Selective exposure to online news :|a qualitative study of young internet users in Istanbul

Abstract

Increased autonomy of individuals to select content in online media has raised serious scholar concerns. It is argued that individuals now could abandon po-litical news for more entertainment exposure; or they could avoid content countering their ideas, and tend to view more of like-minded messages. While a majority of studies testing such hypothesis have been conducted on Ameri-can society, the literature on Turkey lacks studies that reveal audiences’ moti-vations in media use, particularly their responses to high polarization. This study focuses on urban and young (18-30 aged Internet users’ per-ception of media and news and their media use habits. The research is based on sixteen semi-structured interviews conducted with young Internet users in Istanbul. The sample included both pro-governmental (Justice and Develop-ment Party or Nationalist Movement Party voters and oppositional partici-pants (Republican People’s Party, Good Party or Peoples’ Democratic Party supporters as well as a generational stratification along Z Generation (18-24 aged and Y Generation members (25-30 aged. The findings are analyzed in the light of both socio-psychological theories on information exposure and more contemporary debates on polarization, post-truth and generational trends in media use. This research demonstrates that instead of living in echo chambers where they increasingly interact with only like-minded messages, individuals can also grow an awareness towards polarization and partisanship in media, and mechanisms to cope with disinformation.