information, interest and indifference: structural and contingent reasons for engagement during a...

NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY

Information, interest and indifference:

Structural and contingent reasons for engagement during a presidential campaign

A DISSERTATION

SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL

IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS

for the degree

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Program in Media, Technology, and Society, School of Communication

By

Eugenia Mitchelstein

EVANSTON, ILLINOIS

December 2014

INFORMATION INTEREST INDIFFERENCE 2

Abstract

Information, interest and indifference:

Structural and contingent reasons for engagement during a presidential campaign

Eugenia Mitchelstein

Media technologies have often been presented either as panaceas to political troubles, or as

sources of inequality and incivility. This dissertation seeks to present a nuanced picture of the

linkages between social conditions, access to media and political engagement, based on a

comprehensive account of the complex relationship between the socio-political context, use of

media technologies, and information and participation.

This dissertation combines qualitative and quantitative methods during a year of data

collection in four different locations, to gain deeper understanding of the interplay between

contextual dynamics and demands and uses of information in various contexts. The findings

presented in this study serve to reflect on concepts such as the digital divide, monitorial

citizenship, the knowledge gap, and the spiral of silence. Regarding the digital divide, access to

and uses of media reproduce the social and educational inequalities that predate diffusion of

media and information technologies. Moreover, different types of access are linked with different

degrees of attention to news and participation, which challenges the notion that cell phones

might mitigate digital inequalities. Although monitorial citizenship theory predicts increased

attention to news during major political events, the evidence presented in this study indicates that

even presidential elections may not increase consumption of public-affairs information absent

other features, such as uncertainty about the winner and perceptions of political efficacy.

However, among those who do pay attention to the news, media consumers with fewer years of


formal instruction benefit slightly more in terms of political information than the more educated

respondents, which runs counter to the assumptions of the knowledge gap theory. Finally,

increased levels of political information are not always associated with increased engagement,

due to the belief that individual or collective actions cannot change the course of the campaign or

the overall political system. This leads to a spiral of real and figurative silence, as not only

political talk is reduced, but also participation. In sum, this dissertation sheds light on the

processes by which the public accesses information and acts or fails to act upon it, and provides

an explanation based on both individual and systemic conditions.


Acknowledgements

This dissertation reports findings from a multi-site, year-long research endeavor. Due to

its size and complexity, this endeavor would not have been possible without dedicated academic

mentorship. My advisor, Pablo J. Boczkowski, is one of the most inspiring figures I have ever

met, and I am thoroughly grateful for his dedication to my work. He encouraged me to do

research on a topic I am passionate about, provided invaluable guidance regarding theoretical

and methodological issues, and was a thoughtful and incisive reader during the various stages of

the dissertation writing process. He is a model to me, both as a scholar and as a teacher. My

thanks go also to Jamie Druckman, who reviewed my dissertation proposal, and offered

indispensable advice on both the theoretical framework and the research design of this

dissertation. Jim Webster has made insightful comments and recommendations on the proposal,

and encouraged me to think about audiences and citizens in novel ways. I am indebted to him as

well.

Northwestern University, and particularly the Ph.D. program in Media, Technology and

Society, were the perfect academic environment to conduct my work. I am indebted to Barbara

O´Keefe, Dean of the School of Communication, for fostering a vibrant academic community,

Jane Rankin and Sheri Carsello for their help with grant applications, and Madeleine Agaton,

JaTaune Bobsy, and Sharron Shepard for providing able administrative assistance. The

community of graduate students provided mutual support and encouragement: Ericka Menchen-

Trevino, Patrick Hsieh, Lindsay Fullerton, Brian Keegan, Lauren Scissors, Aditi Raghavan,

Jeffrey Treem, Julieta Suarez Cao, Diego Rossello, Miklos Gostonyi, Carlos Freytes, Luisina

Perelmiter, Jael Goldsmith and Salvador Vázquez-Mercado, with whom I shared intense


scholarly discussions and also a lot of fun. Martín Walter provided valuable technical advice and

Ignacio Siles was a thoughtful reader.

Other scholars have also read parts of my work and offered thoughtful advice: Katherine

Cramer-Walsh, Jim Ettema, Jeremy Freese, Sallie Hughes, Juan Pablo Luna, Miriam Metzger,

Peter Miller, S. Shyam Sundar, Jennifer Stromer-Galley, John Zaller; and my colleagues at

Universidad de San Andrés, Carolina Aguerre, Robert Barros, Roberto Bouzas, Mariana

Chudnovsky, Khatchik Der Ghougassian, Alberto Fohrig, Hernán Galperín, Marcelo Leiras,

Federico Merke, Lorena Moscovich, Silvia Ramírez Gelbes and Diego Reynoso, among others.

This dissertation profited hugely from comments received during seminars at

Northwestern University and Universidad de San Andrés. I also benefited from feedback during

talks at the annual meetings of the International Communication Association, the National

Communication Association, the Latin American Studies Association, Asociación

Lationamericana de Ciencia Política, and the Midwest Political Science Association.

This dissertation would not have been possible without substantive financial assistance.

The National Science Foundation Dissertation Improvement Grant and Northwestern University

funded the survey. I express my deepest gratitude to these sources of financial support.

I wholeheartedly thank the members of the public who agreed to share their thoughts and

experiences of media, political information and participation. I interviewed each of them in

coffees, convenience stores, offices, their own homes, and in one case, the waiting room of a

neonatal intensive care unit. This research would not have been possible without them. I would

also like to thank the Ozuna family, in Resistencia, who hosted me and showed me the ropes in

what was, until then, an unknown city to me. Finally, my late grandmother, Elsa Berli de Müller,


welcomed me in her home every time I visited Santa Fe to do fieldwork. I will never forget her

love, kindness and encouragement.

The studies reported in this dissertation benefited from the research assistance of Ailén

Anívole, Maylén Sandoval, Facundo Suenzo, and Celeste Wagner, who helped with coding and

transcribing interviews.

I am fortunate to have great friends who provided encouragement and a sense of humor

during the research and writing process: Sofía Facal, Sonia Jalfin, Carola Lavia, and Soledad

Simond always laughed at my fieldwork tales, which included missed buses and being lost in

remote locations. Leticia Barrera defended her dissertation when I was beginning to work on

mine and her advice on writing was always spot-on.

I would also like to thank my parents, Enrique and Elsita, who always believed in me and

encouraged me to do my best, and my older sisters, Andrea and Paula, who offered loving

support during the process. My younger sister Luisa, an economist, provided advice on statistics,

proofread parts of the manuscript, and even babysat for me so that I could write. Last, but never

least, I am forever grateful to my husband, Rubén Octavio Villán, who was a source of support

and comfort from the moment I began studying for the GRE exam until I wrote the final chapter

of my dissertation. I finished fieldwork when I was eight months pregnant with our daughter,

Matilda Elsi. She changed our lives in a million of ways, big and small, all delightful and

unexpected. This dissertation is dedicated to Rubén and Matilda.


Table of Contents

Abstract ...................................................................................................................................... 2

Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................................... 4

Chapter 1:

The Revolution will not be Webcast .......................................................................................... 11

Chapter 2:

The Analogical and Digital Divide:

Media Access and Attention to News in Argentina

Before and During a Presidential Election Campaign ................................................................ 33

Chapter 3:

Do Elections Help Reduce the Knowledge Gap?

Evidence from the Primaries and the General Election in Argentina .......................................... 66

Chapter 4:

Between the Spiral of Silence and the Spiral of Cynicism:

Unequal Distribution of Political Participation during the 2011 Campaign .............................. 107

Chapter 5:

Information, Participation and Citizenship............................................................................... 140

References .............................................................................................................................. 156

Endnotes ................................................................................................................................. 182


List of Figures

Figure 2.1

Home Access to the internet by district and socioeconomic status (April 2011) ......................... 60

Figure 2.2

Access to pay television by district and socioeconomic status (April 2011) ............................... 60

Figure 2.3

Home Access to the internet by district and socioeconomic status (October 2011) ..................... 61

Figure 2.4

Access to pay television by district and socioeconomic status (October 2011) ........................... 61

Figure 2.5:

Access to news by district and geographic location ................................................................... 62

Figure 3.1

Average number of correct responses to five political information questions, by location and

education level, in April 2011 (N=1600) ................................................................................... 88

Figure 3.2


education level, in October 2011 (N=1023) ............................................................................... 89

Figure 3.3

Average change in probabilities of answering correctly questions about political information by

level of education and news consumption the previous week, .................................................... 91

Figure 3.4


level of education and news consumption the previous week ..................................................... 93


Figure 3.5

Percentage of public affairs stories on the on the homepage of Clarín, Nación, TN, Litoral,

Diario Uno, Norte and Data Chaco November 10 2010 to December 3, 2011, by site and by

Month ....................................................................................................................................... 94

Figure 3.6

Percentage of public affairs stories on the on the most read list of Clarín, Nación, TN, Litoral,

Diario Uno and Data Chaco November 10 2010 to December 3, 2011, by site and by Month .... 95

Figure 3.7

Percentage of campaign stories on the on the homepage of Clarín, Nación, TN, Litoral, Diario

Uno, Norte and Data Chaco November 10 2010 to December 3, 2011, by site and by Month .... 96

Figure 3.8

Percentage of campaign stories on the on the most read list of Clarín, Nación, TN, Litoral, Diario

Uno, Norte and Data Chaco November 10 2010 to December 3, 2011, by site and by Month .... 97

Figure 3.9

Homepage of Clarín on October 24, 2011 ................................................................................. 99

Figure 3.10.

Top ten most viewed stories on Clarín on October 24, 2011 .................................................... 100

Figure 3.11.

Homepage of Clarín on August 15, 2011 ................................................................................. 101

Figure 3.12.

Top ten most viewed stories on Clarín on August 15, 2011 ..................................................... 102


Figure 3.13.

Top ten most viewed stories on Litoral on August 15, 2011..................................................... 103

Figure 3.14

Top ten most viewed stories on Litoral on October 24, 2011 ................................................... 104

Figure 3.15

Top ten most viewed stories on Data Chaco on August 15, 2011 ............................................. 105

Figure 3.16

Top ten most viewed stories on Data Chaco on October 24, 2011 ............................................ 106

Figure 4.1

Average number of political voice activities engaged in during the previous year .................... 130

Figure 4.2

Average number of civic participation activities engaged in .................................................... 133

Figure 4.3

Average number of political participation activities engaged in ............................................... 136


List of Tables

Table 2.1:

Logistical regressions of access to media, on age, sex (Base case =female), socioeconomic status

(base case =high SES), education level (base case =less than high school) and location (base case

=City of Buenos Aires) (reporting percentage change in odds) (* denotes statistical significance

at the <0.05 level) (robust) ........................................................................................................ 63

Table 2.2

Logistical regressions of having read a print newspaper, watched news on television or accessed

news online during the previous week, on age, sex (Base case =female), socioeconomic status

(base case =low SES), education level (base case =less than high school), and access to media

(reporting percentage change in odds) (* denotes statistical significance at the <0.05 level) in

April 2011 (robust).................................................................................................................... 64

Table 2.3



(base case =low SES), education level (base case =less than high school) (reporting percentage

change in odds) (* denotes statistical significance at the <0.05 level) in October 2011 .............. 65

Table 3.1

OLS regressions of “information” on age, sex (Base case =female), socioeconomic status (base

case =high SES), education level (base case =completed college), and news media consumption

(* denotes statistical significance at the <0.05 level) in April 2011 (robust) .......................... .....90

Table 3.2



case =high SES), education level (base case =completed college), Information in wave 1 and

news media consumption (* denotes statistical significance at the <0.05 level) in October 2011

(robust) ..................................................................................................................................... 92

Table 3.3:

Percentage change in odds of a story being about public affairs in general, or campaign-related in

particular, by site (base case: Clarín) and month (base case: January 2011), based on fixed effects

logit regression (* denotes statistical significance at the <0.05 level) ......................................... 98

Table 4.1

OLS regressions of “political expression” on age, sex (Base case =female), socioeconomic status

(base case =high SES), education level (base case =completed college), news media

consumption and level of political information (* denotes statistical significance at the <0.05

level) in April 2011 (robust) .................................................................................................... 131

Table 4.2



consumption, level of political information, expression activities in Wave 1, voting for the

incumbent, interest in the campaign (base case: no interest), trust in the media and in politicians,

and internal and external efficacy (* denotes statistical significance at the <0.05 level) in October

2011 (robust) ........................................................................................................................... 132

Table 4.3

OLS regressions of “civic participation” on age, sex (Base case =female), socioeconomic status





Table 4.4

OLS regressions of civic participation on age, sex (Base case =female), socioeconomic status


consumption, level of political information, civic participation in Wave 1, voting for the



2011 (robust) ........................................................................................................................... 135

Table 4.5

OLS regressions of “political participation” on age, sex (Base case =female), socioeconomic

status (base case =high SES), education level (base case =completed college), news media



Table 4.6






2011 (robust) ........................................................................................................................... 138


Table 4. 7

Correlation between different indices of participation, in wave 1 (April 2011) and 2 (October

2011) ...................................................................................................................................... 139


Chapter 1:

The Revolution will not be Webcast

INFORMATION INTEREST INDIFFERENCE 16 “Given that the Internet has become an indispensable tool for realizing a range of human

rights, combating inequality, and accelerating development and human progress, ensuring

universal access to the Internet should be a priority for all States.”1 This was one of the final

recommendations of the United Nations Report on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to

Freedom of Opinion and Expression, issued on May 2011. The UN is not alone in promoting

online access as a tool to promote development and democratization. Several authors propose

that media and information technologies would dramatically change democracies for the better,

due to increased levels of information, expression and participation.2

At the same time, other scholars propose that media in general and online technologies in

particular are detrimental to democratic development. Before the spread of the internet, some

authors warned about television reducing trust in the government and political institutions, and,

consequently, civic engagement.3 For instance, Putnam has argued that attention to television

leads to reduced social capital.4 After the spread of online technologies, Sunstein indicated that

the diffusion of the internet is connected to more polarized polities,5 and Prior has examined how

increased content choice may reduce interest in politics and, consequently, voter turnout.6 These

assessments coincide with Hindman’s rejection of the claims that the internet may be beneficial

for society: “beliefs that the Internet is democratizing politics are simply wrong”.7

At the time of the UN report, I was conducting the second round of interviews with

voters in four cities in Argentina with varying levels of connectivity and socio-economic

development for this book, to analyze in the interplay between media and information

technologies, access to information, and political engagement. As I interviewed respondents and

examined survey results, it became increasingly clear that factors such as economic resources


and level of local development, among others, influenced the possibility that people would gain

access to –and make effective use of- communication technologies. Moreover, the kind of access

that citizens have to media, as well as the social and political context, has an impact on the use

they make of them. Finally, people´s beliefs about their own competence and their trust in the

political system´s responsiveness also influenced the extent to which access to media served to

foster information acquisition and engagement.

The focus on revolutionary effects –either beneficial or detrimental- of media is not

unique to the internet,8 and, as Boczkowski notes, “it has played a valuable role in raising our

sensibility about the potentially radical consequences that online technologies...may have ... in

contemporary society.”9 However, it has also obscured the ways in which actors make use of the

technologies. Williams notes that scholarship that has examined the interplay between

technologies of media and communication and politics have often been organized in two broad

fields. The first one, technological determinism, proposes that “new technologies…set the

conditions for social change and progress”. The second one, symptomatic technology, proposes

that the uses of media “are symptomatic of some order of society or some qualities of human

nature which are otherwise determined. If television had not been invented, the argument runs,

we would still be manipulated or mindlessly entertained, but in some other way.”10 Williams

proposed instead to study the uses of media neither as if they had been determined by the

technology nor as if technology were marginal to them, but as part of historical processes that

both make technology possible and influence its outcomes.

Media and information technologies are embedded in, and shaped by the social context in

which they appear,11 and modified by users’ expectations and the activities they


undertake.12 Farrell has suggested that different features of the media may have different

consequences for political life and has called for examinations of how various aspects of the

internet may influence politics in various contexts.13 As Bennett and Iyengar indicate, the study

of political communication processes in times of flux (both in the transition to personally

mediated society, as in the earlier era of transition to mass media society) “requires us to spot

where the old and new formations come into play” and what consequences those formations have

on the polity and the society.14

In this dissertation I present a comprehensive account of the complex relationship

between the socio-political context, access to and use of media and information technologies,

and information acquisition and civic engagement. I focus on information and participation due

to their significance in post-industrial democracies. Media technologies have often been

presented either as panaceas to social and political ills, or as dark sources of reinforcement of

inequality and incivility. My research is positioned at the intersection of studies on political

communication and technology, and seeks to make descriptive, methodological, and theoretical

contributions to the scholarship on both fields to present a more nuanced picture of the linkages

between social conditions, access to media and political engagement.

Descriptively, this dissertation seeks to account for the importance of sociopolitical

conditions as one of the main factors influencing access to media. In turn, types of access, jointly

with social conditions, have an effect on the uses given to media. The potential to make effective

use of technologies, as well as the political context, influence the probability of acquiring

information. Actors seek to strike a balance between the effort of using media and the perceived

usefulness of the knowledge they might acquire. The terms of that calibration vary according to


personal characteristics, such as education level and socioeconomic status, and to people´s

perceptions of the uncertainty of the political context, the need for self-protection, and the

potential impact of the engagement with the polity. Those perceptions are based at least partly on

the social and political conditions that influence access to technology, which makes it extremely

unlikely for media to have any of the wildly positive or wildly negative consequences proposed

by some analysts. However, my research shows that access to media and information

technologies has some modest effects on knowledge acquisition and political participation across

citizens of different ages, socioeconomic strata and education levels.

Methodologically, this research design highlights the value of combining different

qualitative and quantitative methods, such as in-depth interviews, surveys and content analysis,

to gain deeper understanding of the interplay between contextual dynamics and demands and

uses of information. Most of the research on the digital divide is based on quantitative data. As

Van Dijk explains, “although this produces vast amounts of correlations, it does not bring

forward the precise mechanisms explaining the appropriation and division of the technology

concerned in everyday life.”15 The findings presented in this dissertation also underscore the

contributions to be made by longitudinal designs that “rather than focusing on extraordinary (or

ordinary)” political settings “and assuming that it also characterizes their ordinary (or

extraordinary) counterparts”16, seek to study various contexts and identify differences and

similarities across them.

Theoretically, these findings serve to reflect on concepts such as the digital divide,17

monitorial citizenship,18 the knowledge gap,19 and the spiral of silence.20 In opposition to the

notion that simply providing access to media and information technologies would lead to more


equitable polities in which all would feel equally summoned to participate, access to and uses of

media reproduce the social and educational inequalities that predate diffusion of media and

information technologies. When the perceived effort of listening to burglar alarms sounded by

the media increases, and the perception of self-protection diminishes, citizens are less likely to

behave as monitorial citizens, even in the final days of a presidential campaign. However, among

those who do pay attention to the news, media consumers with fewer years of formal instruction

benefit slightly more in terms of political information than the more educated respondents, which

runs counter to the assumptions of the knowledge gap theory. Predictable election outcomes,

jointly with the assessment that individual or collective actions cannot change the course of the

campaign or the overall political system, lead to a spiral of both real and figurative silence, as not

only political talk is reduced, but also political participation.

This research project also has normative implications, as it seeks to shed light on which

international, national and local policies might be used to promote effective use of technologies,

equal access to information, and democratic participation. Declaring universal internet access a

priority for all countries might contribute to democratize access, and, to a lesser extent, to

promote political knowledge and participation. However, eradicating poverty, fighting inequality

and encouraging governments´ responsiveness to citizens might be more effective in promoting

effective uses of technologies, equal access to information, and democratic participation.

What we know about access to media, information, and participation

To make sense of the interaction between the social and political context, access to media

and information technologies, citizens’ abilities and motivations, and political information

acquisition and participation, this project builds upon two domains of inquiry: research on the


relationship between access to media and political knowledge acquisition and participation, and

studies on media inequalities.

Studies on media use and political information acquisition and participation are grounded

on the idea that equal access and participation are essential components of democracy.21

Research has found that individuals with higher levels of political knowledge are more likely to

participate in political affairs.22 In turn, participation has been linked to the stability and

legitimacy of a democratic regime.23

In modern democracies, media play a fundamental role in relaying information to

individuals.24 Media and information technologies, a key part of the media environment, are the

“sociotechnical systems that support and facilitate mediated cultural expression, interpersonal

interaction, and the production and circulation of information goods and services”.25Thus, the

media environment with which people interact is a crucial component of the opportunity

individuals have to become informed. People create and manipulate their media environments,26

within structural conditions that, in turn, respond to changes in agents’ practices by adapting to

them, supporting and promoting new patterns of behavior.27

Building on the centrality of media for political processes, research has examined

whether access to the media and information technologies in general, and the internet in

particular, fosters information acquisition and political participation. Scholarship on this issue

has fallen into two camps. This stream of research has tended to see technology as factor that can

generate –or fail to generate- social and political effects. One proposes that the internet promotes

political information.28A related strand of research proposes that access to online information

fosters civic participation;29 although the size of the effect is small in most cases.30

INFORMATION INTEREST INDIFFERENCE 22 The opposite camp contends that online access furthers inequalities in political

knowledge and participation across social groups.31 Some scholars have drawn upon the

knowledge gap theory,32 which proposes that “infusions of information into society have an

uneven effect on citizen knowledge”, as “those who have attained a higher level of formal

education show greater gains than those with fewer years of formal schooling”.33 Other scholars

propose that access to media fosters political knowledge only among those already engaged in

the political process.34Thus, although internet has been saluted by some authors as a

revolutionary medium allowing participation by ordinary citizens,35 research indicates that online

participation is limited by the fact that internet appears to widen, rather than close, information

and participation inequalities across socioeconomic groups. Moreover, some scholars have

warned about increased content choice in media leading to audience fragmentation, which may

allow most citizens to refrain from obtaining information about or participating in politics.36

The effect of media technologies on information acquisition and participation may vary

according to the political context. Some studies have shown that effects of the media may

increase during times of heightened political activity, such as elections or political crises.37 This

is partly because during those periods citizens increase their attention to news in general and

public affairs news in particular.38 According to some authors, citizens behave as “monitorial

citizens”, scanning the news, rather than following them closely at all times, and engaging in

action only when they feel action is required.39

In addition to partly determining the effort put into political information acquisition,

political context may also influence the extent to which citizens choose to discuss public affairs

and participate in civic life. Noelle-Neumann proposed that citizens who believe that they hold a


minority opinion are more likely to remain silent about their political views than those who

perceive themselves as part of a majority.40 Other factors, such as the level of responsiveness of

political structures, are also associated with variations in participation.41 Carreras and Irepoglu

have found that, in Latin America, higher levels of trust in the responsiveness and integrity in the

organization of elections is linked to increased voter turnout.42 Boczkowski linked the low levels

of online content creation in Argentina to “the skepticism about the likelihood of positive social

change and the sense of powerlessness to alter matters that are perceived to be tied to powerful

political and economic interests.”43

Despite the lack of conclusive findings regarding the link between access to media and

information technologies and political information and participation, scholars studying

inequalities in access to technology propose that promoting higher and more equitable levels of

connectivity would lead to higher levels of social capital44 and democratization in developing

countries.45 The contending view focuses on the social factors that shape the use of technology

and argues that social and political inequalities predate and constrain diffusion of media and

information technologies and will not be solved by simply providing online access.46 Research

on access to the internet in Latin America indicates that use of media and information

technologies varies greatly according to socioeconomic and geographic factors: wealthier,

educated and urban individuals are more likely to go online than poor citizens in rural areas.47

How I conducted this research

Most studies of the interplay between media and information technologies and society

have not been able to fully characterize the relationship between the existent socio-political


context, uptake and use of media technologies, and the consequences that uptake and use might

have for public life due to three main limitations.

First, research about access to technologies has mostly examined the conditions of access

and uptake of media and information technologies48 or the impact of social factors on use of the

media,49 but it has mostly taken for granted that effective use of the technologies leads to

beneficial outcomes both for the individual users and society at large. Given the debate about the

impact of media in general and the internet in particular, the assumption of positive outcomes

should be questioned rather than assumed.

Second, scholars that have examined the impact of use of media on activities such as

information acquisition and participation have usually failed to differentiate between different

types of access. Survey research has mostly differentiated between users and non-users,50 but, as

Boulianne notes they “do not involve a consistent definition of user (e.g., use anywhere versus

use at home).”51 Moreover, while experimental research allows for a more precise assessment of

effects, the designs by necessity cannot differentiate across different types of access.52 These

approaches assume that media and communications technologies are used in a uniform manner

by all respondents, and does not account for how different types of access are linked to different

uses of media. Scholarship on the digital divide has moved beyond just differentiating whether

people had access to media and information technologies to what kind of access they have and

whether it facilitates effective use of the media.53 However, political communication research,

for the most part, continues to inquire whether respondents have access to the internet in general,

have gone online for news, or accessed a social networking site, while largely ignoring the

spatial-temporal coordinates of access.

INFORMATION INTEREST INDIFFERENCE 25 Third, most examinations examined the role of media and information technologies in

one country or one city and then assume that their findings were applicable to

different geographic and political contexts. Ecological variables, such as the existence of

multiple media and infrastructure development, as well as aggregate variables, such as trust in

politicians and the media and level of education may moderate or influence the relationship

between access to media, knowledge and turnout, for instance. One exception is the study by

Durante and colleagues,54 which examines turnout levels in Italian municipalities with different

levels of connectivity. However, because “connectivity” is their main independent variable, they

do not inquire on the extent or type of use voters and non-voters made of the internet, and thus, it

fails to account for the reasons that drove voters to or away from political participation.

In this dissertation, I address these limitations by examining jointly the political context,

the social conditions of access to various media and information technologies (free-to-air and

cable television, and the internet), and the uses people make of those technologies. Then, I

examine the links between one type of use of technology –accessing news on various devices-

and two dependent variables considered valuable for democratic life in modern polities –levels

of political knowledge, and participation. Studies on media use and political information

acquisition and participation are grounded on the idea that equal access and participation are

essential components of democracy.55Research has found that individuals with higher levels of

political knowledge are more likely to participate in political affairs,56 as knowledge about the

processes of government and political issues assists citizens “in effectively expressing these

views through political participation”.57 In turn, participation has been linked to the stability and

legitimacy of a democratic regime.58

INFORMATION INTEREST INDIFFERENCE 26 To account for how varying socio-political contexts may interact with information

acquisition and engagement, I conducted my research in four different locations with variations

in socio-economic development, political culture and levels of connectivity, before and during a

presidential campaign. The four locations are the city of Buenos Aires59, José C. Paz, the city of

Santa Fe60, and Resistencia in Argentina. Setting the research in Argentina was convenient due

to three reasons: first, there is a high degree of variability in access to media and socioeconomic

development. Second, it has been a poliarchy61 since it regained democracy, with free, fair and

periodical elections since 1983. Third, although it is a federal country, all the provinces follow

the same rules for the election of president (direct election with a two-round system; the country

works as a single district). This minimizes the possibilities of one district receiving more

importance than the others by the media and the politicians due to its status as a swing district.

The four locations differ in terms of size, population, socio-economic development and levels of

access to media.62

Moreover, rather than relying on single method of data collection, this research examines

the phenomena of information acquisition and participation through three different methods that

complement each other. The combination of in-depth interviews, a panel survey, and content

analysis, as well allows this dissertation to examine complementary aspects of the same

phenomena, to provide a rich and comprehensive account of the relationship between the

sociopolitical context, access to and use of media, information acquisition and political

engagement.

The panel in-depth interviews serve to gain understanding of the four districts´ social and

informational setting, and well as actors´ interpretations of access and use of media technologies,


and level of political engagement. I interviewed 46 respondents from the four locations, a year

before the election, six months before the election, just before the campaign had started, and a

few days before Election Day. The interviews complement the survey results by allowing the

examination of the interpretations underlying participants’ responses.63

The research design also includes a two-wave panel survey, with one wave before the

campaign, in April 2011 (n=1600) and the other one a few days before the election, in October of

that same year (n=1023) at the four cities examined in this dissertation. Rather than taking for

granted that all access to media technologies is equal, the survey explicitly differentiates between

types of access to different media. I further examine the linkages across the political context, the

socio-economic characteristics of respondents, their technological uptake, the use to which they

put media, and their levels of civic information and participation.

This research is also based on content analysis of seven media outlets throughout the year

of data collection.64,65More than 18,000 articles from the homepages and the “most read” lists

from news organizations from the cities studied in this dissertation were examined to ascertain

whether they contained public affairs information in general and campaign-and-election-related

information in particular. Content analysis provided an unobtrusive assessment of the media

environments66 to which citizens have access in each location, as well as the news choices of the

consumers of each medium. In turn, in-depth interviews and panel survey complemented the

content analysis, which does not allow making any inferences of audiences’ readings.67

What lies ahead: plan of the dissertation

I begin the empirical study of the linkages between contextual dynamics, access to media

and information technologies and information acquisition and participation by looking into how


social conditions and access to media and information technologies are inextricably intertwined.

This chapter shows that access to media mostly reproduces social and educational inequalities

that predate diffusion of media technologies. People of higher socioeconomic status, with higher

levels of education, and who live in the capital of the country tend to have higher access both to

traditional media, such as cable television and newspapers, and to digital media. For instance,

someone who had completed college education had a 74% increase in the odds of having access

to cable television, and a 196% increase in the odds of having home access to the internet,

compared to someone who had not finished high school, even when controlling for other factors

such as socioeconomic status, age and gender.

The digital divide mirrors previous analogical rifts, and cybercafé access, which some

authors presented as a viable option to home access, was significantly more likely for the young

and those with higher socioeconomic status. The reproduction of privilege was reinforced by the

activities performed online: home access was positively related to going online for news, also

suggests that conditions of access of media and communication technologies may influence the

activities performed online. Lack of resources –such as time and money-- or skills were more

often than not the main reason not acquire and access new technology. Those with home and

work access felt more comfortable with the medium, and had more time to go online, which led

to higher levels of online news consumption. These findings further challenge the notion that

cell phone or cybercafé connection would lead to increased information acquisition.

Levels of news consumption remained constant when comparing the responses six

months before the election and just before Election Day. This finding goes contrary to the

assumption that normally inattentive audiences behave as monitorial citizens during times of


heightened political activity. Interviews suggest that one plausible reason why attention to news

did not increase significantly was the predictability of the electoral outcomes: the incumbent was

certain to win, which reduced the need for self-preservation through information acquisition both

for her supporters and her detractors. Thus, the enactment of monitorial citizenship appears not

to be connected to the amount of information available,68 but rather to the way citizens seek to

strike a balance between the perceived usefulness of the information and the cognitive and

affective effort necessary to obtain and make sense of it.

In chapter 3 I study the relationship between attention to news in various formats and

levels of political information. There was a small but significant relationship between news

media consumption and levels of public affairs knowledge. Although the effect of different

media on political information was not constant, online news consumption was positively related

to political information in both waves. Thus, although online news attention is not a widely

distributed practice, those who do go online for news are likely to increase their level of political

information. There is evidence of a knowledge gap before the campaign began, with the more

educated respondents obtaining more gains from attention to media than those with fewer years

of instruction, but this relationship is reversed at the height of the campaign. While a small niche

of the audience follows politics at all times, a larger group only becomes interested in those

topics at times of heightened political activity.

Analysis of news media supply and audiences’ most clicked stories indicate a greater

infusion of information and increased levels of interest among the citizenry in July and August,

right before the national primaries. Many respondents reported having lost interest in the

election, given that the results of the primaries served as almost perfect predictors of the results


of the presidential election Although interest in the election peaked in August 2011, gains in

political knowledge from the primaries may well be carried on to Election Day in October. Thus,

the effects of monitorial citizenship at one point in time need not be fleeting or spasmodic, but

rather benefit both the individuals and the society at large in the long run.

Chapter 4 examines the relationship between attention to news media, civic and political

engagement, and exercise of public voice. Levels of participation were low and unevenly

distributed across locations and socio-economic groups: college graduates in Buenos Aires

doubled the participation levels by high school drop outs in the poorer districts. Moreover, there

was a modest but significant relationship between news media consumption on print, radio and

online, and levels of expression and participation. This suggests that these media play a positive

role before and during the campaign, and might help reduce the participation divide. The lack of

a significant correlation between television and public engagement activities gives some support

to scholarly descriptions of television as a source of cynicism69 and a threat to social capital. 70

Regarding affective and cognitive factors for engagement, this chapter finds that many

respondents avoid both expressing their opinion and participating due to a sense of inadequacy

and fear of facing discord from family, friends, or co-workers at the ideas expressed. In contrast,

intending to vote the winner of the election was related to increased participation, which confers

further support for the spiral of silence theory.71 Perceiving support for the preferred candidate

may increase engagement, which underscores the importance of perceptions as determinants of

political (in)action. I argue that primaries in which candidates run unopposed might not only

reduce interest in the election results, may also discourage participation and expression among

citizens, except those voting for the winning candidate.

INFORMATION INTEREST INDIFFERENCE 31 The findings indicate that that the uptake of media and information technologies is

influenced to a large extent by the social context in which they are introduced. In turn, contextual

circumstances and types of access to media determine the ways in which technologies are used

by actors. Contextual factors, such as perception of system responsiveness, and the probability of

exerting influence over the outcomes, as well as technology-related factors, including availability

of the medium and the possibility of accessing it during long stretches of time, jointly shape the

types of uses given to different media and information technologies. Finally, uses of technology

for certain activities, such as attention to news and current events, have varying consequences in

different contexts. During times of heightened political activity, such as election campaigns,

attention to news may serve to reduce the knowledge gap between the more informed and the

less informed citizens, by reducing the cost of acquiring information in time and cognitive

resources. However, any effects of the media are necessarily modest, and cannot be expected to

dramatically change the fundamental variables affecting knowledge and engagement. These

include individual-level variables, such as level of education and socioeconomic status, and,

more importantly, contextual variables, such as the indeterminacy of political processes,

including elections, which is partly linked to the perceived levels of responsiveness of the

political system.

In chapter 5 I summarize the descriptive, methodological and theoretical contributions of

this dissertation and explain how they are important to understand the relationship between

sociopolitical conditions, access to media, and political engagement. The appearances of new

media are often accompanied by a focus on supposedly revolutionary effects, which usually

overrides any intentions of looking into what real, albeit modest, modifications the medium in


particular is making to political life, and, most importantly, how positive outcomes should be

fostered.

Government and non-governmental organizations from across the globe have different

options when looking at how to foster information-seeking and engagement. The first one is

doing nothing, and expecting the market to distribute access to media and technology. The

second one is to address solely the socio-economic conditions that predate and explain most of

the differences in access and use. However worthwhile that option, it is expensive and unlikely

to obtain returns in the short run. The third one is to develop the national infrastructure to make it

easier for service providers to increase their reach within the country. However, some research

has shown that families are reluctant to pay for the hardware and a monthly fee to access certain

types of media and information technologies.72 The fourth one is to complement the construction

of a technological backbone with a program of hardware distribution and subsidized connection

fees. Although “universal access” has figured prominently among policy and academic

recommendations, it is not always clear what it means. I propose that a policy of universal access

should equip every home with media and information technologies, rather than forcing the less

privileged to walk to a cybercafé or a library to go online

Will these recommendations suffice to reinvigorate public life and civic engagement,

amid a context of inequality, fragmentation, apathy, and reduced political efficacy due to

questioning of the responsiveness of political institutions? Probably not. But following these

recommendations will at least halter the reproduction of social and political inequalities through

access to media and information technologies.


Chapter 2:

The Analogical and Digital Divide:

Media Access and Attention to News in Argentina

Before and During a Presidential Election Campaign

INFORMATION INTEREST INDIFFERENCE 34 “I wake up and the newspaper has already been delivered (...) I read it and once I arrive at

my job, I read Clarín, La Nación, Página, Perfil, some other news site (...) in the evening I watch

television, particularly political shows, some in Channel 26, some shows from TN (...) I watch a

little of each newscast, an hour give or take, to see what happened during the day (...) I like to be

up to date with news, particularly about politics, which I am very interested in (...) it is a way of

participating, getting informed might be the most passive way to participate, I am interested in

being informed, talking to people, discussing ideas.” This is how Federico, a 30-year-old college

graduate who worked in the public sector in the city of Buenos Aires, explained his daily

information diet (a print newspaper, several news sites online, at least two hours of newscasts

and political television shows each evening)73. This was in late November 2010, almost a year

before the presidential election of 2011, but he was already paying attention to the campaign: “I

am following (the elections), and I am interested, of course (...) Maybe it is a little early, I

suppose that beginning in December, when some candidates start to run officially there will be

more information, but I believe it is a subject that is on the mind of any Argentinean”. During the

following year, he was interviewed again in April and October, just before the election, in a

stylish café around the corner from his office, in the well-to-do neighborhood of Recoleta, just

before or after his workday. He remained an avid political junkie, watching political shows,

reading news online, and although his print newspaper reading habits faded, he kept the

subscription due to benefits for subscribers. Less than a week before the presidential election, he

explained that although it was “very clear that (incumbent president) Cristina (Fernandez de

Kirchner) would win (…) “who comes second is important, because it will be the one who leads

as the opposition.”74

INFORMATION INTEREST INDIFFERENCE 35 Ten days after the first interview with Federico, I talked to Maru, a 30-year-old single

mother of two, who was unemployed at the time. Less than 45 kilometers away, in the district of

José C. Paz, in a dirt yard with two dogs and a bunny, she described a very different routine of

acquiring information “[In the morning)] I listen to CDs, then (...) at noon, when I return from

leaving the girls at school I turn on the television news. [In the evening] I don’t watch a lot, it is

the same things I’ve seen at noon (...) Sometimes we buy Clarín to look for a job [in the

classified ads]. (...) We don’t have Internet yet (...) it would cost 100 pesos [25 US dollars] (...)

I’d love to have internet access, I go to the internet to look for a job, I created my own page

on...what do you call it?...the Facebook.” Maru explained her only access to the internet was at a

cybercafé a few blocks from her house, “I go once a week, it costs one peso [a US quarter] (...)

I don’t [get news] online, that is why I tell you, I’d like to see more, because I go an hour, a little

while, to look for a job mostly (...) this is new to me (...) I had computer studies at school, but a

long time ago, all this stuff wasn’t here, my daughter uses the computer better than me, I spend

an hour just to strike a key.”75 Maru said she was not paying attention to the presidential

campaign but that she would “like to know more about the candidates”. In May of the following

year she had home access to the internet. She went online mostly for Facebook and job seeking

“I am still not used to going online (for news), but I think it is more advanced than television.”76

By October she had found a job at a plastics factory, and the interview was held on a Saturday

morning, the only free time she had between her work and caring for her children. Lack of time

also influenced her information seeking practices “I didn’t go [online], because, you see, I do

thing around the house, I clean, it takes time, if I am there (she points to the PC) I am not doing

anything.” When asked about the campaign, she answered that she was not following elections


closely since she “knew Cristina [Fernández de Kirchner] would win, because the people who

already follow her will keep on voting for her.”77

These two narratives show how access to media and communication technologies in

general and interest in news and politics in particular cannot be examined separately from the

social context in which the use of these technologies takes place. Scholarship has examined how

access to media and information technologies is distributed across geographic locations and

individuals with different levels of education and socioeconomic status,78 and research has

looked into how different people appropriate and make use of technologies, and the impact that

both access and use have on different aspects of social life, such as knowledge acquisition and

civic and political participation. There are two streams of research: the first one proposes that

access to media promotes information and engagement only among those who are already

interested in politics. 79 The second indicates that access to media could promote incidental

knowledge acquisition80 and political engagement among previously inactive populations.81

However, most studies tend to assume that all types of access to different media are the same

across different age, social and gender groups. This chapter aims to elucidate which social and

political factors influence citizens’ information environment and access to news. This research

finds that there are significant differences in level of access to media from one location to the

other and, within locations, across socio-economic strata, men and women, and young and old. It

proposes that that attention to news is influenced both by the opportunities offered by the media

environment, and personal characteristics such as interest and motivation. In doing so, this

chapter weighs in on two concurrent discussions in the field of media and communications: the


examination on whether new media complement or displace traditional sources of news, and the

debate between the “full information” and the “burglar alarm” model of citizenship.

Media access and inequality in Latin America

In modern democracies, media play a fundamental role in relying information to

individuals.82 Thus, the media environment is crucial for citizens´ information. Prior defines the

media environment as “the different media sources routinely available to people at any point in

time,” which comprises the properties of the media to which people have access and the media

markets in which they live.83 Media and information technologies, a key part of the media

environment, are the “sociotechnical systems that support and facilitate mediated cultural

expression, interpersonal interaction, and the production and circulation of information goods

and services.”84 However, the media environment is neither stable nor a product of conditions

completely external to the individuals. People create and manipulate their media environments,85

within structural conditions that, in turn, respond to changes in agents’ practices by adapting to

them, supporting and promoting new patterns of behavior.86 Moreover, both the media

environment and the way audiences choose to interact with it may change during times of

heightened political activity, such as elections or government crises, due to increased interest in

news in general and certain kinds of news in particular.87

Several studies have shown that there are steep differences in access to media and

information technologies across countries and,88 within countries, among different population

segments.89 However, comparatively less research has focused on regional differences across

geographical subunits of the same country.90 Some scholars propose that promoting higher and


more equitable levels of connectivity would alleviate social inequalities,91 lead to higher levels of

social capital92 and promote democratization.93

A different stream of research focuses on the social factors that shape the use of

technology. It argues that social and political inequalities predate and constrain the diffusion of

media and information technologies94 and will not be solved by simply providing online access.

Other researchers propose that access to the internet does not necessarily entail effective use of

technology.95 DiMaggio and colleagues indicate that the question “is less `who can find a

network connection from which to log on?’ than `what are people doing, and what are they able

to do, when they go online’”.96 They suggest that differences across the technical means such as

the speed of the connection, the autonomy in using the web, the skills people bring to their use of

the medium, and the social support upon which internet users are able to draw, can lead to digital

inequality among online users.

Research on access to the internet in Latin America indicates that use of media and

information technologies varies greatly according to socioeconomic and geographic factors:

wealthier, educated and urban individuals are more likely to go online than poor citizens in rural

areas.97 Although lack of access could be partly explained by infrastructure deficits, Jordán and

colleagues find that there is a “demand gap” by which although broadband internet is accessible

to the majority of the population, large percentages of individuals choose not to subscribe due to

the cost of the service or lack of interest.98 These inequalities in access to media are predated by

steep inequalities across socioeconomic status groups and geographical regions.99

Scholars have proposed several approaches to solving digital inequality in Latin America.

Some authors recommend that, in order to bridge this gap, telecommunications policy should


strive to offer universal access, characterized as access to media technology “in every

community, neighborhood, village, or vicinity”100 rather than universal service (service to every

home), because “given the budget constraints faced by Latin American governments, it is not

realistic to provide telephone lines, computers, or internet access to all households.”101

However, research on uses of media and information technologies indicate that autonomy of use,

or “the freedom to use the technology when and where one wants to”102 predicts effective use

and beneficial outcomes.

Information acquisition practices

Another aspect of the media environment has captured the attention of scholars who

study information acquisition: the relationship between news consumption in online and

traditional media. Two positions have organized the debate: one argues that internet news use

complements traditional media consumption, and the other that it displaces it.

The first group of scholars argues that the use of online media complements access to

traditional media.103 For instance, drawing on uses and gratification theory, which argues that

audiences’ needs and goals shape media consumption,104 researchers propose that people’s

interests and motivations shape both their media environment and their information acquisition

practices more than media attributes.105 The opposite perspective, based on the principle of

relative constancy,106 contends that there is a displacement effect, by which use of newer media

displace traditional media such as print newspapers and television.107 Research suggests that

displacement is partly dependent upon demographic factors such as age and socioeconomic

status, with effects appearing to be greater among younger and more educated users.108

INFORMATION INTEREST INDIFFERENCE 40 Access to media and information technologies is a necessary but not sufficient condition

for news consumption practices. Research has examined differences in attention to news across

gender, age, and socioeconomic status, and has found that men are more likely to access news

than women,109 and people of higher socio-economic status pay more attention to news.110

Authors have attributed these differences to diminished perception of the usefulness of news, as

well as lack of free time to devote to information consumption, among women and working class

individuals.111

News consumption processes have also been the focus of the debate between the “full

information” and the “burglar alarm” models for information acquisition. The full information

model proposes that citizens want a fully-fledged provision of news, and that less that complete

and constant coverage of the most important issues facing society drives audiences’ attention

away from news media.112 The opposing view draws on the concept of rational ignorance113 to

suggest that the news media should call citizens’ attention to urgent matters rather than suppose

that citizens follow all public affairs news closely.114

Methods

This chapter relies on a mixed-methods approach, combining in-depth interviews, and a

panel survey. Data were gathered in four different locations before and during the 2011

presidential campaign Argentina. The rationale and methodological design draw on previous

work on regional differences within countries, such as Putnam’s, which examined institutional

performance in Italian regions with vast inequalities in social capital,115 and Cleary and Stokes’,

which explored the relationship between social trust and democratic quality across different

regions of Mexico and Argentina.116 Studying lower-level units, such as regions, provinces or


towns, is an effective strategy to examine multiple variables and simultaneously manage the

uneven nature of major processes of social transformation.117

Argentina is a fruitful setting to conduct this analysis due to two factors. First, the high

degree of intra-country variability in two key independent variables: socioeconomic indicators

and online connectivity. Second, Argentina is similar to other countries in that it is a competitive

democracy118, with a well-developed media system. The selection of locations studied aims at

creating a 2-by-2-by-2 comparison framework. Four districts were included: 1) a district with

high socio-economic indicators and high levels of access to media and information technologies,

2) a district with high socioeconomic indicators but low levels of access to technology; 3) a

district with low socioeconomic indicators and high levels of access; and 4) a district with low

socioeconomic indicators and low levels of access to media technologies. Information and

participation processes were examined in these locations at two times: before and during the

campaign, to measure longitudinal as well as cross-sectional variations.

The first district is the nation´s capital, Buenos Aires. It has the lowest percentage of

population below poverty level, and its population has the highest level of education. According

to the latest UNDP reports, Buenos Aires has a high human development index119 and has a

service-based economic organization.120 It also has high degrees of connectivity, with 44.68

broadband connections and 36 residential internet connections of any kind per 100 inhabitants,121

high levels of newspaper circulation, access to cable television122 and mobile and traditional

telephone service.123

The second district is the capital of the province of Santa Fe. It also has comparatively

high income and education levels, and a large diversified economic structure,124 but lower


degrees of online connectivity, with only 3.4 broadband and 8.79 residential internet connections

of any kind per 100 inhabitants.125

The third location for fieldwork was José C. Paz, a district in the greater Buenos Aires.

The whole greater Buenos Aires, an industrial district in which deindustrialization has caused

chronic unemployment and structural poverty,126 has more than a third of the population living

under the poverty line. In José C. Paz, more than 25% of the population have unmet basic

needs.127 Although there are no municipal-level data on connectivity, the whole province of

Buenos Aires has 8.42 broadband connections per hundred inhabitants, and anecdotal evidence

suggests that Greater Buenos Aires has higher connectivity and media circulation levels due to

its geographic proximity to the city of Buenos Aires.

The fourth district to be examined is the capital of the province of Chaco, Resistencia,

which has the second lowest human development index in Argentina128 and whose economy has

a backward productive environment.129 It is also the province with the lowest level of

connectivity, with 0.25 broadband connections per 100 inhabitants.130

In the first wave of the survey, 1600 subjects were interviewed across the four locations

in April 2011 (399 in Buenos Aires, 400 in Santa Fe, 400 in Jose C Paz and 401 in Resistencia).

Interviews were conducted face-to-face in Jose C Paz and in Resistencia, and by telephone in

Buenos Aires and Santa Fe. The AAPOR1 average response rate was 58%. For the second wave,

the same 1600 subjects were re-contacted, and 1023 answered the instrument (177 in Buenos

Aires, 228 in Santa Fe, 229 in José C. Paz and 389 in Resistencia), thus obtaining an AAPOR1

response rate of 64,2%.131

INFORMATION INTEREST INDIFFERENCE 43 Different methods of interviewing were chosen because, on the one hand, the higher

proportion of apartment buildings in Santa Fe and Buenos Aires restricted access to housing

units to conduct face-to-face interviews. On the other, telephone penetration is relatively low in

the Resistencia and Jose C. Paz districts and conducting telephone surveys would have

introduced high levels of bias in the sample. In the telephone interviews, units were selected by

RDD (Random Digit Dialing) and by questions to fill population quotas by sex and age. The

interviews were conducted by live interviewers using CATI (Computer Assisted Telephone

Interviewing). In the face-to-face interviews, units were selected by polietapic random sampling

to select units and then questions about sex and age to fill population quotas. A local survey firm,

MFG, was hired to conduct the surveys, due to its experience working in the four districts.

To understand the motivations and interpretations that drive access to media and attention

to news,132 this study includes in-depth interviews with citizens from the four locations.

Interviews were conducted at three points in time: October-November 2010, April-May 2011,

and September-October 2011, just before Election Day. The two final waves overlapped with the

first and second waves of the survey. Interviews allow exploring respondents’ social and

informational setting, as well as their motives and interpretations.133 Recruitment of citizens was

undertaken through a mix of strategies: a referral network of contacts, notices in churches,

schools universities and social network sites, and snowball sampling. This procedure yielded a

convenience sample of 46 respondents (12 from Buenos Aires, 11 from José C. Paz, 11 from

Resistencia and 12 from Santa Fe) of various ages and education levels. There were 24 women

and 22 men; 19 were between 18 and 34 years old, 16 were between 35 and 49 years old, and 11

were 50 or older. Nine of the respondents had less than a high school education, 26 had


completed high school or some half post-secondary education, and 15 had completed college.134

Due to sample attrition, 45 respondents participated in the second wave and 41 in the third wave.

The conversations were conducted in a place selected by the respondents and lasted an average

of 40 minutes in the first wave, 25 during in the second, and 34 in the third wave.

Access to media

The first wave of the survey established that there were significant differences in level of

access to media from one location to the other and, within locations, across socio-economic

strata. For instance, while in the city of Buenos Aires more than three quarters, and in Santa Fe

more than two thirds of the population had home access to the Internet, the percentage drops to

37% in Resistencia and 25% in Jose C Paz. Moreover, across all locations, people in the lower

socio-economic stratum had on average 30 percentage points fewer of internet connectivity than

those in the middle and higher classes (Figure 2.1). The differences across geographic locations

suggests that connectivity data given for a country as a whole mask important differences within

it: while Buenos Aires has first-world levels of connectivity, José C. Paz lags behind the levels of

some African countries.

Cable and satellite television was much more widely and evenly distributed across the

four locations, although there were still differences across districts and socioeconomic strata135

(Figure 2.2). In Buenos Aires, Santa Fe and Resistencia, more than two thirds of respondents

across socioeconomic strata have cable or satellite television at home, and only in José C. Paz

did access fall below the 50% mark for those with low socioeconomic status. In José C. Paz

more than 7 out of 10 in the middle and higher classes had access to cable or satellite television.

These percentages suggest that home access to the internet is restricted, at least partly, by the


costs of the hardware and the connection. These findings confirm the existence of a demand gap

in Argentina.136

The first wave of the survey also shows that access to media is related to demographic

characteristics such as age, gender, level of education, and socioeconomic status. Access to

broadcast television was not significantly associated to these factors, whereas access to cable or

satellite television was reduced among those with lower SES and education level (Table 2.3). All

types of internet access were significantly related to age, level of education and geographic

location. Younger respondents, men, those with more years of education and those of middle and

high socioeconomic status were significantly more likely to have access to the internet.

The strongest association was evident in home online access: extra year in age was

associated with a decline of 2.1% in the odds of having internet access at home, while for men

the increase in the odds of having internet at home was of 45.1%. Those in the middle class had a

decrease of 58%, and those of lower socioeconomic status a decrease of 90% in the odds of

having home access, compared to their more privileged peers. Those who had completed college

had a significant increase in the odds of having home online access compared to respondents

who had not finished high school. Likewise, those in Jose C Paz and Resistencia were

significantly less likely to have internet access at home than those in Buenos Aires and Santa Fe.

These associations explained around a third of the variation in internet access.

Access to the internet at work followed similar patterns (Table 2.1), except for the lack of

a significant difference between those of high and middle socioeconomic status. Institutional

online access, such as from a school local government office or library, was not significantly

related to gender or socioeconomic status, but was more available to young people and those of


higher educational level, and less to inhabitants of José C. Paz. Cybercafe access, in contrast,

which some137 had presented as a viable option to home access, was significantly more likely for

the young, those with higher socioeconomic status and level of education, and citizens of Buenos

Aires. Cell phone access was not significantly related to gender or education level. However,

older respondents, those with lower socioeconomic status, and those in Jose C. Paz and Santa Fe

were significantly less likely to have an internet-enabled phone.

From the first to the second wave of the survey, in October 2011, home online access

increased significantly in Resistencia and Santa Fe (from 37% of households to 43% in

Resistencia, and from 67% to 73% in Santa Fe), mostly due to increases in middle-class

respondents acquiring access. However, this was not the case in José C. Paz or Buenos Aires

(Figure 2.3). Finally, pay television access did not exhibit significant changes in any of the

districts, which suggests it is a much more settled technology (figure 2.4).

Unequal access to news

Access to news sources varied according to geographic location and wave of the survey

(Figure 2.5). Attention to television news was significantly lower in Resistencia during the two

waves of the survey, which may be explained by the fact that Resistencia was the only district

with significantly lower access to broadcast television compared to the other three. Television

was the most popular news sources both before and during the campaign, with seventy percent of

respondents in April, and 74% in October reported watching TV news during the previous week.

However, the pattern differed from district to district: television news viewership increased

markedly in José C. Paz and Resistencia, decreased significantly in Santa Fe, and did not change

dramatically in Buenos Aires. In contrast, reported print newspaper readership did not change


significantly from the first to the second wave of the survey: 52% of the respondents in April and

49% in October said they had read a print newspaper during the previous week. The pattern also

differed by district: newspaper readership increased in Resistencia, but did not change

significantly in any of the three other locations. In addition, this practice was significantly lower

in José C. Paz than in the other three districts, which could be explained by the fact that José C.

Paz was the only town that did not have a local daily newspaper.

Regarding online news, 27% and 30% of respondents reported having consumed news on

the internet in April and October, respectively. Taken together, these patterns suggest that during

the 2011 election, Argentinean citizens were not behaving as monitorial citizens. Otherwise,

they would have increased news media consumption from the first to the second wave of the

survey. As I will explain later, the in-depth interviews suggest that the predictability of the

Election outcome may have forestalled an increase in attention to news.

Those who gained access to pay television (N=63) between the two waves of the survey

did not change substantially their news consumption habits, which contradicts Prior’s findings

about switchers.138 In contrast, among the 70 respondents who acquired internet access, the

percentage that had gone online for news during the previous week doubled from 15% to 32%,

while the percentage among the general population remained unchanged.

The factors associated with each type of news consumption also varied according to

geographic location and closeness to the election. Before the campaign, men and older people

were more likely to have read a print newspaper during the previous week: being a man

increased the odds of having accessed news in print by 60%, and each extra year of age was

related to 2 percent increase in the odds in the same direction (Table 2.2). Age was also


positively related to watching news on television. Respondents who had fewer years of education

were also significantly less likely to have read a newspaper, but the coefficients for

socioeconomic status, although in the expected direction, did not reach statistical significance.

Both respondents in Resistencia and José C. Paz were significantly less likely to have read a

print newspaper during the previous week than respondents in Buenos Aires. Access to other

media (pay television, internet at home, at work or at an institution) and attention to television

news were positively related to print news reading, even when controlling for age,

socioeconomic status or level of education. This casts doubt on the possibility that having access

to other media could lead to a decrease in newspaper readership. In the October wave of the

survey, being from José C. Paz, age, gender, education level, cell phone internet access and

attention to television news remained as significant predictors of newspaper readership.

Regarding attention to news on television, respondents in Santa Fe were significantly

more likely to watch television news than respondents in Buenos Aires in the first wave of the

survey. This could be explained by Santa Fe having a province-wide primary for Governor on 22

May, which could plausibly increase interest in news across the citizenry. Gender,

socioeconomic status, and level of education were not significantly associated with attention to

television news in any of the waves of the survey. Neither was having access to pay television,

which further challenges the notion that increased programming options reduce news

consumption.

In contrast, even when controlling for access factors, socioeconomic status and level of

education were positively associated with going online for news. However, the largest

coefficients were for the type of internet access available. Having online access at home was


related to a six-fold increase in the odds of having accessed internet news during the past week.

Work, institutional and cell phone access were significant predictors too, albeit with somewhat

smaller coefficients. In the first wave of the survey, cybercafe access was not a significant

predictor of going online for news. Six months later, only types of access remained as significant

predictors of attention to online news, and cybercafé access and attention to news on television

became positive and significant predictors of going online for news. Thus, while cybercafe

access might not facilitate access to news at all times, it may provide an outlet for interested

citizens, particularly at times of heightened political activity. The relationship between television

and online news challenge the idea that new media displace older media and suggests that the

two media may complement each other.

Media environment: constraints and choices

Interviews with citizens reveal that access to media was shaped by social and economic

factors, as well as by personal interest and motivation. However, the weight of each variable

differed by media. For the majority of respondents, rates of access to media and information

technologies did not vary significantly from the first wave of the interviews, in November-

December 2010, to the third, in September-October 2011.

Broadcast television was the more widely distributed medium. All the interviewees

except two young women had access to broadcast television at home (the two young women,

both students living with roommates, chose not to have television). Mariana, a 25-year-old

assistant from Buenos Aires, said that she used to have a television set, with a cable connection,

but then she realized she didn´t watch at all and she sold it, because “we have a computer, with

internet access, [and] we watch movies there.”139 Tania, a 20-year-old college student from Santa


Fe, decided not to bring a television set when she left her hometown to attend college because

when she was lived with her parents she “didn´t watch at all.”140 However, access to pay

television was quite tied to economic considerations. Most middle class respondents across the

four locations had access to cable television, while those of lower socioeconomic status, who

usually lived in the periphery, evoked cost as the main reason why they did not have cable. This

is consistent with the findings from the survey. Yesica, a 26-year-old unemployed mother of four

from José C. Paz, said she did not have cable because it was “too expensive.”141 Debi, a make-up

artist from the suburbs of Santa Fe, explained that there was no cable access in her

neighborhood, and that satellite television was too expensive. However, by the time of the third

interview, she had decided to acquire satellite television for the sake of her two year-old son,

Nahuel “we were tired of watching the same cartoons over and over (…) I am happy now, when

(Disney Junior show) Art Attack starts I know he will stay quiet for half an hour.”142

Newspaper access varied across locations: respondents in José C. Paz were less likely to

buy newspapers than in the other three locations, which might be explained by José C. Paz not

having a local newspaper. Christian was 37 years old, worked in his family´s grocery shop, and

was easily one of the most politically active respondents. At the time of the first interview, in

October 2010, he has just graduated from college and was interested in participating in politics.

When I saw him again, six months later, he was quite certain he would participate in the

primaries as candidate to mayor of José C. Paz, later that year. At the time of the third interview,

in October 2011 Christian had already run (and lost) in the primaries, and although he was no

longer competing, he still followed politics avidly. However, he never read a print newspaper

because:

INFORMATION INTEREST INDIFFERENCE 51 I do not socialize with people who read it (…) People might work in an office, and the

newspapers is already there, but we don´t get [the newspaper] easily [in my job], and I could buy

it but it is not a source of information I would be interested in having.143

Although there was a free weekly newspaper in José C. Paz, which was distributed in the

downtown area, respondents said it was too supportive of the local government. Silvia, a school

counselor, only bought a newspaper from Buenos Aires on Sundays. She said “I´ve read the

[local] free newspaper, but it only publishes information that makes the mayor look good.”144

Maru, the single mother introduced at the beginning of the chapter, concurred “They only show

(mayor Mario) Ishii´s accomplishments: the house, the school, the pavement.”145

In contrast, people who lived in Resistencia and Santa Fe reported buying their local

daily newspapers, even if they could easily read them online. Graciana, a 31-year-old lawyer said

she preferred Clarín (a newspaper from Buenos Aires), which had “more news” but she bought

Norte (the local daily) because “the newspaper everybody reads here is Norte.”146 Omar, 48-

year-old small-business owner also from Resistencia said “I read Norte [but] I don´t read the

politics section. I have no idea of what the editor thinks.”147 Virginia, a 38-year-old assistant

from Santa Fe said she read El Litoral (the local daily) and she realized that it was “on the side of

every administration (…) if Peronists are ruling it is Peronist, if the Frente Cívico is ruling it is

with them.” These statements indicate that interviewees in Santa Fe and Resistencia who read the

local newspapers did so in spite of any political bias they might have had.

Older respondents were more likely to have acquired a newspaper reading habit and to

have kept it. Estela, a 58-year-old seamstress in Buenos Aires, said she subscribed to the

newspaper because she had done so “for ages.”148 Olga, a 55-year-old librarian in José C. Paz


said she “had bought Clarín during all her life”149 and continued to so. The relationship between

age and newspaper readership was also evident in respondents who said they read the

newspapers at their parents´ house. Daniel, a 38-year-old psychologist from Buenos Aires,

explained he had never subscribed to a newspaper and said the “last memory of receiving the

newspaper every morning” was when he was a teenager and lived with his parents. Then, the

newspaper “arrived every morning under the door.”150 Máximo, a 30-year-old public relations

agent from Santa Fe, said he “read the newspapers on Sundays” when he went to his “in-laws’´

for barbecue.”151

Online access varied according to age and socioeconomic status, which confirms findings

from the survey. Younger and middle and high socioeconomic status respondents were more

likely to have online access at home. Cost was mentioned as a reason not to have online access at

home by the less educated respondents. Lorena, a 31- year-old social assistant from Resistencia

said online access was “too expensive” for her because “first she had to buy a computer.”152

Debi, the make-up artist from Santa Fe said “with a child that has to eat every day” she´d rather

“pay for day care than buy a computer.”153

Some older respondents had a computer at home but did not know how to use it to surf

the web. Carlos, a 58-year-old public employee from Resistencia said the computer “was for the

rest of the family (…) At my age I am not in speaking terms with technology, I use the most

basic one, television”. Eduardo, a 60-year-old plumber from Santa Fe, bought a used computer

and connected it to the internet with the help of his son. However, he did not use it: “it is a thing

I have there, my fingers, my head are not good enough to use it, and so I turn it off.”154

INFORMATION INTEREST INDIFFERENCE 53 Younger people in Santa Fe, Resistencia and José C. Paz that did not have online access

at home usually had at it school. Ricardo, a 21-year-old engineering student in Resistencia, said

he used the computers at college mostly “to look for material for one of his classes.”155 And

Yamila, a 20-year-old who was studying to become a teacher in José C. Paz, went online at

school “to do work for the (teaching) institute.”156

Access to media and information-seeking practices

However, access to media and information technologies does not necessarily mean

attention to news. Some young respondents who lived with their parents said they had a

newspaper at home but chose not to read it. Likewise, some older respondents who chose to have

the newspaper delivered at home also did not read it, either. Pablo, a 39 -year-old small-business

owner from Buenos Aires, said he subscribed to La Nación for the benefits of “club la Nación”

(a membership club that awarded subscribers discounts at several stores and services) but “many

weeks, the newspaper goes to the trash can just like the delivery man left it on my doorstep: (…)

folded, new, smelling new, it goes out with the trash.”157 Respondents also buy the newspapers

for a number of reasons: six reported reading primarily the classifieds (either to look for a job,

buy a car or rent a house), and Maite, a 56-year-old lawyer from Buenos Aires, bought the

newspapers for the benefits for subscribers, such as Club La Nación, but also looked at the ads

which detailed promotions in supermarkets.158

Most of the respondents who had access to television said they watched news, at one

point or another of the day, which supports the findings from the survey. The very few who did

not watch television said the main reason was lack of time “I do not have time”, said Ana, a 46-

year-old who worked cleaning houses in Santa Fe. “When I get to bed, I turn on the television


and I fall asleep immediately.”159 Gonzalo, a 27-year-old travelling salesman from José C. Paz,

said he “did not have time” because he was “driving the whole day.”160 In addition, a few chose

not to watch television news because they did not find it believable. Cynthia, a 50-year-old

architect from Buenos Aires, reflected that her work in designing and building a news station had

left her “profoundly disappointed” when she got to know “the kitchen of television news” and

thus “television was not her source of information.”161

For those who did watch television news, early morning was a favorite moment. “I wake

up and I turn on the television news” said Agustín, a 24-year-old employee in the private sector

from Buenos Aires.162 Silvia, the school counselor from José C. Paz, echoed his words, “Well,

what I do is, I wake up and I turn on the news on television.”163 So did Maximiliano, a 30-year-

old small-business owner from Resistencia “I turn on TN (a cable news network) early in the

morning.”164 Thus, television news consumption appears to be for many respondents something

they do while they go on about their daily routine (getting dressed, preparing breakfast) rather

than something they devote their whole attention to. However, a few of the interviewees watched

news or political television news during prime time. One of them was Federico, the news junkie

whose news routine opens this chapter. In the same way behaved Ignacio, a 41-year-old public

relations consultant from Buenos Aires, said “I watch a lot (of TV news) I love it; my wife

makes me watch less than I would want to because she hates that I watch TN (a cable news

station) all day.”165

In contrast, regular access to the internet appeared to be a necessary but not a sufficient

condition for getting news online. Respondents who accessed news online had what Hargittai

calls “autonomous use of internet”, either at home, at work or on their cell phones. For instance,


Rodolfo, a 40-year-old public sector employee from Santa Fe said “every day I read the

newspapers online (at work)...Página/12, Infobae, a little Perfil.”166 Mariana, the assistant from

Buenos Aires, in the final weeks before the election, said she read the news online. “On the

internet, I looked at Clarín, and Página 12. The basic information they published, where (the

candidate) held a rally, how many people attended and the highlights of each speech.”167 But not

all interviewees with autonomous access used it to get news. Marta, a 46-year-old teacher from

José C. Paz said she used her internet connection “for the emails, Google, that kind of thing.”168

Cecilia, a college student from Buenos Aires said “I go online almost every day...not to get news,

but mails... [and] look at Facebook.”169

Lack of interest in getting news in any format was explained by two main reasons: the

first was negative feelings, which led respondents to either avoid news altogether or to avoid

certain topics. Norma, a 51-year-old artist from Buenos Aires, explained in the first wave of

interviews that “news get to me too much...I’d rather watch cultural programming or a

sitcom.”170 Maru, from José C. Paz, said, “News makes you tired: always the same thing:

robbery, car crash, death.”171 Other interviewees sought only sports or entertainment news:

Lorena, from Resistencia, commented that “I cannot stand politics, I change channel because I

cannot tolerate it; when they talk about this or that person and nobody does anything [to change

things].”172 The negative feelings intensified as the campaign progressed for certain respondents.

Norma declined to be interviewed for the third wave by saying “I am sorry but I cannot help you,

politics is not my forte. Besides, it anguishes me.”173 Some respondents explained that the

predictability of the election results made it less likely for them to be interested in news. Silvia,

the school counselor from José C. Paz, said she had not read the newspaper because she “did not


feel like it (...)”; she had “little” interest in the campaign, because she did not “like the president

nor the policies (the president) was implementing.”174 Daniel, the psychologist from Buenos

Aires, said that “since the primaries the election was a foregone conclusion,” which reduced his

interest in the campaign.175

Other respondents, particularly women and the young, tended to link their lack of

attention to news to the cognitive effort needed to make sense of the stories. Estela, a 53-year-old

housewife from Santa Fe, said “I follow politics very little because I do not understand many

things.” Camila, a 22-year-old student from Resistencia, said “there are stories it is very difficult

for me to understand...I don’t understand anything about politics.”176

Those who followed politics, in turn, were motivated either by their personal interest or

by a sense of civic duty. Maximiliano, a small-business owner from Resistencia, said “we have

to know [about politics] because we vote... and bad things happen to us because we vote the

wrong way for not knowing.”177 Even people who did not follow the news felt they should be

more informed. Marcela, a 29-year-old psychologist in Santa Fe, said “you have to know what is

going on. You cannot live in a bubble. I live in a bubble, but I acknowledge it is wrong.”178

Tania, who did not follow news at all, said of her (lack of) news consumption habits “I know it

is wrong because you need to be a little more up to date. Sometimes I am ashamed to say I am

much uninformed.”179

Concluding remarks

This chapter has shown that access to media reproduces social and educational

inequalities that predate diffusion of media and information technologies. People of higher

socioeconomic status, with higher levels of education, and who live in the capital of the country


tend to have higher access to both traditional media and new media. The digital divide mirrors

the analogical divide across most categories except age: younger respondents are more likely to

have internet access at home, at work and on their cellphones, and to get their news online too.

Public and cybercafe access, which some authors present as a viable option to home access, was

significantly more likely for the young and those with higher socioeconomic status.

Television was the most popular source of news across locations before and during the

campaign, followed by print newspapers and the internet, in that order. Access to pay television

did not have a consistent relationship with news watching. The existence of a local newspaper

was positively related to newspaper readership. Moreover, while newspaper readership and

access to online news vary according to socioeconomic status and formal education, even when

controlling for access, attention to television news is not significantly related to any of those

variables. Taken together those patterns suggest that the relationship between sociodemographic

characteristics, access to media and information technologies and their use may vary according

to which media and communication technology is being studied.

Home access to the internet was positively related to going online for news across the

four locations, and was the single most important predictor for attention to news online, over

others types of online access, such as institutional, cybercafé, and cell-phone internet

connections. The association between home access to the internet and attention to online news

also indicates that conditions of access of media and communication technologies may influence

the activities performed online. Interviews with citizens confirm that those with home and work

access felt more comfortable with the technology, and had more time to go online, which led to


higher levels of online news consumption. These findings further challenge the notion that cell

phone or cybercafé connection would democratize internet use.

Access to print newspapers and television in the first wave of the survey, and print

newspapers, television and online news in the second wave of the survey give support to the

complementarity thesis: consumers who choose to attend to news do so across platforms. Thus,

attention to online news does not displace traditional sources of information such as print

newspapers and television. The correlation between different media platforms, as well as

similarity in the factors influencing news consumption suggest that the artificial differentiation

between print, broadcast and online ignores “manifold interpenetration of news consumption

across media.”180

Interviews with citizens in the four locations show that interest in news is directly related

to interest in public affairs and to the belief that there is a civic duty to be informed. Avoidance

of news is linked to the expectation of cognitive effort and negative feelings towards news in

general and politics in particular. The constant level of news consumption six months before the

election and just before Election Day challenge the assumption that normally inattentive

audiences always behave as monitorial citizens during times of heightened political activity.

However, interviews indicate that one plausible reason why attention to news did not increase

significantly was the non-competitive nature of the election. The incumbent president was

certain to win, which made information-based self-preservation strategies181 unnecessary both

for her supporters and detractors.

These findings suggest that the level of information provided does not determine access

to news: a few days before the election, most respondents had not increased the news component


of their media diets. Attention to news appears not to be determined by the quantity of

information provided, as the Full Information182 model proposes, nor to the importance of the

issues being decided, as the Burglar Alarm183 model indicates, but rather to the way citizens

calibrate the usefulness of the information and the effort necessary to obtain and make sense of

it.

Access to media and attention to news is but one component of democratic participation.

While most research has focused on disparities in access and uses of various media and

communication technologies, some authors have called for research that examines what

outcomes are linked with access to various media.184 The next chapter will examine the

relationship between the information environment in the four locations studied, access and

attention to media, and levels of political information.


Figure 2.1

Home Access to the internet by district and socioeconomic status (April 2011)

Figure 2.2

Access to pay television by district and socioeconomic status (April 2011)

0.00%

10.00%

20.00%

30.00%

40.00%

50.00%

60.00%

70.00%

80.00%

90.00%

100.00%

José C Paz (N=400) Resistencia (N=401) Buenos Aires (N=399) Santa Fe l (n=400)

Home internet access Low SES Home internet access Medium SES

Home internet access High SES Home internet access Total

0.00%

10.00%

20.00%

30.00%

40.00%

50.00%

60.00%

70.00%

80.00%

90.00%

100.00%


Pay television at home Low SES Pay television at home Medium SES

Pay television at home High SES Pay television at home Total


Figure 2.3

Home Access to the internet by district and socioeconomic status (October 2011)

Figure 2.4

Access to pay television by district and socioeconomic status (October 2011)

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

José C Paz (N=229) Resistencia (N=389) Buenos Aires (N=177) Santa Fe (n=228)

Low SES Medium SES High SES Total

0.00%

10.00%

20.00%

30.00%

40.00%

50.00%

60.00%

70.00%

80.00%

90.00%

100.00%


Pay television at home Low SES Pay television at home Medium SES

Pay television at home High SES Pay television at home Total


Figure 2.5:

Access to news by district and geographic location

0%

10%20%

30%

40%

50%

60%70%

80%

90%

100%

May October May October May October

Newspaper Television Online

José C Paz Resistencia Buenos Aires Santa Fe


Table 2.1:

Logistical regressions of access to media, on age, sex (Base case =female), socioeconomic status

(base case =high SES), education level (base case =less than high school) and location (base case

=City of Buenos Aires) (reporting percentage change in odds) (* denotes statistical significance

at the <0.05 level) (robust)

N=1600 television Satellite/

cable

Home

Internet

Cybercafe

internet

Institutional

Internet

Work

internet

cellphone

internet

age 2.7* 0.1 -2.1* -1.0* -3.1* -1.7* -3.4*

male -31.5 5.5 45.1* -13.2 6.9 41.9* 14.3

Medium

SES

-57.2 -48.2 -58.5* -58.5* 6.6 -24.6 1.2

Low SES -62.8 -77.0* -90.2* -62.0* -37.4 -66.2* -44.3*

José C. Paz -12.0 -70.8* -86.3* -85.1* -46.9* -51.2* -57.3*

Resistencia -84.7* -37.2* -85.1* -89.6* -6.9 -27.2 -26.4

Santa Fe -33.6 103.3* -22.8* -82.5* 60.8* -43.5* -32.3*

High

School,

some

college

48.4 53.0* 78.8* 46.7* 89.7* 122.4* 33.4

Completed

College or

more

-11.8 73.7* 195.9* 55.9* 97.2* 369.1* 52.7

Pseudo R-

square

0.10 0.15

0.29

0.12

0.10

0.15

0.09


Table 2.2



(base case =low SES), education level (base case =less than high school), and access to media

(reporting percentage change in odds) (* denotes statistical significance at the <0.05 level) in

April 2011 (robust)

N=1600 Print

newspaper

Television

news

Online

News

Age 1.7 * 1.4 * -1.6 *

male 59.6* 15.8 21.3

Medium SES -13.7 -8.3 -33.8

Low SES -34.3 -20 -65.9*

Less than highschool -54.5 * 0.1 -51.2*

High school & some post secondary educ. -24.1 29.5 -21.1

Pay television 34.9* -1.4 -33.4

Home internet 31.2* 10.8 590.9 *

Work internet 40.8* 22.8 83.8 *

Institutional internet 40.8* -13.9 85.3 *

Cybercafe -11 6.3 3.7

Cell phone internet 26.8 49.2 * 42.5 *

Print newspaper 33.7* 13,5

Television News 33.6* 0.7

Online News 9.7 -5.7

Santa Fe -11.3 93.3* 4.7

Resistencia -43.1* ´-74.7 * -13.5

Jose C Paz ´-49.12* -0.8 -1,2

Pseudo R-square 0.13 0.12 0.29


Table 2.3 Logistical regressions of having read a print newspaper, watched news on television or accessed news online during the previous week, on age, sex (Base case =female), socioeconomic status (base case =low SES), education level (base case =less than high school) (reporting percentage change in odds) (* denotes statistical significance at the <0.05 level) in October 2011

N=1023 Print

newspaper

Television

news

Online

News

Age 1.2* 2.5* -0.8

male 41.8* -21.2 3.3

Medium SES -26.8 111.7* 41.5

Low SES -44 75.6 -10.5

Less than highschool -31.9* 42.3 -45.4

High school & post-secondary education -5.5 11.3 -35.6

Pay television 8.8 -6 9.7

Home internet 34.8 24.2 178.4*

Work internet 12.8 14.3 81.3*

Institutional internet 11.1 -16.7 24.4

Cybercafe -13 -2.5 69*

Cell phone internet 36.7* 61.5* 77.7*

Television news 104.6* 70.6*

Online news 22 68.6*

Print newspaper 101.7* 20.5

Santa Fe -10.7 -15.9 -5.6

Resistencia 17 -68.3* 6

Jose C Paz -40* 205* -40.8

Pseudo R-square 0.08 0.15 0.2


Chapter 3:

Do Elections Help Reduce the Knowledge Gap?

Evidence from the Primaries and the General Election in Argentina

INFORMATION INTEREST INDIFFERENCE 67 -Do you remember which public office (chief justice of the Argentina Supreme Court)

Ricardo Lorenzetti holds?

-No, I don´t remember.

-And which party has the most senators in the senate?

-Oh, now you are making me feel like shit.

Ignacio, a 37-year-old Public Relations consultant from Buenos Aires, felt bad about not

being able to answer some questions about public affairs. He was not alone, either in being

unable to identify Lorenzetti´s office, or in feeling ashamed about his lack of information. More

than eight out of ten of survey respondents in the first wave could not identify the Chief Justice,

and more than two thirds could not answer which party held a majority in the senate. In April,

during the second round of interviews, Maximiliano, a small-business owner from Resistencia,

promised that “when you come back in October I will know everything about politics, the

candidates, [and] their policies.” Ana, who cleaned houses for a living in Santa Fe, made a

similar pledge: “I am going to get informed so that I can answer better (next time).” Others

attributed their lack of information to lack of interest in politics. Tania, a college student from

Santa Fe, commented “I don´t retain facts because I am not interested in politics.”

These accounts highlight the various relationships citizens have with the acquisition of

information about public affairs matters. Some voters are not interested and pay no attention to

these matters; others are not that interested but pay attention during important events, such as a

presidential campaign; and a minority follows politics closely all the time This chapter uses a

mixed-methods strategy to explore how the political context and the media environment interact

with the personal motivations that drive the level of political awareness at different times of the


political cycle. Drawing on a panel survey I examine what people knew before the start of a

presidential campaign and a few days before the election. Then I rely on a content analysis of

news media to look at what stories the media provided before and throughout the campaign

cycle. Finally, I analyzed the interviews to provide insight into how people make sense both of

the news and of their own level of political information.

The survey shows slight increases in political information from April 2011, before the

campaign started, to October 2011, a few days before the election. The content analysis of news

sites from different locations and a national cable news station indicates that the amount of

public affairs coverage did not increase significantly just before the October presidential election

at the seven sites examined. However, there had been a peak in coverage of public affairs news

in general and campaign stories in particular two months prior to the election due to the

compulsory presidential primaries on August 14 2011. At the height of the campaign,

demographic factors such as age, education and socioeconomic status diminished as predictors of

political knowledge. But attention to news through various media continued to be significantly

related to levels of information. These patterns suggest that elections, rather than media coverage

per se, motivate citizens to pay more attention to their political environment. The interviews

indicate that aversion to political information is explained, at least partly, by negative affect

towards politics, while attention to public affairs news is driven by feelings of self-preservation –

the perceived need to know about politics to navigate a potentially changing environment. This

explains why the primaries -- which had unknown results-- probably attracted public attention,

and thus increased levels of political information, to a greater extent than the general election,

whose result was completely predictable by the outcome of the primaries.

INFORMATION INTEREST INDIFFERENCE 69 In this chapter I propose that political knowledge is influenced by the socio-political

context, in addition to individual characteristics, such as interest and motivations. Those attentive

to news acquired more information than those who did not pay attention. During the campaign,

the least educated benefitted more from media consumption than those with higher levels of

formal instruction. The findings from this chapter contribute to the understanding of two issues

connected to news media and knowledge acquisition: the knowledge gap theory and the

relationship between flows of information during a campaign and levels political knowledge.

Information and Democracy

Studies on media use and political information acquisition and are grounded on the idea

that equal access to information is an essential component of democracy.185 Price notes that

“Underlying the assumptions of an ideal democracy is a well-informed citizenry.”186 Research

has found that individuals with higher levels of political knowledge are more likely to participate

in political affairs,187 because knowledge about the processes of government and political issues

assists citizens “in effectively expressing these views through political participation.”188 In turn,

participation has been linked to the stability and legitimacy of a democratic regime.189

Political knowledge is understood as “the range of factual information about politics that is

stored in long-term memory,”190 and comprises a general familiarity with the institutions and

processes of elections and governance; the major domestic and international issues of the day,

and the performances and attributes of candidates, public officials and the political parties.

Political information and political knowledge will be used in this chapter to refer to the same

concept, as both terms come close to conceptual interchangeability, because “political

information is at its root knowledge.”191 Some scholar propose that, as knowledge in one


domain of politics tends to be highly correlated with knowledge in others,192 political knowledge

can be measured through a simple, one-dimensional index of factual information about

politics.193 This index should comprise opinion placement of parties and candidates (if their

positions are clear and public), identification of prominent political figures, and questions about

governmental structures and processes.

Although research has shown that political information is linked to news media

consumption,194 the strength of the association between different types of media consumption

(print, radio, television, and online) and knowledge acquisition is a contested issue.195 Some

studies have found that print newspapers readers learn more than television audiences196 or

online news users,197 while others propose that the relationship between media and political

information acquisition is mediated by citizens´ characteristics and motivations. For instance,

some authors propose that internet access fosters political knowledge only among those already

engaged in the political process.198 Poindexter and McCombs conducted a survey and found that

“adults who scored high on the civic duty to keep informed were more likely than those who

scored low to read national news and presidential election news on the internet”.199 Yet other

scholars highlight the influence of the social environment on media consumption, information

acquisition and preference formation.200 Research has shown that during times of heightened

political activity, such as the final months of a presidential campaign or a political crisis, increase

citizens attention to public events201 which might lead to higher levels of political information.202

Iyengar and Simon propose that “campaigns are information-rich events (…) that educate

citizens.”203

INFORMATION INTEREST INDIFFERENCE 71 Some scholars have drawn upon the knowledge gap theory,204 which proposes that

“infusions of information into society have an uneven effect on citizen knowledge,” as “those

who have attained a higher level of formal education show greater gains than those with fewer

years of formal schooling.”205 For instance, Kim has examined media consumption and political

knowledge in South Korea and found that access to online news increased the gap in political

knowledge between social classes, and suggested that “informational use of the Internet requires

cognitive skills and literacy that may impede the less educated from learning a great deal.”206

However, other researchers propose that the relationship between media consumption and

differentials in knowledge acquisition varies according to level of attention to media207 and

political context.208

To explore the interplay between the political context, media environment, attention to

the campaign and political knowledge, this chapter draws on data from the survey and interviews

described in chapter 2. Moreover, in order to examine the news environment, a content analysis

of online news sites was conducted. Eight sites were examined: the counterparts of two

newspapers from the city of Buenos Aires, Clarín and La Nación; two from the city of Santa Fe,

El Litoral and Uno; the online edition of the only Resistencia daily, Norte, a local online news

site from Resistencia, DataChaco, and the site of a national cable news network, Todo Noticias

(TN).209 The selection of cases aimed at capturing the news environment in each of the locations

studied. (José C. Paz did not have a daily or even weekly newspaper, local television station, or

regularly updated online news site. This lack of autochthonous news sources is suggestive in

itself, but interviews indicate that respondents who kept up to date with the news did so through

Buenos-Aires-based media.) However, participants from Santa Fe and Resistencia indicated that


although they read local newspapers and news sites, they preferred to watch national television

newscasts. Thus, although TN is produced in Buenos Aires, it is a proxy of national television

news.

Data were collected on 160 randomly selected days during 13 months—approximately 12

days for each month—from 10 November 2010 to December 3 2011, from Monday to Sunday.

On each data collection day, the author retrieved data at 10:00 a.m. U.S. Central Time, which

was 2:00 p.m. in Argentina and part of the most intense period of site usage during the work

week.210 For each of these days, the top ten stories that the journalists chose to display most

prominently on the site were collected. They consist of each homepage’s first ten stories

counting from left to right and from the top down in a grid-like manner. The most read stories in

made publicly available by each of these sites were also collected.211 The analysis focuses on

these stories because, from the universe of possible stories, they are deemed most relevant by

journalists and garner most attention from consumers and thus represent a suitable approximation

of the news environment and of consumers´ preferences, respectively. Online stories were

defined as text-based packages that included a headline; a story might, but need not, have multi-

media features or links to related stories. This chapter examines 10,026 stories from the

homepage and 8,053 from the most read lists.212

The unit of analysis was the story. Three variables were coded: news choice, story

content, and campaign information. Variable and category definitions are as follows:

1. News choice. There are two categories:

(a) Homepage, the top ten stories that appeared on the homepage of each site.

(b) Most read, the top ten stories in the “most read” lists of each site.

INFORMATION INTEREST INDIFFERENCE 73 2. Story content. The main topic addressed in the story. There are two categories:

(a) Public affairs stories, dealing with news about politics, government, economics,

business, and international affairs. This includes stories about the activity of government, elected

officials, political candidates; the economy and business developments; and, events, happening

in other countries, about the state or international organizations.

(b) Nonpublic affairs stories, addressing subjects such as sports, crime, entertainment,

technology, and weather. This includes stories about sports teams and events; criminal activity;

visual and performing arts, and literature; medical, scientific and technological matters; and

routine and non-routine weather information.

3. Campaign information. Whether the story addresses campaign information. There are

two categories:

a) Campaign stories, this includes articles that mention an actual or potential candidate to

any office to be elected in 2011, poll results, political advertising, candidate debates, election day

organization, candidate rallies, speeches, and so on.

b) Non-campaign stories, this includes all topics that did not mention campaign issues.

The author and a trained research assistant coded the stories. Intercoder agreement was

assessed on a subset of 4% of the data. For the story content variable, intercoder agreement was

92%, and Cohen’s Kappa was .82. For the campaign information variable, intercoder agreement

was 98% and Cohen´s Kappa was .76.213 Disagreements were solved consensually. The author

coded the remainder of the stories.214

Political Information

INFORMATION INTEREST INDIFFERENCE 74 In April 2011, six months before the presidential election, levels of political knowledge

were fairly low: on average, respondents could only answer correctly two out of five factual

political questions.215 Respondents who had completed college answered correctly almost 2

questions, compared to fewer than two correct answers from participants with less than a high

school education (Figure 3.1). However, the greatest differences in political information were

across different locations. Respondents from Buenos Aires could answer correctly 3.37 questions

on average, compared to 1.93 in Resistencia, 1.76 in Santa Fe, and 1.27 in José C. Paz. The

differences across educational groups were consistent and significant in the four locations:

college graduates had higher levels of information than high school graduates and people with

less than a high school education. However, due to inter-district variation, participants with less

than a high school education in Buenos Aires could answer correctly more items, on average

(2.79) than college graduates in the three other locations.

Six months later, at the height of the campaign, participants could, on average,

answer 3.5 questions correctly.216 Although there were differences across education levels and

locations, they were less marked than previously: respondents who had completed college

answered correctly 4 items, compared to 3 correct answers from participants with less than a

high school education (Figure 3.2). The difference across districts was also reduced: respondents

from Buenos Aires could answer correctly 3.90 questions on average, compared to 3.73 in

Resistencia, 3.66 in Santa Fe, and 3.02 in José C. Paz. What did happen between the first and the

second wave of the survey? The campaign for the primaries, the primary election, and the

campaign for the general election. The interviews and content analysis suggest that both citizens


and the media increased their attention to public affairs news in general and campaign stories in

particular, not right before the general election, but during the primary campaign.

Access to news and political knowledge

The first wave of the survey shows that sociodemographic characteristics were

significantly related to level of political knowledge, and explained 37% of its variance:

respondents who had higher levels of education, higher socio-economic status, and were from

Buenos Aires were more likely to have answered correctly more of the questions (Table 3.1).

These factors remained significant when including news media consumption practices as

independent variables, although most of the coefficients were slightly reduced, and the

differences between high SES and medium SES respondents ceased to be significant. Media

consumption practices explained 2 extra percentage points of the variance in political

knowledge: respondents who had listened to news radio, read a print newspaper or accessed

online news during the previous week got right, on average a quarter of a question more than the

other participants. Respondents with higher levels of education appeared to gain more

knowledge from news media: among respondents who had finished college, having accessed

online news the previous week increased the probabilities of answering questions correctly more

than among respondents who had some college education or who had not finished high

school(Figure 3.3).

Six months later, at the height of the election campaign, the relationship between

sociodemographic factors such as age and gender and political information was no longer

significant, except for age and education (those respondents who had not finished high school

had lower levels of information). Predictably, higher levels of information in wave 1 were related


to higher levels of information in wave 2, explaining four percentage points more in the variance

(Model 2). So was interest in the campaign: those with “a lot of interest in the campaign” could

answer on average half a question more than those with no interest in the campaign, when

controlling for other factors (Model 3). Regarding media consumption practices, having listened

to radio news, watched television news or accessed news explains 3 percentage points of the

variance in political information levels (Model 4). In contrast, neither having watched political

ads nor having received information from a political party increased levels of information.217

Contrary to what happened before the campaign, just before Election Day respondents

with lowers levels of education benefitted more from news media consumption than more

educated participants: on average, the odds of a respondent with less than a high school

education answering the questions correctly if he had accessed online or broadcast news

increased more than for those with some college or a college degree (Figure 3.4). These results

suggest the flow of information during an election campaign may contribute to a temporary

reduction in the knowledge gap. Before the campaign, there were stark differences in levels of

political information across locations and socio-economic status. Although news consumption

increased the levels of political knowledge, it did more so for the more educated respondents. At

the height of the campaign, differences across socioeconomic groups had diminished, and

attention to news actually reduced the knowledge gap. Although the evidence from Chapter 2

indicates that news consumption did not increase significantly the weeks prior to the general

election, the content offered by news media might have changed, thus increasing levels of

political information among the citizenry. The examination of the media environment during the


year previous to the general election allows this chapter to explore levels of political information

offered by news outlets before and throughout the campaign.

Media environment

Did the media environment contribute to the increase in the level of political information

among the population? An analysis of the homepages and the most read stories suggests it did,

although not in a straightforward fashion. The proportion of public affairs and campaign-related

information did not increase monotonically as Election Day approached, but rather got a boost in

July and August, before the primaries, and then decreased slightly. This might be explained by

the fragmentation of the electoral offer in the opposition to the incumbent, and the lack of

institutionalization of political parties218: the ten presidential candidates ran unopposed within

their parties. The incumbent, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, obtained just over 50% of all the

votes, and none of the others formulas got more than 13% of the votes.219 Thus, the primary

results were interpreted by the media, the politicians and the citizens as a forecast of the general

election outcome. Any gains in information from media consumption may be explained by

constant attention to media during the primaries and the campaign, rather than by last-minute

learning just before Election Day. Although there were no survey waves or in-depth interviews

just before the primaries,220 the content analysis provides a window into the preferences of news

media and audiences throughout the year before Election Day.

This evolution can be visualized by comparing the patterns shown in figures 3.5 and 3.6,

which track the percentage of public affairs news on the homepage and on the most read list

choices, from month 1 (a year before Election Day, starting November 2010) to month 13

(approximately a month after Election Day, ending on December 3 2011).

INFORMATION INTEREST INDIFFERENCE 78 Although there are differences in the percentage of public affairs published on the

homepage each of the seven media outlets examined, there are also some similarities in the

evolution of media coverage (Figure 3.5). Nación and the two media outlets from Resistencia

(Norte and DataChaco) had the highest proportion of public affairs coverage, followed by Clarín

and TN, while Litoral and Uno, from Santa Fe, had the lowest levels of public affairs coverage.

However, across all sites, public affairs coverage tends to peak in July and August 2011, the

weeks before the primary election.221The odds of a story placed prominently on the homepage

being about public affairs increased 59% and 62% in July and August 2011, and 40% in October

2011, the month of the election, compared to January of that year (Table 3.3). These trends are

confirmed when examining the stories that covered the campaign: there were a higher percentage

of articles about the campaign on the seven sites examined in July and August 2011 than in the

month of the election, October (Figure 3.7). Moreover, the odds of a story placed prominently on

the homepage being about the campaign increased 236% and 177% in July and August, and

160% in October 2011, also compared to January of 2011 (Table 3.3).

How did the public of these sites respond to political information throughout the

campaign? Although audiences’ level of preference showed much greater variation across the

same sites,222 the percentage of public affairs stories on the most read lists also appears to peak in

July and August. (The only exception being Nación, the only site where the percentage of public

affairs stories among the most often selected by the consumers was highest in October 2011.)

The odds of a story in the most read list being about public affairs increased 67% and 99% in

July and August, compared to 60% during the final month of the campaign (Table 3.3). An

examination of the most read lists confirms lower interest in political stories in October than in


July and August (Figure 3.8). The odds of a story being about the campaign also increased more

in July and August than during the month of the Election (Table 3.3).223

These patterns are confirmed by a comparison of the homepage and the most read stories

on Clarín the day after the primaries (August 15 2011) and the day after the general election

(October 24 2011). The day after the primaries, journalists prioritized political information: all

the stories on the homepage were about campaign topics (framed in green in Figure 3.1). From

the top of the page down and from left to right, the most prominently displayed story detailed

incumbent Cristina Fernández de Kirchner´s press conference after the election. The other

articles were also about the primaries, including the congratulatory call the incumbent received

from the mayor of Buenos Aires (from a different party), celebrities´ voting, an interactive map

of election returns, and analysis of the results from Clarín columnists. News consumers on

Clarín also appeared to be interested in the campaign: nine of the top ten most clicked stories

were about the primaries (Figure 3.2). The most read item featured celebrities arriving at the

polling stations, the second most read examined the role the incumbent’s daughter played in the

celebrations, and the third one summarized the celebrations.

Ten weeks later, the day after the presidential election, all the top stories on the

homepage were also about politics, in general, and the election, in particular (Figure 3.3). The

most prominently displayed article focused on the high percentage of votes obtained by the

incumbent “the highest since the return of democracy,” described the events of the previous day

as “historical,” and highlighted that election results guaranteed a majority for the incumbent´s

party both in the Senate and in the Chamber of Deputies. The homepage also included articles


about the election in some provinces (Buenos Aires and Santa Fe), analyses by the editors, and

an interactive map of election results.

Although the presidential election held on October 23 had arguably been more decisive

for the fate of Argentina than the primaries held two months earlier, news consumers appeared to

be less interested in election returns (Figure 3.4). On the ten most read articles, only five were

about the election: a story describing election results, another about how celebrities voted, and

articles about election returns in the city of Buenos Aires, Fernández de Kirchner´s celebration,

and the results of the gubernatorial elections. Half of the most clicked stories were not related to

the campaign or even to public affairs in general: the second most read item was about

Argentina´s ranking in the Pan-American Games, and the other four were about crime, the

Spanish soccer league, the death of an Italian pilot, and an Argentinian model in London.

Clarín consumers were not the only ones who became less interested in campaign topics

after the primaries.224 While journalists at all news outlets chose to display prominently

campaign news both after the primaries and the presidential election, news consumers did not

appear to follow them with the same level of attention. On Litoral, from the city of Santa Fe, on

the day after the primaries, four out of the ten most clicked articles were about the election

(Figure 3.5), For instance, the top most read item described the behavior at a polling station were

former president Carlos Menem had voted, and the third most read article was about the election

returns and how they increased the incumbent’s chance to get reelected. The day after the

presidential election, in contrast, only two out of the top ten most red stories were about the

campaign or about public affairs (Figure 3.6): the third most read article examined results in all


provinces, and the fourth most clicked item was a short story about a polling station official who

had died during Election Day.

Three hundred miles to the north, in Resistencia, the same pattern is noticeable on news

site Data Chaco. The day after the primaries, all the most read stories were about public affairs

in general and the election in particular: the top most clicked article featured an analysis of the

election by a local politician, and the tenth most read story covered the president’s speech after

the results were made public (Figure 3.7). More than two months later, seven out of the top ten

most read articles were about politics: the second and fourth most clicked items, for instance,

were about a car crash and two Spanish musicians touring Resistencia the next year, respectively

(Figure 3.8).Thus, on news outlets from three cities, with different readerships, interest in the

campaign was stronger the day after the primaries than the day after the presidential election.

The evolution of campaign coverage and interest in political news throughout the

electoral cycle suggest that, the media environment and citizen response to it changed from the

primaries to the election. From July onwards, the news media increased their coverage of

politics, and the level of attention to campaign news augmented, at least temporarily. Interest in

the campaign may have waned after the primaries appeared to predict the presidential election

results. Interviews with citizens from the four locations suggest that, for some of them, the focal

point of the campaign cycle was the primaries, but others maintained their level of attention until

October.

Political Information: I don´t care, I hate it

Interviews with citizens from Ciudad de Buenos Aires, José C. Paz, Resistencia and

Santa Fe confirm findings from the survey and the content analysis and provide insight into the


interpretive and experiential factors associated with the acquisition of political information, or

lack thereof. As described in the introduction to this chapter, in November-December 2010, only

9 out of 46 interviewees could identify Chief Justice Ricardo Lorenzetti, 12 knew how long

senators´ terms were, and 14 could answer correctly which party had the most seats at the Senate.

Some participants reacted with embarrassment. For instance, Daniel, a 37-year-old-

psychoanalyst from Buenos Aires, said “you probably think I don´t give a shit about

anything,”225 and Norma, a 51-year-old artist from Buenos Aires, said “I´m very

ignorant…please don´t write down that I am fifty years old.”226 However, others reaffirmed their

lack of interest in politics: Fernando, a 21-year-old college student from Santa Fe noted that “I

don´t know and I don´t care…because getting informed about that is like getting informed about

who plays soccer in Spain, [it is] information that doesn´t contribute anything to my life.”227

Carlos, a 58 –year-old public employee from Resistencia, cut short the interview by saying

“politics, you are asking me about politics, I don´t care.”228

Younger and less educated respondents tended to have negative feeling towards politics,

which were related to less or not attention to news media, and to lower levels of information

Yamila, a 22-year-old college student from José C. Paz, explained “In truth, I don´t care about

politics…all the politicians say what they will do and then they don´t (fulfill their promises), and

you still have to go out every day and do your job; things don´t change, you have to get on with

your life.”229 Omar, a 48-year-old small-business owner from Resistencia thought politicians

were untrustworthy and corrupt: “I am disgusted by politics, [and] thinking about the ways

politicians talk. (…) Obviously whoever gets into politics solves his financial situation (se para

para todo el viaje) and forgets those who voted for him. That happens every time.”230

INFORMATION INTEREST INDIFFERENCE 83 Respondents more interested in politics tended to be older and better educated, and they

followed news closely both before and during the campaign. They cited either self-preservation

or the civic duty to be informed as a reason to follow public affairs news in general and

campaign stories in particular. Marta, a 46-year-old teacher from José C. Paz, explained “I don’t

like those who say ‘oh, I don’t watch the news.’ You have to know where you stand, because

when everything blows up you have to know which way to run.”231 Agustín, a 24-year-old

employee in a private company from Buenos Aires, said “politics is not complicated, but if you

don’t give a shit you will never understand.”232 The less attentive citizens also evoked the civic

duty to be informed. Camila, a college student from Resistencia, explained “I don’t know, but I

should acquire information (...) because being informed is a responsibility of all citizens; then we

complain but we are the ones who vote, so we should think about that before.”233 Like other

respondents, she promised she would be more knowledgeable for the next interview, and like

other respondents, she did not fulfill that promise “The truth is that I don’t have any time, or yes,

I have time, but I don’t use to watch the news.”234

Political information during a campaign year

Lack of information was also evident during the second wave of the interviews. In April

and May of 2011 almost none of the interviewees knew that there would be compulsory

primaries, and much less could pinpoint their exact date, although it had been publicly

announced in January of that year. Cecilia, a college student from Buenos Aires, said “I don´t

know what (the primaries) are.”235 Maite, a 56-year-old lawyer from Buenos Aires said she

wasn´t going to vote because they were “not compulsory.”236 Rodolfo, a 40-year-old public

employee from Santa Fe said “I have no idea…July? August?”237 Compulsory simultaneous


primaries for presidential candidates were held for the first time in 2011, and the official

campaign, including television and radio advertisements, did not start until halfway through that

year.238

However, in the last wave of interviews, an enormous majority of the participants said

they had voted in the primaries239 and all of them knew which party had received the most votes.

Carlos, a 39-year-old-lawyer from Santa Fe said “I was more interested, or worried, before the

primaries, because I wanted to see how people would react to the situation and the

candidates.”240 José, a 28-year old student from Buenos Aires, said “Before the primaries I was

more interested, because the results were not clear (...) if you play a soccer match, and you know

you will win 3-0, there is no fun in playing.”241

Like José, many respondents linked lack of attention to the predictability of results after

the primary election. Gastón, a 33-year-old small-business owner from José C. Paz explained a

week before Election Day: “The election is already defined, Cristina (Fernández de Kirchner)

will win and she will keep on doing the same.”242 Ignacio, the public relations consultant from

Buenos Aires, expressed his anger both at the primaries and at the expected election results “I

don´t care because this bitch (the incumbent) will win. I´ve considered not voting for the first

time in my life… the results are already known, this primaries law was a trap to ensnare

everybody… How could the politicians, the people, be fooled by these primaries? They didn´t

make any sense (…) Like everything in life, while there´s hope there´s interest, the day you lose

hope you stop being interested.”243

Although none of the interviewees disputed that Fernández de Kirchner would probably

win the election, some continued to pay attention to the electoral process. For instance, Agustín,


from Buenos Aires, said “I am very interested…but the results are already in…The only question

is how many votes she will get over the runner-up… But if someone is not very involved in

politics, he only thinks that the president will win and that´s it.”244 Others were interested

because they wanted to make sure Fernandez would win, such as Norma, a 45-year-old

community organizer from Resistencia, who explained “I have a personal interest because I like

what Cristina is doing (...) That’s why we are very interested in her winning, and she will win, of

course.”245

As discussed in the previous chapter, news media consumption habits did not

change across waves of the survey. However, in the last wave of the interviews, a few weeks

before Election Day, some respondents remarked, not all of them favorably, on the increase of

campaign-related information on all media,. Jorge, a lawyer from Resistencia, complained “the

media are swamped with campaign information, not only newspapers, but also television and

radio.”246 Virginia, a secretary from Santa Fe, used the same verb “they swamp you with

information...they over-inform you.”247 Yet other respondents noticed a drop in the level of

campaign coverage since the primaries, as Pablo, the retired teacher from Jose C. Paz, who said

“now even political talk shows are dealing with car accidents, because it is no use, interviewing a

politician who has already lost.”248

Concluding remarks

This chapter has examined the relationship between political information, news media

consumption, and the evolution of the media environment before and during the 2011

presidential campaign in Argentina. The two waves of the survey indicate that there was a small

but significant relationship between news media consumption and levels of public affairs


knowledge. This happens even when controlling for demographic characteristics in the first

wave, and for, interest in the campaign, attention to political advertising, and having voted in the

primaries just before the election. Although the relationship between different media and level of

political information varied when comparing before and during the campaign, online news

consumption was positively and significantly related to political information in both waves. This

suggests that, although online news attention is not a widely distributed practice (as discussed in

chapter 2), those who do go online for news are likely to increase their level of political

information.

The in-depth interviews show that two affective factors influence the level of interest in

politics: negative affect towards public affairs, which drives citizens away from political news,

and self-preservation, which leads respondents to media consumption, and potentially, increased

knowledge. Moreover, analysis of survey results indicate that, although there is evidence of a

knowledge gap before the campaign began, with the more educated respondents obtaining more

gains from attention to media than less educated citizens. However, this relationship is reversed

at the height of the campaign, during which media consumers with fewer years of education

benefit slightly more from following the news in various formats. These findings suggest that the

increase in campaign related information may close the knowledge gap.249 This resonates with

Zaller’s findings about cross-cutting effects of the media: high attention citizens respond to less

loud messages, while middle-attention citizens react to high-volume messages, such as the

campaign.250 The reduction of the knowledge gap may also be explained by citizens “catching

up” with their more informed peers during the election, due to both feelings of civic duty to be

informed and preservation of the self in uncertain times.251 The variability of interest in political


news by news consumers provides support for this interpretation. While a small niche of the

audience follows politics at all times, a larger group only becomes interested in those topics at

times of heightened political activity

This in turn is related to the analysis of the flow of information the year prior to the

presidential election. Although previous scholarship indicates that coverage and interest increase

monotonically towards Election Day,252 the August 2011 primaries in Argentina, in which all

candidates ran unopposed within their parties, served as a virtual prediction of the presidential

election results. Thus, the primaries somewhat discouraged both attention and coverage to the

campaign 10 weeks before the polls. Although no waves of either the survey or the in-depth

interviews took place just before or after the primary, content analysis of news media supply and

audiences’ demands during that period indicate a greater infusion of information and increased

levels of interest among the citizenry. Primary campaigns may also provide opportunities to

acquire political information,253 and given that political information is defined as the range of

factual information about politics that is stored in long-term memory,254 gains in political

knowledge from the primaries may well be carried on to the General Election.

Despite the positive relationship between news media consumption and public affairs

knowledge, there is some risk that media fulfill a narcotizing dysfunction, by which large masses

of the population “mistak(e) knowing problems of the day for doing something about them”255

The next chapter will examine the relationship between access to media, attention to news,

political information and political engagement.


Figure 3.1


education level, in April 2011 (N=1600)

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.07)

som

e co

llege

(SD

=1.0

9)

Com

plet

ed c

olle

ge (S

D =

1.3

2)

less

than

HS

(SD

= 1

.23)

som

e co

llege

(SD

=1.4

5)

Com

plet

ed c

olle

ge (S

D =

1.4

7)

Buenos Aires Santa Fe José C Paz Resistencia Total


Figure 3.2


education level, in October 2011 (N=1023)

00.5

11.5

2

2.53

3.54

4.55

less

than

HS

(SD

=1.

17)

som

e co

llege

(SD

=1.1

9)

Com

plet

ed c

olle

ge (S

D =

0.5

9)

less

than

HS

(SD

=1.

50)

som

e co

llege

(SD

=1.0

5)

Com

plet

ed c

olle

ge (S

D =

0.63

)

less

than

HS

(SD

= 1.

46)

som

e co

llege

(SD

=1.

68)

com

plet

ed co

llege

(SD

= 1.

40)

less

than

HS

(SD

= 1

.24)

som

e co

llege

(SD

=0.9

7)

Com

plet

ed c

olle

ge (S

D =

0.8

6)

less

than

HS

(SD

= 1

.41)

som

e co

llege

(SD

=1.1

5)

Com

plet

ed c

olle

ge (S

D =

0.8

1)

Buenos Aires Santa Fe José C Paz Resistencia Total


Table 3.1


case =high SES), education level (base case =completed college), and news media consumption

(* denotes statistical significance at the <0.05 level) in April 2011 (robust)

N=1600 Model 1 Model 2

AGE 0.01* 0.01*

Male 0.25* 0.21*

Medium SES -0.30* -0.25

Low SES -0.75* -0.61*

Less Than High School -0.65* -0.53*

Some college -0.26* -0.21*

Santa Fe -1.48* -1.50*

José C. Paz -1.59* -1.48*

Resistencia -1.18* -1.10*

TV news 0.12

Radio news 0.27*

Cell Phone news 0.11

Print newspaper 0.21*

Online News 0.23*

R2 0.37 0.39


Figure 3.3


level of education and news consumption the previous week,

based in ordered logit regression, holding all other factors at mean value (April 2011)

0.00%

0.50%

1.00%

1.50%

2.00%

2.50%

3.00%

3.50%

Less than high school

High School + Some college

College + postgraduate

TV news

Radio News

Print News

Online News

Cell Phone News


Table 3.2


case =high SES), education level (base case =completed college), Information in wave 1 and

news media consumption (* denotes statistical significance at the <0.05 level) in October 2011

(robust)

N=1023 Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5

AGE 0.01* 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

Male 0.06 0.01 0.03 0.00 -0.01

Medium SES -0.14 -0.06 -0.04 -0.14 -0.16

Low SES -0.32* -0.15 -0.12 -0.13 -0.15

Less Than High School -0.50* -0.34* -0.31* -0.27* -0.28*

Some college -0.18 -0.11 -0.07 -0.05 -0.06

Santa Fe -0.16 0.15 0.15 0.14 0.06

José C. Paz -0.53* -0.17 -0.19 -0.21 0.21

Resistencia -0.01 0.26* 0.37* 0.33* -0.27

Information on wave 1 0.22* 0.21* 0.19* 0.18*

a lot of interest 0.49* 0.51* 0.42*

Some interest 0.27* 0.31* 0.20

a little interest 0.02 0.03* -0.03

TV news 0.31* 0.26*

Radio news 0.25 0.24*

Cell Phone news 0.03 0.02

Print newspaper -0.03 -0.05

Online News 0.22* 0.19*

Political advertising 0.11

Contact by political party 0.12

Voted primaries 0.52*

R2 0.10 0.14 0.17 0.20 0.22


Figure 3.4


level of education and news consumption the previous week

based in ordered logit regression, holding all other factors at mean value (October 2011)

0.00%

0.50%

1.00%

1.50%

2.00%

2.50%

3.00%

3.50%

Less than high school

High School + Some college

College + postgraduate

TV news

Radio News

Print News

Online News

Cell Phone News


Figure 3.5

Percentage of public affairs stories on the on the homepage of Clarín, Nación, TN, Litoral,

Diario Uno, Norte and Data Chaco November 10 2010 to December 3, 2011, by site and by

Month

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

Clarín Homepage La Nación Homepage TN Homepage

Litoral Homepage Uno Homepage Norte Homepage

Data Chaco Homepage


Figure 3.6

Percentage of public affairs stories on the on the most read list of Clarín, Nación, TN, Litoral,

Diario Uno and Data Chaco November 10 2010 to December 3, 2011, by site and by Month

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

Clarín consumers La Nación consumers TN consumers

Litoral Consumers Uno Consumers Data Chaco Consumers


Figure 3.7

Percentage of campaign stories on the on the homepage of Clarín, Nación, TN, Litoral, Diario

Uno, Norte and Data Chaco November 10 2010 to December 3, 2011, by site and by Month

0.00%

10.00%

20.00%

30.00%

40.00%

50.00%

60.00%

Clarín Homepage La Nación Homepage TN Homepage

Litoral Homepage Uno Homepage Norte Homepage

Data Chaco Homepage


Figure 3.8

Percentage of campaign stories on the on the most read list of Clarín, Nación, TN, Litoral, Diario

Uno, Norte and Data Chaco November 10 2010 to December 3, 2011, by site and by Month

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

45%

50%

Clarín consumers La Nación consumers TN consumers

Litoral Consumers Uno Consumers Data Chaco Consumers


Table 3.3:

Percentage change in odds of a story being about public affairs in general, or campaign-related in

particular, by site (base case: Clarín) and month (base case: January 2011), based on fixed effects

logit regression (* denotes statistical significance at the <0.05 level)

Homepage-

Public affairs

Most Read-

Public Affairs

Homepage-

campaign

Most Read-

Campaign

Nacion 204.7* 211.6* 120.6* 287.2*

TN 38.8* -5.7 22.3 -12.3

Norte 164.8* -7.4

Data Chaco 280.6* 374.3* 56.8* 181*

Litoral -25.1* -17.4* -50* -31.6*

Uno -57.9* -84.9* -37.3* -65.9*

Feb-11 20.6 49.9* -25.5 46

Mar-11 41.6 111.1* 36 129.7*

Apr-11 33* 57* 60.4* 110.8*

May-11 24.3 31.5* 39.8* 83.9*

Jun-11 18.4 86.2* 59.9* 102.2*

Jul-11 58.5* 66.9* 236.4* 334.8*

Aug-11 62.3* 98.8* 177.1* 439.3*

Sep-11 -0.9 1.1 17.5 82.7*

Oct-11 40* 60.2* 160* 289.5*

Nov-11 1.6 34.2* -93.7* -95.9*


Figure 3.9 Homepage of Clarín on October 24, 2011

Stories framed in green are about the campaign


Figure 3.10.

Top ten most viewed stories on Clarín on October 24, 2011



Figure 3.11. Homepage of Clarín on August 15, 2011



Figure 3.12.

Top ten most viewed stories on Clarín on August 15, 2011



Figure 3.13.

Top ten most viewed stories on Litoral on August 15, 2011



Figure 3.14

Top ten most viewed stories on Litoral on October 24, 2011



Figure 3.15

Top ten most viewed stories on Data Chaco on August 15, 2011



Figure 3.16

Top ten most viewed stories on Data Chaco on October 24, 2011



Chapter 4:

Between the Spiral of Silence and the Spiral of Cynicism:

Unequal Distribution of Political Participation during the 2011 Campaign


In December 2010, almost a year before the presidential election, Agustín, a 24- year-old private

sector employee from Ciudad de Buenos Aires, was very enthusiastic about participating in

politics. “I am about to join the ranks of La Cámpora (a Kirchnerist political group). I like many

things about the government, I detest many others, but I believe it is the best administration of

the last 50 years.”256 However, that enthusiasm was short-lived. By April the following year, he

had abandoned the idea of actively participating in politics. "That lasted for a short time. I

approached the party, but - withdrew a few weeks later. They were not the party I was looking

for: I was looking for a space that allowed different points of view, and I found out they were not

like that at all. Apart from that, I don't have time to... One thing is to meet for an hour, an hour

and a half...but they get together, drink mate, start painting flags... I did not feel inclined to

stay.”257 The two reasons Agustín gave not to participate in politics (absence of correspondence

between the party and political ideas, and lack of time) were repeated by many of the citizens

interviewed for this research. With some exceptions, most of the respondents did not participate

actively in politics, and they did not increase their engagement during the campaign.

This chapter examines three dimensions of participation: political voice (expression of

views on public issues, such as contacting officials, contacting media, or discussing politics),

political participation (activities aimed at influencing government action, such as voting or

attending an candidate’s rally), and civic participation (voluntary activities focused on problem

solving and helping others, which include active membership in a non-electoral group or

association).258 Civic and political participation and expression did not increase during the

campaign. Although citizens were, on the whole, more knowledgeable of politics, this did not

lead to higher levels of participation. Respondents who followed news on print, radio, and the


internet were more likely to participate, either in politics or in civic society, or by expressing

their views. The relationship between online news, political expression ad civic participation

suggests that online networks are not a distraction but rather a stepping stone to political

participation.

In the interviews, in addition to lack of time and other resources, respondents also cited

the perception that participation would not change anything, a notion that entails a reduced sense

of external efficacy.259 The idea that discussing politics could cause fights or misrepresent the

speaker to other people also appeared as a reason not to express political views. Moreover, both

the surveys and the interviews suggest that those citizens that intended to vote for the winning

party were more likely to participate, while those who opposed it were more likely to reduce

their participation.

In this chapter I propose that civic and political engagement are constrained and

facilitated by structural factors, and the agents’ motivation and ability. In turn, motivation and

skills to acquire information and participate are distributed differentially across groups

depending on socioeconomic and educational status. The findings from this chapter contribute to

the understanding of two issues to citizen engagement: the spiral of silence260 and avoidance of

politics, and the relationship between news media consumption, political expression and political

participation.

Media and participation

Building on the centrality of media for political processes, research has examined

whether access to the media and information technologies fosters information acquisition and

political participation. This stream of research has tended to see technology as factor that can


generate –or fail to generate-social and political effects.261 Scholarship on this issue has fallen

into two camps. One camp of the research proposes that access to online information fosters

civic participation.262 Dimitrova and colleagues analyze two surveys from Sweden and conclude

that “use of digital media leads to increased political activity among the public at large.”263 Other

scholars propose that media and information technologies may promote participation in the

public sphere by allowing citizens to create content and join in online discussion.264

The opposite camp contends that online access furthers inequalities in political

participation across social groups.265 Related studies indicate that internet information

consumption does not lead to higher levels of civic participation.266 Scheufele and Nisbet

surveyed internet consumers in the United States and found that informational uses of the web

played “a very limited role … in promoting levels of efficacy, knowledge, and participation.”267

Moreover, not all citizens may be equally interested in discussing political issues.268

Thus, although the internet has been saluted by some authors as a revolutionary medium

allowing participation by ordinary citizens,269 research indicates that participation is limited by

the fact that the internet appears to widen, rather than close, information and participation

inequalities across socioeconomic groups. Factors such as level of education attained, gender,

and socioeconomic statures, as well as internal efficacy (“beliefs about one’s competence to

understand (...) politics”270) and external efficacy (beliefs about the responsiveness of

governmental authorities (...) to citizens’ demands”271) may also influence willingness to

participate in the public arena.

Participation in context

INFORMATION INTEREST INDIFFERENCE 111 Several studies have examined differences in civic engagement across countries272 and

across regions of the same countries.273 However, there remains a scholarly debate on whether

social capital drives democratization, participation, and development274 or “socioeconomic

development and greater income quality help instill a political culture of skepticism and

accountability via the mechanism of reduced clientelism (…) which becomes prohibitively

expensive when votes must be bought not with a bag of food but with a public sector job or an

automatic washing machine.”275 According to Cleary and Stokes, it is distrust and skepticism,

rather than social trust and social capital, which foster democratization. However, analysts who

have studied cross-regional differences in democratic quality have seldom examined the role of

media and election campaigns in promoting political expression and participation. By looking at

trust in the politicians and the media and engagement before and after the campaign in four

districts with varying levels of socioeconomic development, this chapter aims to provide a

window into the complex relationship between development, information-seeking and

participation.

Election campaigns have also been linked to increased levels of political

information,276 and support for democratic values.277 However, others studies suggest that news

consumption during elections may increase cynicism, apathy and disaffection from the political

system.278 However, there are few studies on whether electoral campaigns increase civic and

political participation. This is partly because most research on political participation is conducted

during election campaigns, and takes for granted that participation tends to increase during

elections. Although that might be true for activities such as voting and donating money, that is


not necessarily the case for activities involving political expression and civic participation such

as talking about politics, contacting a public official, or being part of an organization.

Political voice

In contrast with the level of political information, which, as chapter 3 shows, increased

from a period of routine political activity to the days before the Election, political voice activities

did not change significantly during the campaign at any of the locations and education levels

(Figure 4.1).279 However, political voice follows the predictable pattern of increasing according

to level of education: those respondents who had completed college participated, on average, of

almost double of the political expression activities of those who had not. Moreover, levels of

political expression also varied across locations: those in the districts with highest levels of

human development (Buenos Aires and Santa Fe) engaged in more political voice activities than

those in the less developed locations (José C. Paz and Resistencia), at all levels of education.

The first wave of the survey shows that sociodemographic characteristics were

significantly related to level of political expression, and explained 13% of the variance in

political voice. Respondents with less than a high school education, and from José C. Paz and

Resistencia were less likely to engage in political voice activities, even when controlling for

gender, age, and socioeconomic level (Table 4.1). All news media consumption (Model 2),

except accessing news on the cellphone and attention to television news, explained a further 5

percentage points of the variance in political voice activities. Respondents who had read print

newspapers, or accessed online news during the previous week participated in, respectively, a

third and a half more of political voice activities than the other participants. Political information


(Model 3) had a small but significant association, and explained two extra percentage points of

the variance in political expression.

Six months later, just before Election Day, attention to news media continued to be

positively associated with political expression activities, even when controlling for

sociodemographic characteristics, levels of political information, and expression activities at

wave 1, before the campaign had started (Table 4.2). That is, even among respondents who had

reported higher levels of political voice during wave 1, radio, print and online news were

significantly associated with expression just before Election Day. Trust in media, trust in

politicians, and external and internal efficacy variables were not significantly associated with

political expression activities (Model 5). Those with “a lot of” and “some interest in the

campaign” had engaged on average in more expression activities, when controlling for other

factors.

Civic participation

Civic participation includes activities such as participating in a sports, religious or artistic

organization, being a member of a union, being part of the PTA, and having collaborated with

people outside the family to solve common problems. It also increases according to level of

education, both before and during the campaign, and is also stronger in the more economically

developed districts (Santa Fe and Buenos Aires) than in less developed ones (Resistencia and

José C. Paz) (Figure 4.2). For instance, respondents who had completed college in Buenos Aires

and Santa Fe, engaged, on average, on two civic participation activities, compared to respondents

who had not completed high school in Resistencia and José C. Paz, which engaged, on average,


in less than half a participatory activity. Moreover, there are no significant differences between

civic participation before the campaign and civic participation just before the election.280

Before the campaign started, respondents from Buenos Aires and Santa Fe, and who had

completed a college education were more likely to engage in civic participation (Table 4.3).

Other factors, such as age, gender and socioeconomic status did not have a significant relation

with civic participation. All news media consumption practices (print, television, radio and

online) (Model 2) were significantly related to and explained 3 percent of the variance of

variations in civic participation . Finally, level of political knowledge also had a small but

significant association.

At the height of the campaign, the news media continued to be significantly related to

civic participation, although television news consumption had a negative rather than a positive

relationship. The relationship between media consumption and civic participation continued to

be significant even when controlling for interest in the campaign, vote choice, trust in media and

politicians, and internal and external efficacy. Predictably, civic participation in Wave 1 is

positively related to civic participation just before Election Day, and increases the explanatory

power of the model by 7 percentage points.

Political participation

Political participation, which encompasses activities such as being affiliated with a

political party, donating money to a party, volunteering for a campaign, signing a petition, or

participating in a rally or picket, did not follow the same pattern of expressive and civic

participation (Figure 4.3). It was higher in Resistencia than in the other three locations, and

although it increased with level of education in the more developed locations (Buenos Aires and


Santa Fe), there is no clear association between level of education and political participation in

the less economically developed districts (Resistencia and José C. Paz). Moreover, the

differences among groups with different education levels and across locations is not as

noticeable as the differences in expression and civic participation were. Political participation did

not increase at the height of the campaign, and in some cases, such as Buenos Aires and less

educated respondents in Resistencia, it decreased.

Before the campaign started, respondents from Santa Fe, Jose C. Paz and Resistencia, and

who had completed a college education, were more likely to engage in civic participation (Table

4.3). In Model 2, news media consumption practices were positively and significantly related to

civic participation, and educational attainment is no longer significant. Adding level of political

information (model 3), which was positively related to political participation, increased the

explanatory power by 3 percentage points.

At the height of the campaign, age, gender, level of education and socioeconomic status

were not significantly associated with political participation. However, respondents in José C.

Paz, Resistencia and Santa Fe were more likely to engage politically than respondents in Buenos

Aires. Media consumption practices explained a further 2 percentage points of the variance in

political participation (Model 2), only reading a print newspaper o accessing online news were

positively and significantly related. Level of political information and participation in wave 1

were also positively and significantly associated (models 3 and 4). Model 5 shows that interest in

the campaign was also positively related to political participation, as was the intention of voting

for the incumbent (Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner), who would later go on to win the election.

Although the coefficients are not significant, it is interesting that internal efficacy and trust in the


media are positive, while trust in politicians is negative. Those who place trust in politicians are

less likely to participate.

Participation indicators were positively and highly correlated in the two waves of the

survey. The correlation between expression and political participation was .37 (p < 0.000) in the

first wave and .36 (p < 0.000) right before the election (Table 4.7). The correlation between civic

participation and political expression was .40 (p < 0.000) and (p < 0.000).41, respectively. The

least correlated indices were political and civic participation: .25 in wave 1 and .19 in wave 2,

which still had positive and significant correlations.

These results show that the three components of citizen engagement (expression, civic

participation, political participation) were relatively stable when comparing sixth months prior to

the election to the height of the campaign. This finding runs against the literature suggesting the

three outcomes would increase as Election Day approaches. Moreover, although expressive and

civic participation follow the pattern described by most of the literature (positively associated

with individual level of education and local level of development), political participation is

highest in Resistencia, the least developed of the districts examined. Although more educated

respondents are more active in Buenos Aires and Santa Fe, that is not the case in Resistencia and

José C. Paz. Interviews with citizens from the four locations suggest that the certainty of the

outcome decreased interest and engagement on the 2011 presidential campaign. In Buenos Aires,

disenchantment with the expect outcome may have discouraged more expression and

participation. Finally, in the less economically developed districts, government employment and

subsidies might be related to higher levels of political participation among the respondents with

lower educational attainment.


Making sense of participation

Analysis of the interviews confirms that attention to news, and civic and political

participation tend to be linked: respondents who followed news, were more likely to articulate

their opinions, and to participate in politics and/or in civic activities. Moreover, willingness to

exercise their political voice and to participate was not homogeneously distributed across the

citizens of the four locations examined.

There were three main reasons not to express political opinions. All of them were related

to affective states and to perceptions of the socio-political realities: assessment of own

ignorance; discomfort or uneasiness, and a sense that exercising political voice would not change

the status quo. The first one was revealed as the belief of having nothing to say, due to feelings

of ignorance and inadequacy regarding politics, i./e., diminished internal political efficacy. This

motive was cited quite often by younger and female respondents. For instance, Camila, a 21-

year-old college student from Resistencia, explained “if I can avoid talking about politics I do

it…Maybe because I do not know much about politics, I prefer not to express an opinion,

because I might embarrass myself.”281 Ana, who cleaned houses for a living in Santa Few, linked

her unwillingness to talk to lack of attention to media “because I do not watch so much

television, I am not well-informed, what am I going to talk about?”282 Maximiliano, a 30-year-

old small-business owner from Resistencia, also declined to talk due to feelings of inadequacy “I

do not understand (politics) and I should not speak about what I ignore.”283

The second reason not to express political opinions was uneasiness. This uneasiness

ranged from avoiding discomfort regarding differences with friends, families and co-workers to

outright fear of consequences. Seeking to avoid confrontation was a reason given by


interviewees in the four locations studied. Pablo, a retired teacher in José C. Paz, explained that

“in the past years…the atmosphere (had become) very tense.” He went on to say that “you meet

with people you have known your whole life and you don´t know what to say in a get-together

because you are afraid of stirring things up, or having someone react the wrong way, and you

end up avoiding politics. In a birthday party I´ve spoken during two hours about kittens and

puppies, it was a world record.”284 For other interviewees, face-offs could become family feuds.

Mariana, an assistant from Buenos Aires, described her latest family meeting: “I don’t

participate, I just look because they become very aggressive, because my grandmother hates

(president) Cristina (Fernandez de Kirchner), my Mom adores her, and my brother seeks to

mediate. But my grandmother sometimes says very aggressive stuff, my mom answers back with

more aggression, and we almost cut short Mother´s Day celebration.”285

Fear, including being afraid of bodily harm, was cited only by citizens in José C. Paz.

Gonzalo, a salesman, said “I do not speak about politics because 85% of people, in José C. Paz,

live off politics. Thus I don´t speak about politics (…) it is a hegemony.” Maru said she´d rather

not speak up about politics because she was afraid of something happening to her: “This girl, she

had a child, she went on television to complain that she had not been given social housing. The

president saw it and she was given a house, but then Ishii´s (the mayor) people came to bully her

(la patotearon).”286 Gastón, a small-business owner, exaggerated for effect “Imagine with my

political ideology (he was against Peronism), I meddle in José C. Paz, afterwards I get a bomb at

home.”287

Yet others, such as Norma, a 48-year-old community organizer from Resistencia, relished

the opportunity to discuss politics, “I like to talk things over. Talking and listening with respect


(…) all my life I have tried to convince people.”288 Federico, a 30-year-old civil servant from

Buenos Aires, followed news closely and enjoyed discussing issues with friends and family. He

said, “I give Kirchner credit for having brought to the dinner table subjects that were not talked

about before. Nowadays, everybody takes a stance on everything.”289 Maite, a lawyer also from

Buenos Aires, did not believe that Kirchnerism or polarization had made talking about politics

more difficult: “between ordinary people who are interested in politics, it has always been like

that, politics is like River-Boca,”290 she said, referring to the rivalry between the two biggest

soccer teams in Argentina.

Respondents also appeared to differentiate venues for political discussion. Most of the

respondents who used Facebook perceived it as space for socialization with friends and family,

not as an arena for political opinions. Máximo, a public relations agent from Santa Fe, explained

that while he used Twitter for politics, on Facebook, he “would not like to ruin other people´s

visuals…My parents and siblings are far away, I have them on Facebook and they use it to see

pictures of my son…if I start posting information about politics they would not understand what

I was talking about.”291 Agustín, a private-sector employee from Buenos Aires, used Twitter to

send messages to political figures and journalists, but refrained from posting about politics on

Facebook because he knew his coworkers, who did not share his political ideology, could see it,

and it would not “look good.”292 Appearances were also important for Ignacio, a public relations

consultant also from Buenos Aires: “I made many political posts on Facebook but I deleted

them…because I have a kirchnerist friend, who is a high-ranking official, and I needed to ask

him for something, [so] it was not the time to keep insulting this bitch (the president).293

INFORMATION INTEREST INDIFFERENCE 120 The campaign did not change the propensity to express political views. Respondents who

usually discussed politics kept on with that practice, and described it as regular rather than out of

the ordinary. Christian, the political activist who had lost the primaries in José C. Paz, answered

that he talked about politics “all the time!”294 Norma, the community organizer from Resistencia,

commented “I usually talk (about politics) with my daughter, because she is the only one who

pays attention to me, everybody else is tired. I always talk about that.”295 José, a college student

from Buenos Aires, said he talked about politics “with everybody, friends, family, co-workers”

and linked this practice to his family. “In a family lunch, you spend two minutes talking about

politics and already one of us is banging the table. I remember that when I was a kid it always

happened.”296

Rather than fear of exposure or feelings of inadequacy, the main motive given not to call

the media, or write letters to newspapers, was that these actions took too much work and would

not solve anything. In some cases, this was a conjecture. Maira, a 19-year-old college student

from Resistencia said: “for me it is a waste of time, because newspapers here are very close to

the government, you write a letter criticizing the government and they would not publish it, why

waste my time?”297 Carlos, a lawyer from Santa Fe, got angry when journalists got wrong basic

points about legal issues and “was about to write an email to correct them several times”, but

decided against it because “nothing would change.”298 In other cases, the ideas were based on

experience. Maximiliano, also from Resistencia, recalled he had once sent a letter to the local

newspaper, Norte, about a free concert by Calle 13 organized by the government in Resistencia.

“People were almost crushed, there were no portable toilets, windows were broken, it was a

disaster. (...) I sent the message twice and asked for a confirmation of reception but I never


received an answer.”299 Pablo, from José C. Paz, had written a letter to the newspapers “a long

time ago” and it had not been published, so he thought it was “no use” to do it again.300

Lack of external efficacy also discouraged citizens from contacting public officials.

Marta, a public school teacher from Jose C. Paz, said she “had never seen an official, I do not

need them, I am a blackboard-and-chalk worker, I got used to working with that there is…you go

to ask for something, you might get it, you might not.”301 Marcela, a psychologist from Santa Fe,

explained that she would like to talk to an official to look for a job in the public sector, but,

because she “did not have any contacts”, the official would “send (her) back” (me va a sacar

carpiendo).”302 Silvia, a school counselor from José C. Paz, described how she called every two

weeks to the mayor´s office to have a speed bump installed on her corner, where there had been

an accident. “I began calling five months ago and I am still waiting for an answer.”303

Voting between ages 18 and 70 is compulsory in Argentina. Thus it is not surprising that

many interviewees referred to voting as their main political participation activity. Virginia, a 37-

year-old secretary from Santa Fe, said she always voted because “if you don´t get involved in

government, then you cannot complain if things go wrong.”304 Olga, a librarian from José C. Paz

declared “I am a fan of elections and of democratic processes; voting for me is like attending a

party. I always vote for the losers, but I don´t care.”305 One of the respondents in Resistencia,

Lorena, had a premature baby just before the elections, and she had asked the doctors if she

could leave the hospital for an hour to get to the ballots: “obviously my daughter comes first. But

if they give me a little time I want to vote because I want the incumbent (Fernández de Kirchner)

to win again.”306

INFORMATION INTEREST INDIFFERENCE 122 Consistent with the survey results, enthusiasm for participation waned among some of the

participants in Buenos Aires: those who were opposed to the incumbent. Maite, a lawyer, a year

before the election that she “always” voted, that she “would vote even if it were not

compulsory.”307 However, right before the election, she asserted “yes, I am going to vote.

Because it is compulsory, If it were not compulsory I don´t know whether I would vote.”308

Ignacio, a public relations consultant, exhibited an even more drastic change. In October 2010,

he said “I´ve voted every time we could. (…) I love democracy and I love voting, I wouldn’t

miss it. I go with Bauti (his son); I love seeing people on the streets.”309 A year later, he was not

so certain: “I don´t know if I am going to vote…you have to vote, because if not you can be

fined.”310

Another group of participants saw voting as a burden. Cynthia, an architect from Buenos

Aires, said she only voted because it was compulsory.311 Rodolfo, a public-sector employee

from Santa Fe explained “I don´t like voting. It is an inconvenience, having to go there, wait in

line. That annoys me, but it is necessary.”312 Others were unenthusiastic about voting because

they felt their participation would not change anything. Mariana, the assistant from Buenos

Aires, said “I sometimes think it is useless, it is a lie (...) but part of me hopes that it is not like

that, and that is why I keep on voting (…) because it is as if we are living completely

unprotected, in a situation of social submission to a group of people that have somehow

positioned themselves as a mobster gang.”313 A minority declined to vote at all. Omar, a small-

business owner from Resistencia said “if I can vote I do it and if I can´t I don´t. I might go

fishing, sometimes I go fishing, I am not interested.”314 Eduardo, a 54-year old plumber from


Santa Fe, shared both the intent not to vote and the alternative activity “one vote, my vote, won´t

change anything. I´d rather be on the island, fishing, it is a better use of my time.”315

Very few of the respondents engaged in political activities beyond voting, which

coincides with the findings from the survey. There were two main reasons for this. One was time

and other practical issues, and the other one was disenchantment with politics, and failure to find

a political group that represented them. Regarding practical issues, Gastón, a small-business

owner from José C. Paz, said that he didn´t attend political rallies because “they are organized at

a time of the day in which it is impossible for people like you or me to go. (…) I am working at 1

PM, I don´t have time to go to a political rally.”316 Pablo, another small-business owner from

Buenos Aires, also “lacked time for political participation.”317 Debi, a make-up artist from Santa

Fe, said she had been invited to rallies in her neighborhood, but she had declined to go because

she had to take care of her son: “I can´t go with the baby. You don´t know whether there will be

any problems, and it is dangerous to go with the baby.”318 A related reason not to go to rallies

was fear. Marta, a public-school teacher from José C. Paz said she had never gone to a political

meeting because she “did not like crowds; I am afraid that my cell phone will be stolen, or that

two groups will start a fight with me in the middle.”319

Regarding affective motives not to participate in politics, some participants claimed to be

disenchanted with politics and politicians. Cynthia, the architect from Buenos Aires, recalled that

she used to participate when she was young, but that she finished high school in 1976, the year

the military dictatorship began in Argentina “I have many friends and classmates that were

murdered…fear, or distrust and fear, made up a situation in which politics is a very sensitive

topic for me.”320 Silvia, the school counselor from José C. Paz, dated her disenchantment a few


years later, to the administration of Raúl Alfonsín, the first democratic president of Argentina

after this dictatorship. “I had expectations, the changes he proposed were good, but then little

was done and I was disappointed. It was like a disappointing love affair”321. Rodolfo, in turn was

disenchanted by his participation in politics in a soccer club, Unión: “I don´t like political

activity. I did it once when there were elections in Unión, and I didn´t like it. You have to go

around convincing people, and other small stuff.”322 Camila, a college student from Resistencia,

had never participated in politics but she did not believe her engagement could change anything

“I don´t like anything related to politics (…) because of what I see, because of what happens

every year. If those in power cared so much, we wouldn´t see as many poor people as we do.”323

Civic participation did not evoke the same negative feelings as political participation did

in most of the respondents. Although few of them participated, most expressed the wish to do

more for their community or causes they were interested in. Civic participation was not evenly

distributed across locations, which mirrors findings from the survey. Respondents in Buenos

Aires, Santa Fe, and to a lower extent, Resistencia, were more likely to engage civically than

those in José C. Paz. Even interviewees who had expressed distrust of politics got together to

solve neighborhood issues. For instance, Eduardo, the plumber from Santa Fe who did not want

to vote, said he lived in a neighborhood where they got together to discuss issues related to

pavement, water tubes, and even protested when the mayor´s office did not solve their

problems.324 Maite, the lawyer from Buenos Aires, was part of a neighborhood association,

which discussed safety, sidewalks, and trees. They got together “because the city administration

was not doing its job.”325

INFORMATION INTEREST INDIFFERENCE 125 Parents of small children tended to be involved, either formally through the PTA or

informally with their kid´s school. Debi describes how she collaborated with hers son´s

kindergarten. “The kindergarten has a sewing box, so they bring me old clothes and we (…)

make clothes for the kids, they are distributed among them. Last week we made a lot of bags so

they could carry their school supplies.”326 Omar, the small-business owner from Resistencia, said

“the teachers know I have a small print shop, and they ask me for banners or notices, and I make

them. I cooperate, but I am not part of the committee or anything.”327 Pablo, from Buenos Aires,

had no kids of his own but had started to offer business workshops to young adults with

behavioral and neurological issues. “A friend asked me to do it (…) I thought I would not have

time, but now I am committed and every Friday at half past five I am there.”328 A few months

later, he characterized his participation as a “catharsis of solidarity.”329

Although some of the respondents were unionized, some had had bad experiences with

the union and had withdrawn. Silvia, “felt they were taking my money and they were not doing

anything for me.”330 However, Mariana recalled the union she had had in her previous job as a

telemarketer: “it was a young union, people were all very young, and thanks to the union´s

intervention we got a lot of things.”331 Graciana, who clerked in the federal courts of Resistencia,

said “I don´t pay a lot of attention to the union, but I think it is an important figure(…) In fact, I

believe our union fought for many benefits and I think they got them.”332

Respondents from José C. Paz or with fewer years of formal education appeared to

participate less in civic activities. They were less likely to be members of civil society

organizations, and to answer affirmatively whether they had collaborated with people outside of

their immediate family. For instance, Maru, who lived in a poor neighborhood in José C. Paz


asked: “why would I have to do anything if there are many of us (in the neighborhood)? I just go

along like everybody else does.”333 Ana, a cleaning lady from Santa Fe, complained that

“nobody does anything in the neighborhood (…) It would be nice if they did, but they don´t.”334

Yamila, who was studying to become a teacher in José C. Paz, said she “would like to participate

in an animal rights society, but I don´t know if that can be done”.335 She was interested in the

welfare of animals, but she lacked the social capital to turn that interest into an organized

activity. Olga, a librarian also from José C. Paz, cared for stray animals: “If there is any issue

with stray animals, we have her neutered, and everybody contributes a little, if there is a dog, we

neuter and feed her. This is community activity that will never be featured on the newspaper or

TV but that goes on every day.”336

Examining the respondents with the highest degrees of participation confirms the

correlation between the various types of engagement found in the survey results. The more

engaged participants tended to exercise their political voice and be active in both civic and

political activities. Carlos, who was a lawyer in Santa Fe, participated as an election overseer for

his party (Peronism), was active in his union at work, and enjoyed talking about politics. He also

followed news closely online and offline. Norma, a community organizer in Resistencia, worked

bringing people to voting places on Election Day, was active in helping members of her

community to get food stamps and social subsidies, and talked so much about politics that only

her daughter paid any attention to her. Christian, who came in fifth in the primaries of José C.

Paz, attended rallies, mailed letters to public officials, and hoped to, “one day, help lead José C.

Paz.”337 However, he did not trust the media, and did not think they were an essential component

of his engagement. Agustín followed the news closely, discussed politics with friends and


family, and tried joining a political organization. But Carlos, Norma, Christian, and Agustín are

outliers. Most of the respondents had very low levels of participation. The contribution made by

media and communication technologies was positive, but small. Education and interest also

played a part. The next section seeks to bring together the complex relationships that lie between

sociodemographic factors, interest, attention to news, and participation.

Concluding remarks

This chapter has examined the relationship between civic and political engagement, and

exercise of public voice, and the evolution of the political environment before and during the

2011 presidential campaign in Argentina. The two waves of the survey indicate, first, that levels

of participation were low, and unevenly distributed across locations and socio-economic groups:

college graduates in Buenos Aires doubled the participation levels by high school drop outs in

the poorer districts. Moreover, there was a small but significant relationship between news media

consumption and levels of expression and participation. News media consumption, particularly

print, radio, and online news, was positively and significantly related to modest increases in both

waves of the survey. This suggests these three media play a positive role before and during the

campaign, and might help reduce the participation divide. However, the findings do not allow us

to rule out the probability that those who were already more interested in public affairs in general

and the election in particular turned to the news media to obtain more information. The lack of a

significant correlation between television and public engagement activities gives some credence

to the characterizations of television as a source of cynicism338 and a destroyer of social

capital.339 The lack of correlation between access to information on a cell phone and political

expression and participation challenges the characterization of cell phone technology as a bridge


across the digital divide340 and suggests cell phone access to the internet may not foster effective

use of the technology, at least not for political expression and participation.341

The in-depth interviews show that both practical and affective factors explained

reluctance to express political ideas and participate actively. Regarding the material conditions of

participation, more educated and higher-status respondents tended to engage more actively with

both their community and the polity. Lack of time and other resources, such as information and

social connections were often cited by women and less educated respondents as reasons not to

participate. As Rosenstone and Hansen explain, although the “personal costs and benefits of

political participation”342 play a large role in determining whether citizens choose to participate,

political and social factors also influence participation. Most citizens are not ready to make the

cognitive and affective efforts needed to participate, much less so when they perceive that the

election results are inevitable. Their unwillingness to engage coincides with the economic model

of democracy proposed by Downs:343 as the probability of influencing in the election decreases,

so does intention to vote. In the poorest districts, party and government activities appear to

equalize participation across educational and socio-economic strata. However, accounts of

violence by some interviewees challenge the notion that all political participation is constructive

per se.

Regarding affective and cognitive factors for engagement, this chapter found that many

respondents avoid both expressing their opinion and participating due to a sense of inadequacy

and fear of facing discord from family, friends, or co-workers at the ideas expressed, which

provides support to the avoidance of politics theory proposed by Eliasoph344 and Mutz’s findings

that individuals in heterogeneous networks refrain from overt political activity.345 Reluctance to


discuss political issues online echoes findings by Hampton and colleagues about Americans

being less likely to discuss the Snowden-NSA story on online networks than in person.346 In

contrast, intending to vote the winner of the election was related to increased participation, which

confers further support for the spiral of silence theory.347 Perceiving support for the preferred

candidate may increase both willingness to participate and willingness to discuss politics, which

underscores the importance of perceptions as determinants of political (in)action, and provides

evidence of a bandwagon effect in electoral campaigns.348 Compulsory primaries in which

candidates run unopposed might not only reduce interest in the campaign and election results,

but they might also discourage participation and expression among all voters, except those who

voting for the winning candidate.

The next chapter puts together the pieces of the information and participation puzzle in

Argentina (sociodemographic characteristics, news coverage, attention to news media, levels of

information and participation), to reveal an accurate portrait and interpretation of engagement

with public affairs during a presidential campaign.


Figure 4.1

Average number of political voice activities engaged in during the previous year

(out of 7 possible ones: having talked about politics, contacted a public official, written a letter

to the newspaper, called a television or radio show, commented on an online news site or

blog, or posted something about politics on Facebook or twitter, by location and education level,

before the campaign (April 2011, N=1600) and at the height of the campaign (October 2011,

N=1023)

0

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Buenos Aires Santa Fe José C Paz Resistencia

April October


Table 4.1




level) in April 2011 (robust)

N=1023 Model 1 Model 2 Model 3

AGE 0.00 0.00 -0.01

Male 0.08 0.11 0.11

Medium SES 0.17 0.12 0.15

Low SES -0.13 -0.07 -0.03

Less Than High

School

-0.38* -0.24* -0.19*

Some college -0.27 -0.18 -0.17

Santa Fe -0.07 -0.05 -0.03

José C. Paz -0.58* -0.46* -0.40*

Resistencia -0.09 -0.12 -0.12

Print newspaper 0.23* 0.23*

TV news 0.00 -0.02

Radio news 0.23* 0.19*


Cell Phone news -0.07 -0.08

Political Information 0.12*

R1 .13 .18 .20


Table 4.2



consumption, level of political information, expression activities in Wave 1, voting for the



2011 (robust)

N=1023 Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5 AGE 0.00 0.00 -0.01 0.00 -0.01 Male 0.08 0.11 0.11 0.12* 0.13* Medium SES 0.17 0.12 0.15 0.14 0.12 Low SES -0.13 -0.07 -0.03 0.06 0.05 Less Than High School -0.38* -0.24* -0.19 -0.07 -0.06 Some college -0.27* -0.18 -0.17 -0.13 -0.11 Santa Fe -0.07 -0.05 -0.03 0.02 0.02 José C. Paz -0.58* -0.46* -0.40* -0.23* -0.29* Resistencia -0.09 -0.12 -0.12 -0.02 0.05 Print newspaper 0.23* 0.23* 0.19* 0.18* TV news 0.00 -0.02 -0.02 0.03 Radio news 0.23* 0.19* 0.17* 0.15* Online News 0.46* 0.43* 0.38* 0.37* Cell Phone news -0.07 -0.08 -0.11 -0.10 Political Information 0.12* 0.12* 0.09* Expression 1 0.27* 0.26* Votes for incumbent -0.01 a little interest in the campaign 0.13 some interest in the campaign 0.29* a lot of interest in the campaign 0.31* Trust in the media 0.05 Trust in politicians 0.00 Internal Efficacy 0.05 External efficacy 0.00 R2 0.12 0.17 0.19 0.27 0.3


Figure 4.2

Average number of civic participation activities engaged in

(out of nine possible ones: participating in an sports, religious, artistic, neighborhood, social or

non-government organization, being a member of a union or professional organization, being

part of the PTA, and having collaborated with people outside the family to solve common

problems), by location and education level, , before the campaign (April 2011, N=1600) and at

the height of the campaign (October 2011, N=1023).

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April October


Table 4.3

OLS regressions of “civic participation” on age, sex (Base case =female), socioeconomic status





AGE 0.00 0.00 0.00

Male -0.01 -0.05 -0.07

Medium SES -0.06 0.00 0.03

Low SES -0.32 -0.14 -0.09

Less Than High School -0.62* -0.50* -0.46*

Some college -0.48* -0.44* -0.42*

Santa Fe 0.15 0.13 0.25

José C. Paz -0.57* -0.46* -0.34

Resistencia -0.20* -0.08 0.02


TV news 0.18* 0.17



Cell Phone news 0.01 0.00


R2 0.13 0.16 0.17


Table 4.4

OLS regressions of civic participation on age, sex (Base case =female), socioeconomic status





2011 (robust)

N=1023 Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5 AGE 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Male -0.03 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.02 Medium SES 0.07 0.09 0.10 0.02 -0.01 Low SES -0.25 -0.18 -0.16 -0.16 -0.17 Less Than High School -0.55* -0.44* -0.42* -0.24 -0.22 Some college -0.43* -0.37* -0.36* -0.21 -0.18 Santa Fe 0.17 0.18 0.19 0.15 0.15 José C. Paz -0.85* -0.72* -0.69* -0.50* -0.55* Resistencia -0.70* -0.82* -0.81* -0.74* -0.66* Print newspaper 0.18* 0.18* 0.18* 0.17* TV news -0.34* -0.35* -0.39* -0.32 Radio news 0.22* 0.20* 0.20* 0.16* Online News 0.34* 0.32* 0.28* 0.28* Cell Phone news -0.12 -0.12 -0.13 -0.12 Political Information 0.05 0.04 0.01* Civic participation 1 0.30* 0.29* Votes for incumbent -0.06 a little interest in the campaign 0.06 some interest in the campaign 0.41* a lot of interest in the campaign 0.32* Trust in the media 0.05 Trust in politicians -0.01 Internal Efficacy 0.04 External efficacy 0.02 R2 0.19 0.22 0.22 0.29 0.32


Figure 4.3

Average number of political participation activities engaged in

(out of 8 possible ones: being affiliated to a political party, having voted in the previous

election, donated money to a party, volunteered for a campaign, used a pin, t-shirt or sign for a

candidate, having signed a petition, having participated in a rally or picket), by location and

education level, before the campaign (April 2011, N=1600) and at the height of the campaign

(October 2011, N=1023)

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April October


Table 4.5






AGE 0.00 0.00 0.00

Male -0.06 -0.10 -0.13*

Medium SES 0.08 0.12 0.16

Low SES -0.11 0.00 0.10

Less Than High School -0.25* -0.17 -0.07

Some college -0.14 -0.11 -0.07

Santa Fe 0.07 0.05 0.30*

José C. Paz 0.11 0.19* 0.44*

Resistencia 0.63* 0.72* 0.90*


TV news 0.17* 0.15*


Online News 0.15* 0.11

Cell Phone news 0.01 -0.01


R2 0.06 0.09 0.12


Table 4.6






2011 (robust)

N=1023 Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5 AGE 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Male 0.00 0.02 0.03 0.02 0.02 Medium SES 0.17 0.18 0.21 0.16 0.14 Low SES 0.00 0.06 0.10 0.09 0.07 Less Than High School -0.23* -0.17 -0.12 -0.04 -0.05 Some college -0.16 -0.12 -0.10 -0.08 -0.07 Santa Fe 0.24* 0.25* 0.27* 0.24* 0.25* José C. Paz 0.12 0.20* 0.26* 0.21* 0.12 Resistencia 0.58* 0.58* 0.59* 0.36* 0.40* Print newspaper 0.17* 0.17* 0.10 0.09 TV news -0.11 -0.14 -0.21* -0.14 Radio news -0.04 -0.09 -0.05 -0.08 Online News 0.24* 0.20* 0.15* 0.14* Cell Phone news 0.04 0.03 -0.04 -0.02 Political Information 0.13* 0.10* 0.07* Political participation 1 0.34* 0.33* Votes for incumbent 0.14* a little interest in the campaign 0.07 some interest in the campaign 0.30* a lot of interest in the campaign 0.31* Trust in the media 0.05 Trust in politicians -0.03 Internal Efficacy 0.04 External efficacy 0.00 R2 0.7 0.9 0.11 0.26 0.29


Table 4. 7

Correlation between different indices of participation, in wave 1 (April 2011) and 2 (October

2011)

Voice 1 Pol

participation 1

Civic

participation

1

Voice 2 Pol

participation 2

Voice 1

Pol participation 1 0.3672

Civic participation 1 0.4044 0.2465

Voice 2 0.4102 0.2051 0.2512

Pol participation 2 0.2233 0.4506 0.14 0.3595

Civic participation 2 0.3313 0.0829 0.4104 0.3479 0.1901


Chapter 5:

Information, Participation and Citizenship


I began this dissertation by introducing contending views on the relationship between

democracy and development and access of media and information technologies. While policy

makers and some scholars have proposed that access promotes democratization and reduces

inequalities, the opposite view argues that electronic media in general and online technologies in

particular are detrimental to democratic development. However, as the research presented here

has shown, the story is slightly more complicated.

First, the meaning of “access to media and information technologies” should be specified.

Not all connections were created equal: while there appear to be practically no differences

regarding watching newscasts between having access to cable or broadcast television, having

online access at home or at work results in different uses of media and information technologies

than having a cellphone or cybercafé connection. Those with a home connection were more

likely to follow the news online, and accessing news online was more likely to be associated

with an increase in the levels of political information and engagement.

Second, the purported beneficial or harmful consequences should be conceptualized and

measured. While access to news has some modest but significant associations to levels of

information and political expression and participation, the effects vary by type of access. Print,

radio and online news appear to be more beneficial, while getting news on the television or cell

phone have negative or no significant relationships.

Finally, access, use and information acquisition and participation should be understood in

its social, political and geographic context. Even when controlling for levels of education and

socioeconomic status, citizens at more developed districts, such as the city of Buenos Aires, and,

to a lesser extent, Santa Fe, had higher level of connectivity, attention to news and information


and political expression levels. Conversely, in the poorer districts (José C. Paz and Resistencia)

showed higher levels of political participation, which suggests that practices such as attending

rallies or volunteering for campaigns are linked to face-to-face, rather than mediated,

interpersonal dynamics.

These findings suggest that both blanket recommendations to expand media access as

well as dire warnings about the potentially noxious consequences of media and information

technologies fail to account for the myriad ways in which individual and social characteristics

influence the uptake and use of various media. In turn, technological affordances interact with

individual, social and political phenomena in shaping both the ways in which media and

information technologies are used as well as the consequences of those practices of use. At a

time in which governments, NGOs, and to a lesser extent, private companies are devoting money

and time to bridge the digital divide, these findings are crucial to understand what interventions

are most effective to avoid both wasting resources and deepening inequalities. Almost ten years

ago Di Maggio and colleagues wrote “The pressing question now is less `who can find a network

connection from which to log on?’ than `what are people doing, and what are they able to do,

when they go online.”349 However, as this dissertation shows, what people are doing, and what

they are able to do when they go online, is inextricable linked to the kind of connection they can

find from which to log on.

In the remainder of this chapter I address these and other lessons learned about the

relationship between technology, information and participation, first by reviewing the research

presented in this dissertation and then reflecting on what the findings might mean for the


interplay between media, democracy and society, and the steps that might be taken to reduce

inequality and foster democratic participation.

What we know now about media access, information and participation

This dissertation makes contributions to four theoretical fields in the study of media,

technology and society: the digital divide,350 monitorial citizenship,351 the knowledge gap,352 and

the spiral of silence.353

Regarding the digital divide, evidence from chapter 2 indicates that differences in access

to media mirror social inequalities. People with higher levels of education, higher socioeconomic

status, and who lived in the capital of the country were more likely to have internet access at

home and at work than other respondents. For instance, people in the lower socio-economic

stratum had on average 30 percentage points fewer of internet connectivity than those in the

middle and higher classes in each of the four locations. While overall access levels varied, the

30-point-gap between socioeconomic strata remained fairly stable. Furthermore, alternative types

of access, such as at cybercafés or through the cell phone, were also more accessible to younger,

better educated respondents, in the more economically developed districts. As many authors have

noted, the reproduction of privilege or cumulative advantage, whereby the rich get richer,354 is

carried on to activities performed online.355 Those with access at home to media and information

technologies were more likely to use it for accessing news, as the constant availability of both

the device and the connection precluded respondents from worrying about time and money spent.

Practices of use are not only related to availability: respondents with access to internet on

their cellphones were not more likely to get their news online than those without smartphones.

As Walton and Donner indicate, going online on a computer “supports more resource-intensive


goals (storage space, time, bandwidth) and stable media production”,356 or what some authors

define as “capital-enhancing activities”357 while smartphone access “supports time-sensitive

goals, various forms of inter-personal communication, and low-bandwidth media use.”358 The

findings presented in chapters 3 and 4 about the lack of association between mobile internet use

and information acquisition, political expression and participation provide further support to the

need to differentiate between different types of access. Although some authors have argued that

“as internet technology become pervasive and cheap” “controversies about the digital divide will

fade away,”359, the findings presented in these dissertation suggest that the concept should be

retained and refined. While several scholars have indicated that social inequalities and skills

might influence the effectiveness in the use of media and information technologies,360, access,

including type, cost, and availability of the connection should be taken into account both when

examining technological inequalities and when analyzing the association between use of media

and information technologies and other social phenomena, such as information acquisition and

participation.

Information acquisition may also vary in accordance to the political context, as important

events such as elections or political crises direct normally inattentive people towards public

affairs. According to this model, news audiences behave as “monitorial citizens”,361 paying more

attention civic issues during times of heightened political activity.362 However, the evidence

presented in chapter 2 shows that levels of news consumption remained constant when

comparing the responses six months before the election and just before Election Day, across

different media platforms. Interviews with citizens indicate that the predictability of the electoral

outcome, due to the result of presidential primaries held two months prior to the general election


in which all parties fielded unopposed candidates, limited interest in and attention to the

campaign. Thus, monitorial citizenship appears not to be exclusively dependent on the amount or

the quality of public-affairs information available to the audience, as the debate between the “full

information” and the “burglar alarm” standard for news suggests.363 Rather, it appears to be a

function of both the effort needed to obtain information and its perceived usefulness for voters.

The analysis of the association between levels of political information and news media

consumption practices presented in chapter 3 allows this presentation to qualify the main

principle of the knowledge gap theory, which proposes that those with more formal instruction

benefit more in terms of political knowledge than their less educated peers.364 Before the

campaign, news media consumption was associated with higher levels of information among the

more educated respondents. However, this association was reversed days before the election,

during which media consumers with fewer years of education obtained more gains from

following the news, even when controlling for level of information before the campaign. These

findings suggest that the knowledge gap model does not hold at all times. During periods of high

volume of information, middle-attention news consumers increase their political awareness365

and catch up with more attentive citizens, due to both feelings of civic duty and self-preservation

motives.366

Levels of print, radio, and online news consumption were moderately related to political

expression and participation, as shows the analysis presented in chapter 4. However, access to

television news was either not correlated to, or negatively associated with, participation, which

supports characterizations of television as harmful to political engagement367 and social

capital.368 Engagement did not increase significantly from before the campaign to the height of


the electoral cycle, and in some cases it even decreased. Voting for the incumbent, who was

almost certain to win the presidential election, was positively related to political expression and

participation.

The interviews confirm that participation demands cognitive and material efforts that

most citizens are not ready to make. This rationale is bolstered by the perception that the election

results were easily predictable by the primary results. These findings match the economic model

of democracy proposed by Downs:369 as the probability of influencing in the election decreases,

so does willingness to participate. Respondents who were not voting for the incumbent were less

likely to express their opinion, which provides further support for the spiral of silence theory. But

reluctance to engage was not reduced exclusively to expressive activities: opposition voters were

less likely to participate in political activities such as volunteering or going to a rally. The spiral

of silence need to be related solely to political talk, but could also be figurative, linked to

decreased political participation. Moreover, it could result not only of polls, and perceptions of

public opinion, as Noelle-Neumann proposes, 370 but also from the predictability of election

results. Predictable results due to primary elections in which candidates from all parties ran

unopposed or safe seats might signal that individual or collective actions cannot change the

course of the campaign, and thus reduce information acquisition, political expression and civic

engagement.

This dissertation also makes two methodological contributions to the study of the

interplay between media, technology and society. First, it indicates that the combination of

various quantitative and qualitative methods –a panel survey, content analysis, and in-depth

interviews- allows us to shed light on the connection between the social and political context and


the individual abilities and motivations to access news, acquire information and participate in

politics. Relying on the survey only would have allowed us to note the association between

media consumption, knowledge and engagement, but it did not make possible to infer the reasons

for those correlations. For example, the apparent increase in levels of information did not match

the stability in news consumption from one wave of the survey to the next. The content analysis

measured levels of coverage of and attention to public affairs and campaign news throughout the

year prior to the election in news outlets from three of the districts examined suggested that

interest in the election had peaked right before the primary election. Interviews confirmed that

most respondents were more focused on the primary than on the general election. The

predictability of the presidential contest discouraged of the respondents from increasing their

news consumption before Election Day, and deterred those not voting for the incumbent from

engaging more deeply with the political process.

Second, the research design employed in this dissertation, a longitudinal study in four

districts with varying levels of development and connectivity, highlights the relevance of

studying various contexts during a year, rather than summing that findings from one district at

one point in time hold constant for an entire country –or worse, humankind in toto- at all times.

For instance, the knowledge gap held true before the campaign, with the information rich getting

even richer with access to news. But it did not apply at the height of the campaign, when the

abundance of information allowed those with fewer years of formal instruction to catch up.

Moreover, examining the behavior of respondents who had acquired either cable or home

internet between the two waves of the survey, challenges the notion that increased media choice

reduces news consumption371, as cable made no significant difference, and internet access led to


more attention to news. The interviews confirm that increased online access is associated with

slightly higher levels of news consumption, although the main driver remains the interplay

between interest, effort, and perceived benefit of acquiring information.

Access, information, and engagement and the future of citizenship

The evidence presented in this dissertation underscores the importance of access to media

as one of many factors influencing engagement with the polity. It has also shown that access to

media is not equally distributed, with technological inequalities reproducing, for the most part,

the social, economic, and gender inequalities that predate them. The persistence of differences in

access to and use of media and information technologies is not a new phenomenon. Studies

indicate that there have been differences across and within nations in literacy levels,372 access to

newspapers,373 and access to television sets.374 However, disparities in access to internet-enabled

devices have conceited significantly more public and private rhetoric –if not necessarily always

accompanied by action- than earlier technologies, such as radio and television.

When broadcast technology emerged, states and corporations invested in transmission

technologies and content creation,375 but for the most part left acquisition of the devices to

consumers. However, by 1965, 20 years after the launch of broadcast television in the United

States 93% of American households featured a television set.376 In contrast, by 2013, 18 years

after the launch of commercial Internet Service Providers, only 72% of households had an

internet connection.377 Likewise, in Argentina, where television was officially launched in 1951,

television had spread widely the 1980s378, with 94 percent of households in the City of Buenos

Aires and 84 percent in the rest of the country owning television sets. In comparison, by 2014,

only 60 percent of Argentinian households had an internet connection at home.379 The relatively


slower rate of adoption of internet technology, as well as the perceived benefits of this

technology over others (due to affordances such as two-way communication and ease of content

creation) has led governments and NGOs to concern themselves with the diffusion of this

particular innovation.380 How can states and organizations promote information-seeking and

civic engagement online? There are four possible ways of addressing this issue.

The first one consists in doing nothing, and expecting the market to distribute access to

media and technology. This position would be exemplified by former chair of the Federal

Communications Commission Michael Powell, who argued that, although it was “an important

social issue”, “it shouldn’t be used to justify the notion of essentially, the socialization of the

deployment of infrastructure.”381 The problem with this course of (in)action is that it ignores the

real consequences access to media and information technologies might have across all sectors of

society. Moreover, market solutions, such as smart phones, have suboptimal consequences when

compared to “autonomous use of the internet”,382 and consequently, fewer or none beneficial

outcomes than universal home access. This course of action would result in the reproduction of

inequality, and the exclusion of a part of society (old people, homeless) from a growing venue

for knowledge acquisition and political engagement.

The second approach is to address solely the socio-economic conditions that predate and

explain some of the differences in access and use. Some authors and policymakers have argued

that digital inequalities are solely a function of poverty. In this view, both government and NGOs

have more pressing concerns, such as fighting hunger and fatal diseases, that fostering

connectivity.383 But the “solve poverty first, and everything else will be solved in the process”

stance fails to account for three different objections that might be raised against this position.


First, differences in access are not only related to socioeconomic inequalities. Other factors, such

as gender, age, and even geographic location affect he chances somebody might have access to

media and information technologies.384 In chapter 2 this dissertation shows how those of low and

medium socioeconomic status in poorer districts were significantly less likely to have online

access at home than their counterparts in the relatively affluent Buenos Aires. Second, lack of

access to media and information technologies may intensify already existing inequalities, by

preventing access to both market and political opportunities. Mossberger and McNeal have

defined “digital citizenship”, as the ability to participate in the society online, and argue that

people across all income brackets benefit from online access.385 Indeed, the findings presented in

chapters 3 and 4 show that access to some media and information technologies has positive,

albeit modest, outcomes even when controlling for basic demographic characteristics such as

socioeconomic and education levels, and more sophisticated measures of political competency,

such as information level, and internal and external efficacy. Finally, although resources are by

definition scarce, this does not mean that they should all be allocated to the same, most pressing

item. Governments and civil society organizations can and do tackle various issues at all times,

and some attention on digital inequalities does not preclude attention to hunger and poverty.

Access to media and information technologies might contribute to the fight against hunger and

fatal diseases, through the more equitable distribution of information across affected nations. Sen

has argued that free communication and empowered citizens are critical to preventing famines.386

The third plausible strategy, one that many nations and local governments have

implemented, is to subsidize the development of the national infrastructure to make it easier for

service providers to increase their reach within each country. However, research has shown that


families are reluctant to pay for the hardware and a monthly fee to access certain types of media

and information technologies.387 Katz and Galperin show that, although 96% of households in

Argentina ere within the range of fixed broadband coverage in 2011, only 39% hired the

service.388 They found a similar “demand gap” in various Latin American countries. The

interviews presented in chapter 2 of this dissertation highlight the economic costs some

respondents made when deciding whether to acquire media services with a monthly fee, such as

cable and internet access. In the case of online access, reluctance to spend is intensified by the

need to acquire costly hardware to go online, and the sense that the technology would be difficult

to use. Thus, although subsidizing infrastructure development may be a worthy goal, on its own

it does not guarantee access to media and information technologies.

The fourth solution would aim to complement the construction of a technological

backbone –which in many countries is already in place, with the exception or rural remote

communities- with a program of hardware distribution and subsidized connection fees. Although

“universal access” has figured prominently among policy and academic recommendations, it is

not always clear what it means. While I was writing the final chapter of this dissertation, the

president of Argentina sent a bill to Congress to modify regulation of telecommunications,

pertinently named “Argentina Digital”. In its article 18, the text of the bill states “The Federal

State guarantees Universal Service, understood as the ensemble of OCT (Information and

Communication Technologies) services that should be available to all users, at fair quality and

prices, independent of their geographic location”389. However, the bill stops short of specifying

what this universal access comprises, only clarifying in article 19 that “universal access” is a

“dynamic concept.”390 Based on the findings presented in this dissertation, I propose that a policy


of universal access should both facilitate, through subsidies or cheap credit, home equipment

with media and information technologies, rather than forcing the less privileged to walk to a

cybercafé or a library to go online. Broadband access fees should also be subsidized, for

instance, through “the reduction or elimination of taxes associated with basic connectivity plans,

or for individuals and households considered low income”, as Katz and Galperin propose.391

Although both the federal government and some local governments in Argentina have

implemented policies that distribute netbooks among school students, they have not

complemented this initiative with policy with subsidies for broadband access or free wireless

services.

The fourth course of action would almost certainly lead to a reduction in digital

inequalities, but it would not necessarily reinvigorate public life and civic engagement, amid a

context of inequality, fragmentation, apathy, and reduced political efficacy due to questioning of

the responsiveness of political institutions. However, the prospect of a two or three-tiered society

in regards to connectivity is in itself worrisome enough to attempt to solve increasingly

segmented and stratified patterns of access to media technologies, which allow not only

acquisition of information, but also participation through expression of political preferences in

informal and formal settings, such as casual commenting on social network sites and contacting

public officials.

In the previous chapters I have shown that there is unequal access to media and

information technologies, and that being able to connect is associated with increased

opportunities to acquire information and participate in the polity. The account of a two-tiered

society, in which some people have full access to media, and others have some access to media,


in different, more demanding circumstances, raises alarms regarding the possibility that all

inhabitants may be citizens, that is, “full members of a community”.392 T. H. Marshall traces the

evolution of citizenship from civil rights in the eighteenth century, political rights in the

nineteenth, and social rights in the twentieth. The first is composed by liberty of the person,

freedom of speech, thought and religion, the right to own property and the right to justice.

Political citizenship is comprised by the right to participate in the exercise of political power, for

example, through voting, joining a political party, and petitioning to the authorities. Social

citizenship includes “the whole range from the right to a modicum of economic welfare and

security to the right to share to the full in the social heritage and to live the life of a civilized

being according to the standards prevailing in the society.”393 Marshall proposes that although

“all who possess the status [of citizens] are equal with respect to the rights and duties with which

the status is endowed.” Thus, although “there is no universal principle that determines what those

rights and duties shall be, but (...) an image of an ideal citizenship against which achievement

can be measured and towards which aspiration can be directed.”394

Several authors have considered access to media as part of citizenship rights in the late

twentieth and early twenty-first century.395 Moreover, Marshall had explicitly linked increased

access to “the familiar instruments of modern democracy” to gains in citizenship: “political

journalism for the intelligentsia was followed by newspapers for all who could read, public

meetings, propaganda campaigns, and associations for the furtherance of public causes.”396 In the

twenty-first century, unfettered access to media and information technologies is inextricably

associated with citizenship as full membership of the local, national and human community. The

exercise of civil rights, such as freedom of expression, benefits immensely from being able to


publish thoughts and ideas online. Dutton and colleagues include “freedom of connection”

among a “broad set of digital rights” and recommend the development of infrastructures and

services and reduced costs to access as strategies to achieve it. 397 Political rights also gain from

access to media technologies: holding public officials accountable,398 organizing political

assemblies and even petitioning to the authorities are need not be conducted in face-to-face

setting at all times. Online political participation would be even more valuable for those without

the time or resources to partake in these activities in person. Finally, media and information

technologies are valuable tools to share the social heritage and live life according to the

standards prevailing in society. Cultural products are increasingly created and distributed online,

effectively marginalizing those who cannot access them, either due lack of a connection or lack

of media skills.

The idea of a two-tiered society in regards to media access also threatens what Habermas

characterizes as the “abstract public sphere of isolated readers, listeners, and viewers scattered

across large geographic areas” through the establishment of “segmented public spheres ...

constituted with the help of exclusion mechanisms (...) without a proviso for [their]

abolishment.”399 Although some scholars have argued that the public sphere as examined by

Habermas was always to some extent exclusionary on the basis of class and gender,400

segmentation based on access to certain channels of communication would deepen already

existing inequalities and further endanger democratic politics.

Both Marshall’s and Habermas’ accounts have been criticized for glossing over gaping

inequalities that obstructed democratic citizenship and deliberation. Their theories are the

product of the second part of the twentieth century, a period during which the existence of


inclusionary democracies, in which differences did not obstruct the equal exercise of rights,

seemed possible. After the nineteenth century, during which print, with various publics

segmented by class, gender and religion, had been the main form of communication among

citizens, broadcast technologies offered during a few decades a glimpse of unified national

public spheres, through both public and private broadcasters. By the twenty-first century, it is

almost certain that that dream is over. Segmented television markets through the establishment of

cable and satellite networks first, and the differentiated diffusion of the internet killed it.401

As this dissertation has shown, class, gender and geographic location complicate access

to online technologies to a larger extent than they do with radio and television. Moreover, even if

the internet does not “realize a range of human rights, combat inequality, and accelerate

development and human progress”, as the UN report cited in chapter 1 promised, it does

contribute to a fuller exercise of some civil, political and social rights. The recommendations

offered in this chapter to encourage the majority of citizens to take advantage of these

opportunities cannot erase inequality, fragmentation, apathy, and reduced political efficacy that

are prevalent in post industrial societies, both developed and developing. However, following

these recommendations might at least halter the reproduction of inequalities, political

segmentation, public indifference and feelings of irrelevance among voters through differentiated

access to media and information technologies. The internet will not revolutionize politics. Let’s

hope it won’t also create first and second class citizens, according to their capacity to pay for

what should be a universal right.


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Endnotes

1 La Rue, 2011

2 Castells 2001; Benkler 2006, Jenkins 2006.

3 Avery, 2009;Cappella & Jamieson 1997; Mutz & Reeves, 2005; Robinson, 1975.

4Putnam, 1993, 2000.

5Sunstein, 2001.

6Prior, 2007.

7Hindman, 2009, p. 3.

8 Katz & Rice, 2002.

9Boczkowski, 2005, p. 2.

10Williams, 1972, p. 12

11Cockburn, 1992; Katz & Rice, 2002; Silverstone & Hirsh, 1992.

12Boczkowski & Lievrouw, 2008; Johnson & Rice 1980.

13Farrell 2012.

14Bennet & Iyengar, 2009, p. 723.

15 Van Dijk, 2006, pag, 232.

16 Mitchelstein & Boczkowski, 2010.

17 Norris, 2001; van Deursen & van Dijk, 2010, Warschahuer, 2004.

18Schudson, 1998; Zaller, 2003.

19Donohue, Tichenor, & Olien, 1975; Ettema & Kline, 1977; Tichenor, Donohue, & Olien, 1970.

20Noelle-Neumann, 1974; 1977.


21 Brady, Verba, & Schlozman, 1995; Rosenstone & Hansen, 1993; Verba & Nie, 1972.

22Neuman, 1986; Verba, Burns, & Schlozman, 1997.

23 Almond & Verba, 1963; Booth & Seligson 2009; Putnam, 2000.

24Bennett & Entman, 2001; Downs, 1957; Druckman, 2005; Graber, 2006; Habermas, 1996;

Iyengar & Kinder, 1987.

25Boczkowski & Lievrouw, 208, p. 949.

26Schement & Curtis, 1997, Katz & Rice, 2002; Silverstone & Hirsh, 1992.

27Webster 1998 .

28Bimber, 1998; Neuman, 2001; Weber, Loumakis, & Bergman, 2003.

29Amadeo, 2007; 2006; Boulianne, 2009; de Vreese, 2007; Johnson & Kaye, 2003; Shah, Cho,

Eveland, & Kwak, 2005.

30Boulianne, 2009.

31Albrecht, 2006; Best & Krueger, 2005; Bonchek, 1997; Chadwick, 2006; Krueger, 2002;

Papacharissi, 2002.

32Donohue, Tichenor, & Olien, 1975; Ettema & Kline, 1977; Tichenor, Donohue, & Olien, 1970.

33Jerit, Barabas, & Bolsen, 2006, p. 267.

34Dutta-Bergman, 2004; Graber, 1996; Krueger, 2006; Margolis & Resnick, 2000; Prior, 2005,

2007.

35Benkler, 2006; Coleman & Gøtze, 2001; Etzioni, 2003; Jenkins, 2006.

36 Prior, 2005; 2007.

37Boulianne, 2009, Mossberger et al, 2009, Tolbert & McNeal, 2003.


38Boczkowski & Mitchelstein, 2013; Boczkowski & Mitchelstein, 2001; Boczkowski,

Mitchelstein & Walter, 2012; Iyengar & Simon, 2000; Just, Crigler, et al, 1997.

39Schudson, 1998; Zaller, 2003.

40 Glynn, Hayes & Shanahan, 1997, Noelle-Neumann, 1974.

41Hooghe & Marine, 2013; Kenski & Stroud, 2006; Niemi, Craig & Mattei, 1992.

42 Carreras & Irepoglu, 2013.

43Boczkowski, 2010, p. 162.

44Horrigan, Rainie, & Fox, 2001; Mariscal, 2005; Oxendine, Borgida, Sullivan, & Jackson, 2003.

45Cecchini, 2005; Guillen & Suarez, 2005; Heeks, 2001; Jensen, Danziger, & Venkatesh, 2007;

Norris, 2001.

46Guillen & Suarez, 2005; Servon, 2002; Warschauer, 2002.

47Cecchini, 2005; Galperin, 2004; Mariscal, 2005.

48Barzilai-Nahon 2006, Di Maggio et al. 2004; Hargittai 2002, Hargittai and Hsieh 2013; van

Dijk 2005.

49DiMaggio, Hargittai, Celeste, & Shafer, 2004; ; Hargittai, 2008; Hargittai & Hinnant, 2008.

50 Krueger, 2006; Katz &Rice, 2002; Jennings & Zeitner, 2003.

51Boulianne, 2009, p. 199.

52Althaus& Tewksbury, 2002, Conway & Patterson, 2008; Price & Cappella, 2002.

53Galperin & Mariscal, 2007; Gurstein, 2003; Hargittai, 2008; Hargittai & Hinnant, 2008; Van

Dijk & Hacker, 2003; DiMaggio, Hargittai, Celeste, & Shafer, 2004.

54Campante, Durante and Sobbrio, 2013.

55 Brady, Verba, & Schlozman, 1995; Rosenstone & Hansen, 1993; Verba & Nie, 1972.


56Neuman, 1986; Verba, Burns, & Schlozman, 1997

57Delli Carpini & Keeter, 1996, p. 1.

58Almond & Verba, 1963; Booth & Seligson 2009; Putnam, 2000.

59It is officially called “Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires” to differentiate it from the Province

of Buenos Aires. Hereafter I will refer to it as “Buenos Aires”, except when context demands

that it be distinguished from the province.

60 It is officially called “Ciudad de Santa Fe” to differentiate it from the Province of Santa Fe, of

which it is the capital. Hereafter I will refer to it as “Santa Fe”, except when context demands

that it be distinguished from the province.

61 For a definition of “polyarchy”, see Dahl, 1971. For a classification of Argentina´s political

regime, see Polity IV.

62More details on the locations and how and why they were selected in Chapter 2 of this

dissertation.

63 Williams, Rice & Roger, 1988.

64 Five online sites of newspapers from Buenos Aires, Santa Fe, and Resistencia were included in

the sample, as well as an online news outlet from Resistencia, and the Internet counterpart of the

most watched national cable news channel. José C. Paz has no local news source (either in print

or in television) and its closeness to Buenos Aires means that it has access mostly to Buenos

Aires media. The sites added a total of at least 22 million unique visitors in the second semester

of 2011, when this research was conducted, and the print counterparts of the newspaper had a

pooled average circulation of 500,000.

65More detailed accounts of the methodology are presented in chapters 2, 3 and 4.


66 Bauer, 2000; Graber, 1984.

67Krippendorf 2004.

68 See, for instance, Zaller, 2003, and Bennett, 2003.

69 Capella & Hall Jamieson, 1997.

70Putnam , 1995.

71 Noelle-Neumann, 1974.

72 Jordán, Galperin & Peres, 2013.

73 Personal interview, November 25 2010.

74 Personal interview, October 21 2011.

75 Personal interview, December 4 2010.

76 Personal interview, May 23 2011.

77 Personal interview, October 20 2011.

78 Barzilai-Nahon 2006, Di Maggio et al. 2004; Hargittai 2002, Hargittai and Hsieh 2013; van

Dijk 2005.

79 Boulianne,2009; Margolis & Resnick, 2000; Nisbet & Scheufele, 2004; Tolbert & McNeal,

2003.

80 Lupia & Philpot, 2005; Tewksbury, Weaver & Maddex, 2001.

81 Bakker & De Vreese, 2011; Baum, 2003, Esser & de Vreese, 2007.

82 Bennett & Entman, 2001; Downs, 1957; Druckman, 2005; Graber, 2006; Habermas, 1996;

Iyengar & Kinder, 1987.

83 Prior, 2007, pp. 28-29.

84 Boczkowski & Lievrouw, 2007, p. 949.


85 Schement & Curtis, 1997, Katz & Rice, 2002; Silverstone & Hirsch, 1992.

86 Jenkins, 2006; Webster, 1998.

87 Berkowitz, 1992, 2000; Boczkowski & Mitchelstein, 2013.

88 Guillen and Suarez 2005, Andres et al. 2007.

89 Horrigan 2009, Mesch & Talmud 2011.

90 Das, Ester & Kaczmirek 2010.

91Rice & Haythornthwaite, 2006 .

92 Horrigan, Rainie, & Fox, 2001; Mariscal, 2005; Oxendine, Borgida, Sullivan, & Jackson,

2003.

93 Cecchini, 2005; Guillen & Suarez, 2005; Heeks, 2001; Jensen, Danziger, & Venkatesh, 2007;

Norris, 2001.

94 Guillen & Suarez, 2005; Servon, 2002; Warschauer, 2002.

95 Galperin & Mariscal, 2007; Gurstein, 2003; Hargittai, 2008; Hargittai & Hinnant, 2008; van

Dijk & Hacker, 2003.

96 DiMaggio, Hargittai, Celeste, & Shafer, 2004, p. 374.

97 Cecchini, 2005; Galperin, 2004; Mariscal, 2005.

98 Jordán, Galperin & Peres, 2013.

99 Cleary & Stokes, 2006; Gibson & Calvo, 2000; UNDP, 2009.

100 Navas-Sabater, Dymond, & Juntunen, 2002, p. 10.

101 Cecchini, 2005, p. 10.

102 Hargittai & Hsieh, 2013, p. 133.


103 Chan and Leung, 2005; Hujanen and Pietikainen, 2004; Kayany and Yelsma, 2000;

Livingstone and Markham, 2008; Nguyen and Western, 2007

104 Katz, Blumler & Gurevitch, 1974

105 Dutta-Bergman 2004; Lin et al., 2005; Livingstone, 2004; Sheehan, 2002

106 McCombs, 1972

107 Gentzkow, 2007; Gunter et al., 2003; Kaye and Johnson, 2003; Lin et al., 2005

108 Ahlers, 2006; Coleman and McCombs, 2007; Lee, 2006; Ogan et al., 2008

109 Poindexter, Meraz and Schmitz-Weiss, 2010

110 Schramm, 1949, McLeod and Perse 1994.

111 McLeod & Perse, 1994, Poindexter, 2000

112 Bennett, 2003; Patterson, 2000

113 Downs, 1957

114 Zaller, 2003; Schudson, 1995

115 Putnam 1993

116 Cleary and Stokes, 2006

117 King, Keohane, & Verba, 1994; Snyder, 2001

118 According to the Polity IV Project, Argentina has averaged +8 from 1983 until 2009 in a 21-

point scale ranging from -10 (hereditary monarchy) to +10 (consolidated democracy).

119 UNDP 2009

120 UNDP 2002

121 IDC, 2009; INDEC, 2009

122 Bril Mascarenhas, 2007


123 CNC, 2009

124 UNDP, 2002

125 IDC, 2009; INDEC, 2009

126 UNDP 2002

127 INDEC 2001

128 UNDP 2009

129 UNDP 2002

130 IDC, 2009; INDEC, 2009

131 AAPOR 2008

132 Williams, Rice and Rogers, 1988

133 Graber, 1984, 2001

134When compared to the general population of the four locations, those who had not finished

high school or had fewer years of education were under-represented (18% vs. 33%) and those

who had completed college were over-represented (30% vs. 11%). The sample did not aim at

being representative, but at including respondents with varying ages, educational levels and

socioeconomic strata.

135 It should be noted that not necessarily all the respondents paid for the connection The

Argentina Association of Cable Television (ATCV by its initials in Spanish) estimates that many

cable and satellite connections are illegal (ATCV, 2011

http://www.atvc.org.ar/?pagina=detalleNoticia&nId=107).

136 Jordán et al 2012.

137 Cecchini, 2005; Navas Savater et al, 2002


138 Prior, 2005, 2007

139 Personal Interview, November 17 2010

140 Personal Interview, September 26 2011

141 Personal Interview, November 30, 2010

142 Personal Interview, September 29, 2011

143 Personal Interview, October 19 2011

144 Personal Interview, December 17 2010





149 Personal interview, November 15 2010

150 Personal Interview, January 3 2011





155 Personal Interview, December 10, 2010

156 Personal Interview, May 18 2011

157 Personal Interview, November 29, 2011


159 Personal interview, December 21 2011


160 Personal Interview, October 15, 2010






166 Personal Interview, March 17 2011


168 Personal Interview, October 2, 2010




172 Personal Interview, April 7 2011

173 Personal communication, September 2011



176 Personal Interview, October 6 2010.



179 Personal Interview, December 20, 2010.

180 Mitchelstein & Boczkowski, 2011, p. 1088

181 Boczkowski and Mitchelstein, 2013


182 Bennett, 2003; Patterson, 2000

183 Zaller, 2003; Schudson, 1995

184 Hargittai and Hsieh, 2013

185 Brady, Verba, & Schlozman, 1995; Rosenstone & Hansen, 1993; Verba & Nie, 1972

186 Price, 1999: 591

187 Neuman, 1986; Verba, Burns, & Schlozman, 1997

188 Delli Carpini & Keeter, 1996, p. 1

189 Almond & Verba, 1963; Booth & Seligson 2009; Putnam, 2000


191 Brady, 1999, p. 596

192 Lau & Redlawsk, 2001 Price & Zaller, 1993, Stimson, 1975

193 Delli Carpini & Keeter, 1993; Zaller, 1992, Price 1999

194 Bartels, 1993, Blekesaune et al, 2012, Curran, Iyengar et al, 2009, Zaller, 1996

195 Chaffee & Kanihan, 1997; Dalrymple and Scheufele, 2007, Kim, 2008, Neuman et al, 1992;

Patterson & McClure, 1976

196 Druckman, 2005: Robinson & Davis, 1990

197 Althaus & Tewksbury, 2002: Schoenbach et al, 2005

198 Dutta-Bergman, 2004; Graber, 1996; Krueger, 2006; Margolis & Resnick, 2000; Prior, 2005,

2007

199 2001, p. 123

200 Althaus, Cizmar and Gimpel 2009; Druckman 2013; Prior, 2005; 2007;

201 Arnold, 2006; Boczkowski & Mitchelstein, 2013, Holbrook, 1996, Smidt, 2010


202 Just, Crigler, et al, 1996

203 Iyengar & Simon, 2000

204 Donohue, Tichenor, & Olien, 1975; Ettema & Kline, 1977; Tichenor, Donohue, & Olien,

1970

205 Jerit, Barabas, & Bolsen, 2006, p. 267

206 2008, p. 205

207 Eveland & Scheufele , 2000.

208 Holbrook 2002; Moore 1987; Zaller, 1996

209 In May 2011, Clarín had a daily average daily circulation of 277,000, La Nación had an

average daily circulation of 159,000, El Litoral had an average daily circulation of 16,000, Diario

Uno Santa Fe had an average daily circulation of 6,000, and Norte had an average daily

circulation of 16,000 (IVC, 2011). The online edition of Clarín had 12 million unique visitors in

November 2010, and la Nación had 6 million unique visitors during the same period (IAB

Argentina, cited in Clarín 2011). TN was the most viewed cable news network and its online

edition had 4 million unique visitors in 2011 (Anuario TN, 2011).

210 See Boczkowski & Mitchelstein 2013

211 All the sites except Diario Norte made the “most read” stories publicly available. The number

of most read stories posted by each site varied throughout the year of data collection. Clarín and

Data Chaco and El Litoral always posted 10, La Nación Posted between 5 and 10, averaging 8.5

during the period of data collection, TN posted 5 until May 2011, and 10 thereafter, averaging

7.35, and Uno always posted 5.


212 The small difference with the expected number of stories (n=10,130 for the homepage and

8,085 the most read list) results from the retrieval of repeated stories that were later excluded

from analysis (journalists’ list) and that these sites posted less than 10 stories in their “most read”

rankings (consumers’ list) during a few days.

213 According to Fleiss, Levin and Paik “values greater than 0.75 may be taken to represent

excellent agreement beyond chance.” (2003, p. 604)

214 This coding scheme is adapted from Boczkowski and Mitchelstein (2013).

215 Political knowledge will be measured using a one-dimensional scale, based on the one

proposed by Delli Carpini and Keeter (1993) which includes items about the candidates’ and

parties’ policy positions, identification of political figures, and factual questions about rules and

procedures. The questions posed to all respondents were 1) Do you remember the name of the

vice-president? 2) Which public office does (Chief Justice) Ricardo Lorenzetti hold? 3) Which

party has the most seats in the Senate? 4) How long does a Senator last in office and 5) in which

month will the presidential election be held?

216 The scores cannot be compared because the questions for the second wave were different

from those of the first wave: 1) Who is (incumbent) Cristina Fernández de Kirchner´s vice-

presidential candidate? 2) Javier González Fraga is the vice-presidential candidate to which

presidential candidate? 3) What percentage of votes does the winning party need to avoid a run-

off election? 4) Which party received the most votes in the primaries? And 5) What is the exact

date of the election?

218 Mainwaring , 1988


219 Ricardo Alfonsín obtained 12.20%, Eduardo Duhalde 12.12%, Hermes Binner 10.18%,

Rodríguez Saa 8.17%, and Elisa Carrió 3 .22%.

220 2011 was the first time the PASO (Primarias Abiertas, Simultáneas y Obligatorias –Open,

simultaneous, Compulsory primaries) were held in Argentina. They were created by Law n°

26,571, sanctioned in December 2009, and until January 2011 opposition parties challenged the

law in the courts, with no success (Mendelevich, 2011). Future research should take into account

the primaries as instances of information acquisition.

221 There is s previous peak in November 2011, which is explained by former president (and late

husband of the incumbent) Néstor Kirchner´s death on October 27 of that year.

222 Boczkowski & Mitchelstein, 2013

223 Clarín, TN and (to a lesser extent) La Nación could be characterized as critical to the

incumbent (Waisbord 2010, Mastrini & Becerra 2014) which may be a contributing factor to the

drop in public affairs coverage after the primaries. However, that doesn´t explain either the

relatively high levels of coverage and audience interest during the primaries, or the drop across

all sites after the primaries.

224 Although the feud between grupo Clarín, Clarín´s parent company, and the Fernandez de

Kirchner administration has been documented (Mastrini & Becerra, 2014, Waisbord, 2010)

interviewees, from the entire ideological spectrum, mentioned Clarin online as one of their news

sources.

225 Personal communication, May 5 2011

226 Personal communication, December 3 2010

227 Personal communication, December 10 2010


228 Personal Communication, December 8 2010




232 Personal Communication October 10 2011

233 Personal Communication, December 10 2012.

234 Personal Communication, October 6 2011.

235 Personal Communication, May 9 2011

236 Personal Communication, May 2 2011

237 Personal Communication, March 17 2011

238 Law 26,571 indicates that electoral advertising should start 30 days before the date of the

primary election.

239 This is confirmed by the survey, where 87% of the respondents said they had voted in the

primaries

240 Personal Communication, September 29 2011

241 Personal Communication, October 13 2011


243 Personal Communication, October 20 2011.


245 Personal Communication, October 5, 2011


247 Personal Communication, September 26 2011.



249 Ettema, Brown and Luepker, 1983.

250 Zaller, 1996


252 Boczkowski & Mitchelstein, 2013; Just, Crigler, et al, 1996

253 Kennamer and Chaffee, 1981.


255 Lazarsfeld & Merton, 1948, p. 106

256 Personal Interview, December 1 2010.


258 Several authors have made a distinction between these three types of citizen engagement. For

instance, see Brady, 1999, Zukin, Keeter, Andolina, Jenkins, & Delli Carpini, 2006.

259 Niemi, Craig & Mattei, 1991.

260 Noelle-Neumann, 1974

261 Boczkowski & Lievrouw, 2007

262 Amadeo, 2007; Boulianne, 2009; de Vreese, 2007; Johnson & Kaye, 2003; Shah, Cho,

Eveland, & Kwak, 2005

263 2011, p. 16

264 Benkler, 2006; DiMaggio, Hargittai, Neuman, & Robinson, 2001; Moe, 2008; Papacharissi,

2004

265 Albrecht, 2006; Best & Krueger, 2005; Bonchek, 1997; Chadwick, 2006; Krueger, 2002;

Papacharissi, 2002, Wei and Hindman, 2011


266 Bimber, 2001; Davis, 1999; Kenski & Stroud, 2006

267 2002: 65

268 Eliasoph, 1998; Hibbing & Theiss-Morse, 2002

269 Benkler, 2006; Coleman & Gøtze, 2001; Etzioni, 2003; Jenkins, 2006

270 Niemi, Craig & Mattei, 1991, p. 1407

271 Niemi, Craig & Mattei, 1991, p. 1408

272 Almond & Verba, 1963

273 Putnam, 1993; Cleary and Stokes, 2006; Rotolo and Wilson, 2011, Oliver 2000

274 Putnam, 2000

275 Cleary and Stokes, 2006

276 Just, Crigler, et al, 1996, Hansen & Pedersen, 2014, Iyengar & Simon, 2000

277 Banducci and Karp, 2003; Rhan, Brehm, Carlson 1999; Lindberg 2004

278 Austin & Pinkleton 1999, Pinkleton & Weinstraub Austin 2004; Yamamoto & Kushin, 2014

279 The only exception was among respondents with less than a high school education in

Resistencia, among which there is a high prevalence of government employment and subsidies.

The main driver of the increase in political expression from before the camion to the height of

the campaign was the question “did you talk about politics...?”, which received a positive answer

from 22% of participants with less than a high school education before the campaign, compared

to 54% in October, a few days before the election. Worry about changes in their employment or

subsidies regimes after the election might have led Resistencianos with lower levels of education

to discuss politics with friends and family.


280 In Resistencia, civic participation appears to have declined across all respondents. Although

the data do not provide any clear explanations for this phenomenon, Resistencia has the highest

levels of political participation of the four locations, which may have competed with civic

participation for citizens’ time and resources during an election year.



283 Personal Interview, December12 2010








291 Personal Interview, March 15 2011

292 Personal Interview, December 1, 2010.






298 Personal interview, September 28 2011




301 Personal interview, December 2, 2010


303 Personal Interview, May 29 2011.

304 Personal interview, March 16 2011

305 Personal interview, November 15 2010

306 Personal interview, October 5 2011










316 Personal interview, June 8 2011


318 Personal Interview, September 29, 2011.


320 Personal Interview, October 7, 2010.


321 Persona interview, May 29 2011



324 Personal Interview, September 29 2010.

325 Personal Interview, November 17 2010.

326 Personal Interview, September 29 2011.





331 Personal Interview, November 17 2010.







338 Capella & Hall Jamieson, 1997

339Putnam , 2000

340 Brown, Campbell & Ling, 2011

341 Hargittai & Hsieh, 2012

342 Rosenstone and Hansen, 2003, p. 5


343 Downs, 1957

344 Eliasoph 1998

345 Mutz, 2006

346 Hampton, Rainie et al, 2014

347 Noelle-Neumann, 1974

348 Fleitas, 1971; Simon1954

349 DiMaggio, Hargittai, Celeste, & Shafer, 2004, p. 374

350 Norris, 2001; van Deursen & van Dijk, 2010, Warschauer, 2004

351Schudson, 1998; Zaller, 2003

352Donohue, Tichenor, & Olien, 1975; Ettema & Kline, 1977; Tichenor, Donohue, & Olien, 1970

353Noelle-Neumann, 1974

354 Merton, 1968

355 Pearce and Rice, 2013, p. 722.

356 Walton & Donner, 2012, p. 6.

357 Di Maggio, Hargittai, Celeste and Shafer, 2004; Pearce and Rice, 2013.

358 Walton & Donner, 2012, p. 6.

359 Compaine, 2001, p. IX

360 Di Maggio, Hargittai, Celeste and Shafer, 2004, Warschauer, 2002, Van Dijk, 2006

361 Schudson, 1998; Zaller, 2003

362 Boczkowski & Mitchelstein, 2013; Boczkowski, Mitchelstein & Walter, 2012; Iyengar &

Simon, 2000; Just, Crigler, et al, 1997

363 See, for instance, Zaller, 2003, and Bennett, 2003


364Donohue, Tichenor, & Olien, 1975; Ettema & Kline, 1977; Tichenor, Donohue, & Olien, 1970

365 Zaller, 1996


367 Capella & Hall Jamieson, 1997

368 Putnam , 1995

369 Downs, 1957

370Noelle-Neumann, 1974

371 Prior, 2005, 2007

372 Unesco, 2014

373 Stewart, 2009

374 Mann, 2006

375 Barnow, 1990, Smulyan, 1994

376 Hannemyr, 2003: television Bureau of Advertising, 2012

377 Pew, 2014, http://www.pewinternet.org/data-trend/internet-use/connection-type/

378 Morgan & Shanahan, 1991; Waisbord 1994

379 AHCIET 2014

380 Rockhman,2011; Epstein, Nisbet & Gillespie, 2011

381 cited in Rockhman, 2011, p. 192

382 Hargittai & Hsieh, 2013, p. 133

383 Rockhman, 2011, Fuchs, 2009

384 Livingstone & Helsper, 2006

385 Mossberger, Tolbert & Mc Neal, 2007, Mossberger 2009


386 Sen, 1999

387 Jordán, Galperin & Peres, 2013;

388 Katz & Galperin, 2012, p. 13

389 Argentina Digital Bill, p. 26.

390 Argentina Digital Bill, p. 27

391 Katz & Galperin, 2012, p. 22

392 Marshall, 1950. p. 28

393 Marshall, 1950. p. 11

394 Marshall, 1950. p. 29

395 Curran, 2011; Dahlgren 1995; Mossberger Tolbert & Mc Neal, 2007

396 Marshall, 1950. p. 41

397 Dutton, Dopatka, Hills, Law, and Nash, 2010, p.41

398 Peruzzotti, 2005

399 Habermas, 1996, p. 374

400 Fraser, 1992, Papacharissi 2002, Schudson, 1995

401 Webster, 2014.

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