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CRXXXX10.1177/0093650217749354Communication ResearchShehata and Strömbäck

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Communication Research
2021, Vol. 48(1) 125­–147
Learning Political News From © The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/0093650217749354
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News Learning in a High-

Choice Media Environment

Adam Shehata1 and Jesper Strömbäck1

Abstract
With the migration from traditional news media to social media, understanding
how citizens learn about politics and current affairs from these sources has become
increasingly important. Based on the concept of network media logic, distinct from
traditional mass media logic, this study investigates whether using social media as a
source of political news compensates for not using traditional news media in terms
of political and current affairs learning. Using two panel studies conducted in two
different political contexts—an election setting and a nonelection setting—the
results show positive learning effects from using traditional news media and online
news websites, but not from using social media. Taken together, the findings suggest
that using social media to follow news about politics and current affairs does not
compensate for not using traditional news media in terms of learning a diverse and
broad set of general political news.

Keywords
political knowledge, political learning, social media, news media use, knowledge gaps

A significant trend during the last few years is the rise of social media as a source of
political information. Across developed countries, audiences for traditional media are
declining, whereas social media have established themselves as alternative ways for

1University of Gothenburg, Sweden

Corresponding Author:
Jesper Strömbäck, Department of Journalism, Media and Communication, University of Gothenburg,
Box 710, 405 30 Gothenburg, Sweden.
Email: jesper.stromback@jmg.gu.se
126 Communication Research 48(1)

citizens to encounter and engage with the news (Newman, Fletcher, Kalogeropoulos,
Levy, & Nielsen, 2017).
From a democratic perspective, a key question is how this will influence how and
what citizens learn about politics and current affairs. On the one hand, some argue that
the online environment “presents a potential solution to the knowledge gap” (Bode,
2016, p. 28), as it lowers barriers for accessing political news, and as the popularity of
social media may compensate for shrinking use of traditional news media (Valeriani &
Vaccari, 2016). Political news exposure and learning may, thereby, occur as a by-
product of using social media for other purposes (Yoo & Gil de Zúñiga, 2014). The
basic idea is that news from traditional news media somehow “trickle-down” to users
of social media. If this is the case, even those lacking strong interest in politics might
learn about political news and current affairs—and the decline in traditional news
media use, as well as the suggested polarization between “news-seekers” and “news-
avoiders” (Blekesaune, Elvestad, & Aalberg, 2012; Ksiazek, Malthouse, & Webster,
2010; Strömbäck, Djerf-Pierre, & Shehata, 2013), may have limited democratic
implications.
On the other hand, others argue that increasing media choice will result in personal
motivations becoming more important for explaining what media and media content
people are exposed to (Prior, 2007; Strömbäck et al., 2013). This suggests that political
news on social media may come mainly to those already politically interested, who
have networks of friends and peers who are also interested in politics and who are
more avid users of traditional news media (Wolfsfeld, Yarchi, & Samuel-Azran, 2016).
The personalized and networked character of digital and social media may also lead to
more fragmented news flows, where users primarily encounter information about top-
ics of special interest to them and their online networks (Klinger & Svensson, 2015;
Sunstein, 2007), rather than general news (Bode, 2016; Bright, 2016; Kim, Chen & Gil
de Züñiga, 2013).
Thus far, there is, however, limited research on the political learning effects of
using social media as a source of news about politics and current affairs, and whether
such usage compensates for not using traditional news media (Gottfried, Hardy,
Holbert, Winneg, & Jamieson, 2017; Yoo & Gil de Zúñiga, 2014). By drawing upon
the concept of a network media logic, distinct from traditional news media logic
(Klinger & Svensson, 2015), this study aims at filling this gap by analyzing political
and current affairs learning from both traditional and social media. More specifically,
the purpose of this study is to investigate (a) the extent to which citizens learn political
and current affairs news covered by traditional news media from using social media as
a source of political news, (b) whether political and current affairs learning from social
media is conditioned by citizens’ political interest and general political knowledge,
and (c) whether social media compensate or complement traditional news media as a
source of political and current affairs news among citizens.
Empirically, our analyses build upon two panel surveys conducted in Sweden dur-
ing both election and nonelection periods. Both studies include large batteries of sur-
vey items tapping citizens’ acquisition of political and current affairs news that
happened between panel waves, and that were covered by the news media, thereby
Shehata and Strömbäck 127

enabling extensive analyses of political news learning over time. Also, by using two
panel surveys conducted in two different contexts, we are able to assess the sensitivity
of our findings.

Learning Political and Current Affairs News

How citizens learn about politics and current affairs, and the extent to which media aid
people in becoming informed, has been singled out as “the central question” (Holbert,
2005) within political communication research—as well as one of the key challenges
following the transition from low- to high-choice media environments (Van Aelst
et al., 2017). In this article, we argue that changing media environments, in general,
and the migration from traditional media to social media as a source of news, in par-
ticular, significantly change how citizens learn about political and current affairs news.
This argument is based on the idea of distinct media logics governing traditional mass
media and social media (Klinger & Svensson, 2015; van Dijck & Poell, 2013), and the
specific media content distribution and consumption patterns following from these
logics (Shehata, Ekström, & Olsson, 2016; Webster, 2010). Below, we outline the
theoretical rationale behind our expectations, departing from research on learning
from traditional news media, followed by a discussion of the implications of a distinct
network media logic for learning political and current affairs news from social media.

Learning Political News From Traditional Media

Extensive research has shown that citizens learn about politics and current affairs from
traditional media such as newspapers and television news (Aalberg & Curran, 2012;
Chaffee & Kanihan, 1997; Delli Carpini & Keeter, 1996; Jerit, Barabas, & Bolsen,
2006; Prior, 2007; Strömbäck, 2017). Even though differences typically are found
between traditional media platforms in terms of predicting political knowledge,
research suggests that learning depends on two sets of factors: (a) on the supply side,
the content provided by traditional news media, and (b) on the demand side, the extent
to which citizens expose themselves to, and pay attention to, political news in these
media. Put simply, learning is particularly likely to occur when the opportunities to
access political and current affairs news in traditional news media are extensive, these
media provide plenty of news on politics and current affairs, and citizens’ motivations
to pay attention to such content are strong (Delli Carpini & Keeter, 1996; Elenbaas,
Boomgaarden, Schuck, & de Vreese, 2013; Jerit et al., 2006; Prior, 2007). Even though
attention is a vital predictor of learning (Chaffee & Schleuder, 1986; Eveland,
Hutchens, & Shen, 2009), studies have also found evidence of inadvertent learning
(Prior, 2007; Shehata, Hopmann, Nord, & Höijer, 2015).
Learning political news from traditional news media is a process characterized by
a certain set of practices involving content production, distribution, and consumption.
When citizens turn to traditional news media, they are offered content that has been
selected, produced, and distributed by professional news organizations. These rely on
a highly similar set of journalistic news values, norms, routines, and practices that
128 Communication Research 48(1)

govern story selection and presentation (Cook, 2005; Strömbäck & Esser, 2014).
Content wise, these media typically offer a rather diverse mix of political and current
affairs news, covering a broad range of issues, that provide a general overview of what
is going on in politics and society (Bennett, 2008; Shehata et al., 2015). From a con-
sumer perspective, this means that using traditional news media is largely a “one-way,
top-down, sender-driven, time specific activity” through which news consumers
“receive only the information provided by news organizations [and] have little choice
over content” (Weeks & Holbert, 2013, p. 214). A straightforward expectation follow-
ing from this review is that those who follow political news in traditional news media
will learn about politics and current affairs news. Therefore, we pose the following
baseline hypothesis:

Hypothesis 1 (H1): Following news about politics and current affairs in traditional
news media has a positive effect on political and current affairs learning.

Learning Political News From Social Media

The fact that digital and social media have become increasingly important as sources
of news has led to a growing interest in how such news encounters occur, as well as in
their potential effects. In contrast to research on the effects of social media use on
political participation (Boulianne, 2016; Gil de Zúñiga, 2015), and for engaging with
the news (Gil de Zúñiga, Jung, & Valenzuela, 2012; Glynn, Huge, & Hoffman, 2012),
there is only a limited number of studies on the effects of social media use on political
knowledge or learning. The few studies that exist employ different designs and mea-
sures—and results point in different directions (Bode, 2016; Boulianne, 2016;
Dimitrova, Shehata, Strömbäck, & Nord, 2014; Gottfried et al., 2017; Wolfsfeld et al.,
2016). Most important, these studies differ in terms of whether they measure political
knowledge or political and current affairs learning.
Our focus is whether using social media as a source of political news compensates
for not using traditional news media in terms of learning about political and current
affairs news. Whether this occurs depends on understanding how the “network media
logic” (Klinger & Svensson, 2015; van Dijck & Poell, 2013) that dominates social
media differs from the logic of traditional news media. These divergent logics have
important implications for how citizens learn about political and current affairs news
from these media—with consequences more complex than suggested by common
assumptions about incidental learning from social media. The network media logic
that characterizes social media shapes practices of content production, distribution,
and consumption in ways that differ from the traditional news media (Klinger &
Svensson, 2015; see also Webster, 2010). As a result, using social media as a source of
political news is a very different experience from using traditional news media.
First, citizens turning to social media to get news are not restricted to content pro-
vided by traditional news media or professional journalists. Although evidence sug-
gests that most news shared on social media emanate from traditional news media,
with a sizable proportion focusing on politics and current affairs (Larsson, 2016;
Shehata and Strömbäck 129

Newman, 2011; Wadbring & Ödmark, 2014), on social media, there are also numerous
alternative news and content providers. Social media also allow for an extensive
amount of user-generated content.
Second, rather than being served a set of news selected by a professional news
organization, content on social media is distributed on the basis of recommendation
systems and endorsements from peers (Messing & Westwood, 2014; Webster, 2010).
As noted by Klinger and Svensson (2015), “on social media platforms popularity
among like-minded users, not professional gatekeepers, decides whether information
is relevant and passed on” (p. 1249). From a news consumer’s perspective, the oppor-
tunities to engage with news are also more diverse and flexible. Instead of consuming
only the information provided by a news organization in a one-way, sender-driven
manner, engaging with news on social media includes getting stories directly from a
variety of news providers or individual journalists, receiving recommendations from
one’s social network, as well as sharing and discussing news (Turcotte, York, Irving,
Scholl, & Pingree, 2015; Weeks & Holbert, 2013).
Third, citizens who use social media as a source of news are likely to be exposed to
more personalized news flows than users of traditional news media. Because tradi-
tional news media largely function as an institution, sharing the same basic news val-
ues and news media logic (Cook, 2005; Strömbäck & Esser, 2014), users of these
media are exposed to a highly similar set of stories. Users of social media are instead
exposed to news based on their own preferences, filtered by algorithms, and their
online networks. As a result, people who follow news about politics and current affairs
through social media are less likely to be exposed to the same set of general news
stories. Rather than being exposed to a diversity of general news selected by profes-
sional news media, social media users are nested in personalized, issue-specific, and
network-dependent streams of news. Consequently, research suggests a gap between
the topics of traditional news media agendas on the one hand, and those shared on
social media on the other (Bright, 2016; Maier, 2010).
Taken together, this means that people are less likely to learn general news about
politics and current affairs from using social media than from using traditional news
media. The network media logic is simply less likely to facilitate learning of the broad
and diverse set of political news provided by traditional news media outlets. Based on
this, our second hypothesis is as follows:

Hypothesis 2 (H2): In general, following news about politics and current affairs on
social media has a nonpositive effect on political and current affairs learning.

The absence of general positive effects does not preclude that there might be differ-
ences among groups of users, depending on their political interest and general political
knowledge. In fact, based on the network media logic, there are at least two reasons to
assume that political interest (personal motivation) and general political knowledge
(cognitive abilities) are key moderators of learning from social media. First, users of
social media are exposed to more personalized, network- and algorithm-filtered
streams of news than users of traditional news media (Weeks & Holbert, 2013).
130 Communication Research 48(1)

Thereby, citizens with a stronger political interest, as well as a larger stock of accumu-
lated knowledge about politics, are likely to be exposed to more political news than
those lacking such political motivations and resources (Messing & Westwood, 2015).
Second, social media users are exposed to an ever-shifting stream of news, requiring
active choices with respect to what links to click on, and what news to read more
about. In this context, those who are politically interested and knowledgeable can be
expected to be more prone to click on links leading them to the original news stories.
Based on this, we expect political interest and general political knowledge to moderate
the relationship between using social media as a source of political news and political
learning:

Hypothesis 3 (H3): The political learning effect of following political news through
social media is positive only among citizens with strong interest in politics.
Hypothesis 4 (H4): The political learning effect of following political news
through social media is positive only among citizens with higher general political
knowledge.

Although this suggests that using social media to follow news about politics and cur-
rent affairs does not compensate for not using traditional news media, any assessment
of this would be incomplete without knowing the user profile of different media. In
essence, whether social media have compensatory or complementary effects depends
on who the users of these platforms are and, most important, whether they also use
traditional news media. Following research distinguishing between compensation/dis-
placement and complementary uses of online media (Dutta-Bergman, 2004;
Mitchelstein & Boczkowski, 2010), we, therefore, pose a research question regarding
the use of traditional and social media to follow news about political and current
affairs news.

Research Question 1: How do those who use traditional news media and social
media as sources of political and current affairs news differ in terms of (a) political
interest, (b) general political knowledge, and (c) other forms of news media use?

Case Selection, Data, and Method

To test the hypotheses and answer the research question above, we will use two differ-
ent panel surveys conducted in Sweden. Having access to two panel studies, identical
in terms of sampling procedure and survey instruments, conducted in two different
contexts, is unique and provides valuable opportunities to assess the sensitivity of our
findings across political settings. In the present case, these contexts represent an elec-
tion campaign setting and a nonelection setting.
Both studies were conducted in Sweden, a prototypical example of the Democratic
Corporatist Model of media systems (Hallin & Mancini, 2004). In terms of news
media use, the Swedish media system is characterized by high newspaper circulation
as well as a strong position of public service broadcasting institutions (Aalberg &
Shehata and Strömbäck 131

Curran, 2012; Strömbäck & Nord, 2008). In terms of television market shares, the two
public service television channels (SVT1 and SVT2) and commercial TV4 are the
most popular channels, and they all provide regular newscasts on primetime. Thereby,
they reach broad segments of the population with a daily flow of political and current
affairs news. Although traditional news media remain important sources of news,
Sweden has, however, experienced the same trend of declining use of traditional news
media as other Western democracies have (Blekesaune et al., 2012). At the same time,
social media have become increasingly important sources of news (Bergström, 2016).
Studies indicate, however, that most of the news that is shared on social media ema-
nates from traditional news media, and that a substantial share of that focuses on poli-
tics and current affairs (Larsson, 2016; Newman, 2011). These circumstances provide
a good opportunity to test whether using social media compensates for not using tradi-
tional news media in terms of political learning.

The Panel Surveys

Henceforth, we refer to the two panel surveys used in this study as the election study
and the nonelection study. The election study was conducted in 2014, whereas the
nonelection study was conducted from 2014 to 2016. The samples for both panel
surveys were drawn using stratified probability sampling from a database of approxi-
mately 35,000 citizens from Novus’s pool of web survey participants. The partici-
pants included in this pool are recruited continuously using random digit dialing. No
self-selection is allowed during the recruitment process. Approximately 7.8% of
those who are initially contacted and invited agree to be part of this pool of respon-
dents. The pool is largely representative for the population in terms of sociodemo-
graphic characteristics. For the election study, a sample of 6,897 respondents was
invited to take part in the first wave of the study. Only those who completed the first
wave of the survey (52%) were invited to take part in the following three waves. The
first wave was conducted six weeks prior to the European parliamentary elections
(April 11-22); Wave 2, immediately after the election (May 26-June 4); Wave 3, six
weeks before the national election (August 1-13); and Wave 4, immediately follow-
ing the national election (September 15-24). In total, 2,281 respondents participated
in all four waves, yielding a total cooperation rate of 33% (Cooperation Rate 2,
American Association for Public Opinion Research) and a cumulative response rate
of 3.9% (Callegaro & DiSogra, 2008). For the nonelection study, a new sample of
7,652 respondents was similarly invited to take part in the first wave of the study in
November 2014 (November 13-25). The second wave was conducted one year later
(November 12-24, 2015), and the third and final wave two years after the first wave
(November 10-22, 2016). Those who completed the survey (51%) in the first wave
were invited to participate in subsequent waves. In all, 2,254 respondents participated
in all three waves, yielding a total cooperation rate of 29% and a cumulative response
rate of 2.3%. With respect to both panel surveys, the final samples are largely repre-
sentative in terms of key sociodemographic characteristics such as age, gender, and
education.1
132 Communication Research 48(1)

Measures
Our main dependent variable is political learning, defined as the extent to which
people learn new information about politics and current affairs from news covered by
traditional news media. It was measured in the same way in both panel surveys. More
specifically, in both panel surveys, respondents were asked knowledge questions
about issues and events that took place and were reported by major news media
between panel waves. By asking about news that happened between panel waves, our
measure of learning focuses on whether citizens pick up new information that was not
available at the time of the previous panel wave (Price & Zaller, 1993; Shehata et al.,
2015; Strömbäck, 2017). In the election study, a total of 17 knowledge questions were
asked in Waves 2, 3, and 4, focusing on issue positions and policy proposals pre-
sented by the parties, domestic real-world events and developments, as well as inter-
national events (Kuder–Richardson = 0.80). In the nonelection study, a total of 14
similar knowledge questions were asked in the second and third panel wave, focusing
on a mix of domestic and international political and current affairs news stories that
were covered by the traditional media (Kuder–Richardson = 0.62). In all cases, five
response categories, including “don’t know,” were given for each question in order to
minimize the chance of guessing the correct answer. In addition, a time limit of 20
seconds for answering each question was used to avoid web searches for the correct
answers. Correct answers to each item were assigned the value 1, whereas incorrect
and don’t know responses were coded 0.2 These items were then added to form indi-
ces of political news learning, ranging from 0 to 17 in the election study (M = 7.36,
SD = 3.02), and from 0 to 14 in the nonelection study (M = 6.69, SD = 2.59). A
description of the knowledge questions and response alternatives can be found in the
Online Appendix, Tables A1 and A2.
The main independent variable is political media use. This concept was measured
identically in the panel surveys by asking “How often do you follow news about poli-
tics by . . . ,” where respondents indicated their frequency of use of different media
separately: (a) watching television news, (b) reading print newspapers, (c) listening to
radio news, (d) visiting online news websites, and (e) using social media such as
Facebook and Twitter. The response categories ranged from 1 (daily), 2 (5-6 days a
week), 3 (3-4 days a week), 4 (1-2 days a week), 5 (more seldom), to 6 (never). The
scales were inverted and rescaled to range between 0 (never) to 1 (daily) to enable an
assessment of maximum effects in the regression models.
Apart from learning and media use, political interest and general political knowl-
edge serve as key moderator variables in this study. The election study measured polit-
ical interest using three items, asking respondents about their interest in (a) politics in
general, (b) the upcoming national election, and (c) the upcoming election to the
European parliament—with response categories ranging from 1 (not at all interested)
to 4 (very interested). The items were added and rescaled to range between 0 and 1
(Cronbach’s α = .87). The nonelection study measured political interest using one of
these items (general interest in politics). General political knowledge was measured
based on a battery of knowledge questions asked in the first panel wave. The election
Shehata and Strömbäck 133

study used 10 such items, whereas the nonelection study relied on a five-item subset
of this battery (see Online Appendix Tables A3 and A4). In addition, the regression
models also control for gender, age, income, and education.

Data Analysis
Statistically, a combination of techniques will be used to analyze how various forms of
political media use influence political learning. First, we will present descriptive data
on the frequency of use of different media. Second, we will present a series of ordinary
least squares (OLS) regression models intended to estimate the impact of political
media use on learning, while controlling for important motivation and resource vari-
ables such as political interest and general political knowledge, as well as key sociode-
mographic characteristics. Importantly, the time component of our panel data is
utilized by having all independent variables measured in the first wave, whereas the
dependent variable (learning) is constructed based on measures from the subsequent
waves—controlling for prior levels of general political knowledge. Third, to test H3
and H4 regarding the moderation effect of political interest and general knowledge,
interaction terms between these variables and social media use are included in the
regression models.

Results
Starting with a general descriptive picture based on the election study and nonelection
study, Figure 1 shows how frequently different media are used to follow news about
politics—based on data from the first wave of each panel survey. In terms of the most
important media, television comes out on top in both studies, with a slight majority
saying they use this source at least 5 days a week. Then follow news websites, print
newspapers, and radio. Social media are the least frequently used media to follow
news about politics, both in terms of how often they are used and in terms of the share
that “seldom or never” use this source for getting political news. It is worth noting that
the general picture is very similar across the two studies.
In addition, Figure 2 displays how the frequency of using different media
changes over time, from 2014 to 2016, based on data from respondents who partici-
pated in all three waves of the nonelection study. Despite the relative short time
span, substantial changes take place reflecting the rapid transformations of the
media environment. Two things are particularly worth noting. First, although social
media such as Facebook were already widely used in 2014, the increase in “fre-
quent” use of social media as a source of political news—from 22% to 32% between
2014 and 2016—is remarkable. Second, among traditional news media, only print
newspapers are losing ground among the public. Television remains the most
important source of political news, even showing signs of a slight increase. Thus,
although social media are rapidly gaining ground as a source of political news
among citizens, this does not seem to be at the expense of traditional news media
such as television and radio.
134 Communication Research 48(1)

Figure 1. Frequency of use of different media to follow news about politics (%).
Note. Numbers represent the frequency of use of various news media, based on the first waves of the
election study (weighted data, N = 3,557) and the nonelection study (weighted data, N = 3,861).

Learning Political News From Traditional and Social Media

In Figure 3, the bivariate effects of political media use on learning are plotted, based
on separate OLS models. This is done separately for the election study (upper graph)
and the nonelection study (lower graph). A number of things are worth noting. First,
most forms of political media use are positively related to political learning. The
exception is social media, which has a significant negative effect in the election study
and a nonsignificant effect in the nonelection study. This is somewhat remarkable
given the explicit focus on following “political news” captured by these measures.
Thus, there is no evidence that citizens who use social media to follow political news
learn about stories that are covered by traditional news media. On the contrary, the
evidence points in the opposite direction. Second, it appears that television news has
Shehata and Strömbäck 135

Figure 2. Frequency of use of different media to follow news about politics (%).
Note. Share of respondents reporting to use each media as a source of news at least 5 days a week,
based on respondents from the nonelection study who participated in all three waves of the panel
(N = 2,254).

the strongest bivariate effect on learning compared with other media. Citizens using
television news daily during the election campaign score approximately three points
higher on the learning scale than those never using television for this purpose (b =
3.11, p < .001). The corresponding effect is 2.3 correct responses for print newspapers
(b = 2.31, p < .001), 2.2 for radio news (b = 2.16, p < .001), and 1.7 for news websites
(b = 1.74, p < .001). Daily users of social media for political news purposes, however,
score 0.5 points lower on the learning scale than the nonusers (b = −0.53, p < .01).
Third, although there are some minor differences between the election study and the
nonelection study, the overall pattern is very similar in terms of what media are most
important for learning.
Table 1 provides a substantially stronger test of our hypotheses by controlling for a
number of background, resource, and motivation variables that previous research has
shown to be related to both political learning and news media use. The main message
is that the pattern found in Figure 3 holds even when motivation, resource, and back-
ground characteristics are accounted for. Model 1 displays the effects of traditional
political news media use on political learning, controlling for political interest and
general political knowledge. In the election campaign setting, television news (b =
1.11, p < .001), print newspapers (b = 0.54, p < .001), and radio news (b = 0.62, p <
.001) each has independent effects on learning, above and beyond respondents’ inter-
est in, and knowledge about, politics at the beginning of the campaign. These effects
are, however, substantially smaller than in the bivariate analyses. Model 2 focuses on
digital media and displays clear differential effects of using news websites compared
with using social media to follow news about politics. Whereas news websites exert a
positive impact (b = 0.78, p < .001), social media are again negatively related to
136 Communication Research 48(1)

Figure 3. Bivariate effects of political news media use on learning (unstandardized b values).
Note. Unstandardized b coefficients from a series of bivariate regressions based on the election study
(N = 2,281) as well as the nonelection study (N = 2,254).

learning (b = −0.49, p < .001). Model 3 includes all five forms of political media use,
which changes the results very little compared with the previous analyses.3
To assess the sensitivity of these findings, the final three columns replicate Model
1, 2, and 3 using the nonelection study. Overall, the findings are very similar in terms
of the direction and significance of news media effects, although there are a few dif-
ferences. For instance, watching television news (b = 0.66, p < .01) does not stand out
as the single most important media variable when it comes to learning. Instead, using
news websites (b = 0.79, p < .001) has a stronger effect on learning. With respect to
social media, the results again show that such usage has a negative impact on political
learning (b = −0.30, p < .05).4
It may, however, be the case that the weak general effects of political social
media use documented above conceal significant learning effects among specific
groups of citizens, that is, that such learning depends on levels of political interest
(H3) and general political knowledge (H4) among users. To test this, we included
interaction terms between political social media use and political interest, on the
one hand, and between political social media use and general political knowledge,
on the other. The full results can be seen in Online Appendix Table A5, and they
 Table 1. Effects of Political News Media Use on Political Learning (OLS).

Election study Nonelection study

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 1 Model 2 Model 3

Political news attention
Television news 1.11*** (0.19) — 1.06*** (0.19) 0.75*** (0.18) — 0.66*** (0.18)
Printed newspapers 0.54*** (0.15) — 0.60*** (0.15) 0.45*** (0.15) — 0.51** (0.15)
Radio 0.62*** (0.15) — 0.59*** (0.15) 0.25*** (0.15) — 0.25 (0.15)
News websites — 0.78*** (0.16) 0.77*** (0.15) — 0.80*** (0.16) 0.79*** (0.16)
Social media — −0.49*** (0.16) −0.48** (0.16) — −0.27 (0.15) −0.30* (0.15)
Resources and motivation
Political interest 2.66*** (0.23) 3.03*** (0.23) 2.58*** (0.23) 2.58*** (0.19) 2.63*** (0.19) 2.39*** (0.20)
General knowledge 0.44*** (0.03) 0.45*** (0.03) 0.43*** (0.03) 0.71*** (0.04) 0.72*** (0.04) 0.71*** (0.04)
Background variables
Gender 1.35*** (0.11) 1.20*** (0.11) 1.25*** (0.11) 1.20*** (0.11) 1.08*** (0.11) 1.12*** (0.11)
Age 0.01 (0.00) 0.02*** (0.00) 0.01 (0.00) 0.00 (0.00) 0.02*** (0.00) 0.00 (0.00)
Income −0.01 (0.04) −0.00 (0.04) −0.03 (0.04) 0.07 (0.04) 0.07 (0.04) 0.05 (0.04)
Medium-level education 0.12 (0.19) 0.16 (0.20) 0.10 (0.19) .14 (0.19) 0.12 (0.19) 0.13 (0.19)
High-level education 0.50* (0.20) 0.54** (0.20) 0.47* (0.20) 0.49* (0.20) 0.48* (0.20) 0.47* (0.20)
Intercept −0.01 (0.29) −0.06 (0.30) −0.02 (0.30) 1.23*** (0.28) 1.05*** (0.30) 1.07*** (0.30)
Adjusted R2 .42 .40 .42 .38 .38 .39
n 2,160 2,160 2,160 2,140 2,140 2,140

Note. Unstandardized regression coefficients with standard errors in parentheses. OLS = ordinary least squares.
*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

137
138 Communication Research 48(1)

Figure 4. The marginal effect of following political news on social media on learning.
Note. The graphs illustrate how the effect of political news media use varies along different values of
political interest and general political knowledge.

show that none of these interaction terms is statistically significant. This is illus-
trated by Figure 4, displaying the results of these models by presenting how the
marginal effect of political social media use on learning (y axis) changes as politi-
cal interest and general political knowledge increase (x axis). Across the board,
political social media use has no effect on learning—irrespective of how politi-
cally interested or knowledgeable citizens are. Thereby, we find no support for H3
and H4.

Complementary or Compensating Media Use?

Although the results suggest that social media do not compensate for not using
traditional media in terms of learning political and current affairs news, under-
standing the role of social media also depends on (a) who the users of these news
sources are and (b) whether they use social media as a primary or a complementary
source of political news. To address this, Figure 5 shows how citizens who fre-
quently use social media as a source of political news differ with respect to other
forms of news media use, political interest, and general political knowledge, com-
pared with both the “average citizen” and those who never use social media to fol-
low political news.
Shehata and Strömbäck 139

Figure 5. Use of other news media, political interest, and general political knowledge among
respondents who “frequently” and “never” use social media to follow news about politics (%).
Note. The share of respondents who are (a) frequent users of different news sources, that is, at least
5 days a week; (b) report being very interested in politics; and (c) score high in the general political
knowledge index, among nonusers and frequent users of social media. Estimates based on the first waves
of the election study (weighted data, N = 3,557) and the nonelection study (weighted data, N = 3,861).

As can be seen, the pattern across both the election and nonelection setting is very
similar. More specifically, the results show that frequent social media news users are
(a) less frequent users of all traditional news media, including television news (elec-
tion study, ES: Pearson’s r = −.11, p < .001; nonelection study, NES: r = −.14, p <
.001), print newspapers (ES: r = −.18, p < .001; NES: r = −.15, p < .001), and radio
news (ES: r = −.09, p < .001; NES: r = −.04, p < .01), but (b) more frequent users of
online news websites (ES: r = .33, p < .001; NES: r = .34, p < .001). In addition, they
also show that frequent social media users are (c) generally more interested in politics
(ES: r = .15, p < .001; NES: r = .16, p < .001), and that there are (d) no differences with
regard to general political knowledge (ES: r = −.01, p > .05; NES: r = .04, p > .05).
Although this shows that citizens who frequently get political news from social
media tend to use traditional news media to a lesser extent, they are not avoiding
140 Communication Research 48(1)

traditional news media. They are also more likely to get news from online websites
than other citizens: Approximately 70% of the frequent social media news users also
get news from news websites at least 5 days a week. The fact that they are also more
politically interested than the average citizen suggests that social media are best
­characterized as a complementary news source among politically interested citizens
who get news in multiple ways, through traditional, but primarily online outlets.
Although displacement effects are present, generally speaking this suggests that using
social media to get news about politics and current affairs does not displace as much
as complement traditional news media in terms of usage.5

Conclusion and Discussion

A well-functioning democracy is dependent on people being at least reasonably
informed about politics and current affairs (Dahl, 1998; Delli Carpini & Keeter, 1996).
Historically, one key democratic function of traditional news media has, thus, been to
provide citizens with a broad set of political and current affairs news, keeping them
informed about what is going on in politics and society. By following traditional news
media, citizens have encountered and learned about a variety of issues (Delli Carpini
& Keeter, 1996; Jerit et al., 2006), oftentimes as a result of inadvertent exposure to
news (Aalberg & Curran, 2012; Prior, 2007).
As traditional news media use continues to decline, while digital and social media
are becoming more important as sources of news about politics and current affairs, a
key question is whether using social media compensates for not using traditional news
media in terms of political learning. The results of this study suggest, however, that
this is not the case. Although following political news in traditional news media con-
sistently has positive effects on political and current affairs learning (H1), there is no
evidence that following political news using social media contributes to this type of
learning (H2), regardless of how politically interested (H3), or knowledgeable (H4),
citizens are. However, the findings also show that using social media to follow politi-
cal news does not displace as much as complement using traditional news media.
Although frequent social media users are less frequent users of traditional news media,
suggesting some displacement effects, most still use traditional news media and they
are also more inclined to follow politics through news websites than people in general.
The fact that the results are consistent across two panel surveys, covering different
time periods and contexts, significantly strengthens our confidence in the findings.
These results are particularly noteworthy because our study focuses on the extent to
which following news about politics using different media influences political and cur-
rent affairs learning—not just general usage. Thus, if such politically specific and
motivated social media use has no positive effects on political learning, it is even less
likely that general social media usage will have such effects.
These findings have a number of important implications. First, on the one hand,
using social media to follow political news appears to be a rather unique experience in
terms of learning—distinct from political use of traditional news media, and online
news websites. Based on our findings, there is very little evidence that following
Shehata and Strömbäck 141

political news on social media compensates for not using traditional news media and
online websites when it comes to learning political and current affairs news covered
by traditional news media. Thus, an important implication is that in terms of learning
news about politics and current affairs, political social media use does not add much
value above other forms of political information seeking. These results support the
notion of a specific network media logic, distinct from traditional news media logic,
influencing practices of content production, distribution, and consumption (Klinger &
Svensson, 2015; Webster, 2010).
Second, and on the other hand, few citizens use social media as a source of political
news in complete isolation. Rather, most citizens combine such use with traditional
news media sources and—in particular—online news websites. Given the profile of
frequent social media news users, being more interested in politics than the population
at large, it may be fair to conclude that social media function mainly as a complemen-
tary source of political news among citizens with an intrinsic interest in politics. As
such, social media may also function as a gateway to online news websites through
peer recommendations and sharing practices (Hermida, Fletcher, Korell, & Logan,
2012; Nielsen & Schröder, 2014).
Third, the fact that political social media use has no effect on political learning,
regardless of citizens’ level of political interest and general knowledge, suggests that
the likelihood that social media users incidentally learn about a broad range of politi-
cal news emanating from traditional news media should not be exaggerated (Bode,
2016; Gil de Zúñiga, Weeks, & Ardèvol-Abreu, 2017; Kim et al., 2013; Valeriani &
Vaccari, 2016). This is not to say that inadvertent learning does not occur on social
media. Rather, social media appear to be a qualitatively different type of news source—
most likely promoting other forms of learning than traditional news media. Based on
network media logic, the logic of algorithms, and how personal motivations influence
what media content people expose themselves to, it is likely that using social media
promotes more personalized, issue-specific, and attitude-consistent learning rather
than general political and current affairs learning. It is also likely that such use pro-
motes learning of bigger and more dramatic political news, which due to their charac-
ter “breaks through the fog of disjointed news” (Zaller, 2003, p. 121).
Fourth, at first glance, our findings seem both in line and at odds with previous
research on the relationship between social media use and political knowledge. Although
some studies show no or limited effects on knowledge from using social media (Bode,
2016; Dimitrova et al., 2014; Gil de Zúñiga et al., 2017; Wolfsfeld et al., 2016), others
reveal positive effects (Boulianne, 2016; Gottfried et al., 2017). This highlights the
importance of distinguishing between measures of political knowledge, on the one hand,
and political and current affairs learning, on the other hand. The present study has thor-
oughly examined the latter, focusing on the extent to which citizens over time acquire the
political and current affairs news covered by major traditional news media. As argued in
the political knowledge literature, media effects may depend on what type of knowledge
is studied (Delli Carpini & Keeter, 1996; Elenbaas, de Vreese, Schuck, & Boomgaarden,
2014; Jerit et al., 2006)—and future research should be more sensitive to what type of
information people are likely to gain from various media sources.
142 Communication Research 48(1)

Having said this, the study is not without limitations. One is the single-country
design. Although using two different panel surveys conducted in different political
contexts, revealing the same pattern of results, strengthens our belief in the robustness
of the findings, it also is the case that patterns of news production, distribution, and
consumption differ across media systems and countries (Aalberg & Curran, 2012;
Hallin & Mancini, 2004; Shehata & Strömbäck, 2011). Another limitation is the lack
of hard data on how much the issues and events forming the basis of our learning mea-
sures were covered by traditional news media, and disseminated on social media. A
third limitation is the lack of a differentiation between social media, as it is not neces-
sarily the case that the learning effects are the same for Twitter and Facebook. Finally,
we should also note that the trend toward following political news on social media
calls for research on, and a better understanding of, how people define “political news”
on social media, and whether they think of it differently depending on whether we ask
about their use of political news in traditional news media versus social media.
Nevertheless, we believe this study represents the most comprehensive analysis
thus far on political and current affairs learning from using social media to follow
political news. Perhaps most importantly, it highlights the continued importance of
traditional news media in providing citizens with a general overview of what is going
on in politics and society and suggests that learning news from social media may be a
rather different experience. Future research should look more closely at what charac-
terize such learning, not least given the extensive amount of evidence that social media
use has positive effects on civic and political participation (Dimitrova et al., 2014; Gil
de Zúñiga et al., 2012; Valeriani & Vaccari, 2016).

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship,
and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship,
and/or publication of this article: This research is part of the research project “Changing Media
Environments, Changing Democracies,” supported by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson
Foundation.

Notes
1. As of 2014, the mean age in the population was 41.2 years; the gender distribution 50%
male and 50% female; whereas, 12% had finished grammar school, 46% high school, and
39% had college or university education. For 2%, the educational level is unknown. Among
those who participated in all waves in the election study, the mean age was 46.7 years; the
gender distribution 52% male and 48% female; whereas 7.9% had only finished gram-
mar school, 42.9% high school, and 49.2% college or university education. Among those
who participated in all waves in the nonelection study, the mean age was 48.5 years; the
gender distribution 51% male and 49% female; whereas 8.2% had only finished grammar
school, 42.7% high school, and 49.1% college or university education. In some analyses,
Shehata and Strömbäck 143

we will use weighted data. The weights are for gender, four age groups (18-29, 30-44,
45-59, 60-75), and county, using the official population statistics from Statistics Sweden.
When using all three weights, the data are weighted by gender per age group per county.
2. The use of “don’t know” options for knowledge items has been discussed in the litera-
ture. Whereas some argue that enabling such alternatives and equating them with incor-
rect responses leads to an underestimation of levels of political knowledge (Mondak &
Davis, 2001), others suggest that discouraging “don’t know” options has little substantive
effect: Even though the number of correct answers to close-ended knowledge questions
increases, the increase “consists mainly of lucky guesses” (Luskin & Bullock, 2011, p.
548). Following previous studies on surveillance/current affairs knowledge where ran-
domly assigning “don’t know” responses made little difference (Elenbaas, de Vreese,
Schuck, & Boomgaarden, 2014; Jerit, Barabas, & Bolsen, 2006), we, therefore, combined
“don’t know” and incorrect responses into one category (see also Soroka et al., 2013). To
assess the sensitivity of our findings, we also replicated our regression models using a dif-
ferent coding of our knowledge scales, which imposes a “guessing penalty” (correct = 1,
don’t know = 0, and incorrect = −1/4). The findings were substantively no different from
the main models presented in the article.
3. Because H2 ultimately predicted a “nonpositive” effect of social media use on learning, we
also tested this using a one-tailed test of the coefficient for social media use in Model 3 of
Table 1. A one-tailed test showed we could reject the null hypothesis that the coefficient is
equal to or larger than 0 (H0: b ≥ 0) with a p = .001.
4. For the nonelection study, a one-tailed test showed we could reject the null hypothesis that
the coefficient is equal to or larger than 0 (H0: b ≥ 0) with a p = .024.
5. Although important, compensatory or complementary usage is only one dimension of
the compensatory or complementary function that social media may have when it comes
to learning about politics and current affairs. We also analyzed whether there were any
compensatory or complementary effects of social media by including an interaction term
between traditional news media usage and political social media usage in a regression
model predicting learning. By doing so, we were able to assess whether social media may
have a different effect on learning depending on respondents’ usage of traditional news
media. No such effects were, however, found. Instead, the effects of social media were
nonsignificant across all values of traditional news media use.

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Author Biographies
Adam Shehata is an associate professor at the Department of Journalism, Media and
Communication, University of Gothenburg.
Jesper Strömbäck is a professor in journalism and political communication at the Department
of Journalism, Media and Communication, University of Gothenburg.