Efficient Choice, Inefficient Democracy? The Implications of Cable and Internet Access for Political Knowledge and Voter Turnout

This paper explains why, despite a marked increase in available political information on cable television and the Internet, citizens’ levels of political knowledge have, at best, remained stagnant (Delli Carpini & Keeter, 1996). Since the availability of entertainment content has increased too, the effect of new media on knowledge and vote likelihood should be determined by people’s relative preferences for entertainment and information. Access to new media should increase knowledge and vote likelihood among people who prefer news. At the same time, it is hypothesized to have a negative effect on knowledge and turnout for people who prefer entertainment content. Hypotheses are tested by building a measure of Relative Entertainment Preference (REP) from existing NES and Pew survey data. Results support the predicted interaction effect of media environment (cable and/or Internet access) and motivation (REP) on political knowledge and turnout. In particular, people who prefer entertainment to news and have access to cable television and the Internet are less knowledgeable and less likely to vote than any other group of people.