National Identity and Political Knowledge

People choose media content with which they can identify themselves and which seem relevant to them. On a daily basis, Germans are interested in news about Germany, in contrast US-Americans rather watch news about the United States. It seems likely that recipients especially absorb political information about their own country. Furthermore, especially news that concerns their own country have a strong influence on their own national identity. On the basis of young adults in Germany and the USA, we analyzed if political news, that are adequately relevant for one's own national identity (Germans or US-Americans), also positively influence their identity and their political knowledge. We hypothesized that recipients know more about politics if the media content refers to their national identity. We found that when participants read positively valenced news articles, they afterwards showed more positive distinctiveness (e.g., U.S. students believed that the US had a better national educational system than Germany). We also found that when German participants read positively valenced news articles, they demonstrated better knowledge of the articles. This effect was not found in the U.S. sample.

Contact Person

Prof. Dr. Sabine Trepte
E-Mail: sabine.trepte@uni-hohenheim.de

Participating researchers

Prof. Dr. Sabine Trepte (GER)
Dr. Josephine B. Schmitt (GER)
Dr. Tobias Dienlin (GER)
Prof. Dr. Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick (USA)
Dr. Benjamin K. Johnson (USA)

Short description

The project was a collaboration between researchers of the Ohio State University (USA) and the University of Hohenheim. It was financed by means of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, BMBF). Besides the examination of the research questions, the aim of this project was to promote the exchange between young researchers from Germany and from the USA. Prof. Dr. Sabine Trepte from the University of Hohenheim and Prof. Dr. Silvia Knoblock-Westerwick from the Ohio State University were responsible for the direction of the project. They were supported by Dr. Benjamin K. Johnson from the USA and Dr. Josephine B. Schmitt and Dr. Tobias Dienlin from Germany. Prof. Dr. Sabine Trepte and Prof. Dr. Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick both focus on the examination of effects of news media, political knowledge and social identity in their research. To date, the effect of news content on identity was still unexplored. This research project suggested first steps to close this gap. With the project "national identity and political knowledge", the two concepts of social identity and political knowledge were connected for the first time. For this purpose, the effects of news media content were integrated into the model of identity developed by Sabine Trepte in 2006.

Run-time of the project

1st January 2013 until 31st December 2014

Literature

Trepte, S. & Loy, L. (2017). Social identity theory and self-categorization theory. In P. Rössler, C. A. Hoffner & L. van Zoonen (Eds), The International Encyclopedia of Media Effects, (p. 1832-1845). Malten, MA: John Wiley & Sons. doi.org/10.1002/9781118783764

Trepte, S., Schmitt, J. & Dienlin, T. (2016). Good News! How reading valenced news articles influences positive distinctiveness and learning from news. Journal of Media Psychology, Online First. doi.org/10.1027/1864-1105/a000182

Knobloch-Westerwick, S., & Meng, J. (2011). Reinforcement of the political self through selective exposure to political messages. Journal of Communication, 61(2), 349-368. doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2011.01543.x

Knobloch-Westerwick, S., & Hastall, M. R. (2010). Please your self: Social identity effects on selective exposure to news about in- and out-groups. Journal of Communication, 60, 515-535. doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2010.01495.x

Trepte, S., & Verbeet, M. (2010). Allgemeinbildung in Deutschland. Erkenntnisse aus dem SPIEGEL-Studentenpisa-Test. Wiesbaden: VS-Verlag.

Trepte, S. (2006). Social Identity Theory. In J. Bryant & P. Vorderer (Eds.), Psychology of Entertainment (pp. 255-271). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. (Link zum PDF)