value self-expression. Yet several fundamental assumptions of this dominant image of the young “expressive citizen” remain untested. Using data from a national survey of young Americans (ages 18–24) collected during the 2018 US midterm election, the present study examines: a) if youth indeed view expression as a relatively important part of being a good citizen; and b) if injunctive norms concerning political expression are positively associated with engagement in political expression on social media. Findings indicate that injunctive expressive norms are distinct, but rated as the least important of all injunctive norms. Further, injunctive expressive norms were only modestly associated with social media political expression and difficult to empirically distinguish from what respondents viewed as personally important (i.e., personal expressive norms). While these findings challenge the way past research has theorized and measured the normative role of political expression among young people,