Prior's study finds that as media choice increases, it widens gaps in political knowledge and voter turnout between those who prefer news content and those who prefer entertainment. Those who like news can access more information to become more knowledgeable and vote at higher rates, while those preferring entertainment can more easily avoid news and therefore know less and vote less. This voluntary segmentation of the electorate into informed and uninformed groups has increased as people gain more control over their media diets.

1. 43
"News vs. Entertainment: How Increasing
Media Choice Widens Gaps in Political
Knowledge and Turnout"
Markus Prior
Although everyone has contact with the government nearly
every day—attending
a public school, driving on public roads, using government-
regulated electricity, and
so on—few citizens have direct contact with the policymaking
process. Because of
this distance between the public and policymakers, the behavior
of intermediaries
between the government and the governed is a significant issue
in a democratic
polity. The media, in particular the news media, are among the
most significant of
these intermediaries that tell the people what the government is
doing and tell the
government what the people want.
In today's media environment, information is more abundant
than ever, Markus
Prior notes, yet participation and knowledge levels have
remained stagnant. Rather
than enhancing participatory democracy, as advocates of new
media suggest is
the norm, the onset of cable television and the Internet has
worsened information

2. and participation gaps between those individuals who like to
follow the news and
those who are more interested in entertainment. Prior argues
that the spread of
additional news choices, which sounds democratic, has had
nondemocratic effects.
Newshounds can dig ever deeper into the news, but other
members of the public are
increasingly able to ignore the news. Other critics have made a
similar argument
that new media tend to exacerbate public polarization because
readers, viewers, and
listeners gravitate to outlets presenting opinions they agree with
and ignore those
sources that would challenge their views.
The rise of new media has brought the question of audience
fragmenta-tion and selective exposure to the forefront of
scholarly and popular
debate. In one of the most widely discussed contributions to this
debate.
Sunstein has proposed that people's increasing ability to
customize their
political information will have a polarizing impact on
democracy as media
users become less likely to encounter information that
challenges their
partisan viewpoints. While this debate is far from settled/ the
issue which
precedes it is equally important and often sidestepped: as choice
between
different media content increases, who continues to access any
type of
political information? Cable television and the Internet have
increased

3. "News vs. Entertainment" 317
media choice so much in recent decades that many Americans
now live in
a high-choice media environment. As media choice increases,
the likeli-
hood of "chance encounters" with any political content declines
signifi-
cantly for many people. Greater choice allows politically
interested people
to access more information and increase their political
knowledge. Yet
those who prefer nonpolitical content can more easily escape
the news
and therefore pick up less political information than they used
to. In a
high-choice environment, lack of motivation, not lack of skills
or resources,
poses the main obstacle to a widely informed electorate.
As media choice increases, content preferences thus become the
key to
understanding political learning and participation. In a high-
choice envi-
ronment, politics constantly competes with entertainment. Until
recently,
the impact of content preferences was limited because media
users did not
enjoy much choice between different content. Television
quickly became
the most popular mass medium in history, but for decades the
networks'
scheduling ruled out situations in which viewers had to choose

4. between
entertainment and news. Largely unexposed to entertainment
competi-
tion, news had its place in the early evening and again before
the late-night
shows. Today, as both entertainment and news are available
around the
clock on numerous cable channels and web sites, people's
content prefer-
ences determine more of what those with cable or Internet
access watch,
read, and hear.
Distinguishing between people who like news and take
advantage of
additional information and people who prefer other media
content explains
a puzzling empirical finding: despite the spectacular rise in
available
political information, mean levels, of political knowledge in the
popula-
tion have essentially remained constant. Yet the fact that
average knowl-
edge levels did not change hides important trends: political
knowledge
has risen in some segments of the electorate, but declined in
others.
Greater media choice thus widens the "knowledge gap."
[Njumerous
studies have examined the diffusion of information in the
population and
the differences that emerge between more and less informed
individuals.
According to some of these studies, television works as a
"knowledge lev-
eler because it presents information in less cognitively

5. demanding ways.
To reconcile this effect with the hypothesis that more television
widens
the knowledge gap, it is necessary to distinguish the effect of
news expo-
sure from the effect of the medium itself. In the low-choice
broadcast envi-
ronment, access to the medium and exposure to news were
practically one
and the same, as less politically interested television viewers
had no choice
but to watch the news from time to time. As media choice
increases, expo-
sure to the news may continue to work as a "knowledge
leveler," but the
distribution of news exposure itself has become more unequal.
Access to
the medium no longer implies exposure to the news. Television
news nar-
rows the knowledge gap among its viewers. For the population
as a whole,
more channels widen the gap.
318 Markus Prior
The consequences of increasing media choice reach beyond a
less
equal distribution of political knowledge. Since political
knowledge is
an important predictor of turnout and since exposure to political
infor-
mation motivates turnout, the shift from a low-choice to a high-
choice
media environment implies changes in electoral participation as

6. well.
Those with a preference for news not only become more
knowledgeable,
but also vote at higher rates. Those with a stronger interest in
other media
content vote less.
This study casts doubt on the view that the socioeconomic
dimension of
the digital divide is the greatest obstacle to an informed and
participating
electorate. Many casual observers emphasize the great promise
new tech-
nologies hold for democracy. They deplore current
socioeconomic inequal-
ities in access to new media, but predict increasing political
knowledge
and participation among currently disadvantaged people once
these
inequalities have been overcome. This ignores that greater
media choice
leads to greater voluntary segmentation of the electorate. The
present study
suggests that gaps based on socioeconomic status will be
eclipsed by
preference-based gaps once access to new media becomes
cheaper and
more widely available. Gaps created by unequal distribution of
resources
and skills often emerged due to circumstances outside of
people's control.
The preference-based gaps documented in this article are self-
imposed as
many people abandon the news for entertainment simply
because they
like it better. Inequality in political knowledge and turnout

7. increases as a
result of voluntary, not circumstantial, consumption decisions.
♦ » îfr
Theory
The basic premise of this analysis is that people's media
environment
determines the extent to which their media use is governed by
content
preferences. According to theories of program choice, viewers
have prefer-
ences over program characteristics or program types and sélect
the pro-
gram that promises to be.st satisfy these preferences. The
simplest models
distinguish between preferences for information and
entertainment. In
the low-choice broadcast environment, most people watched
news and
learned about politics because they were reluctant to turn off
the set even
if the programs offered at the time did not match their
preferences. One
study conducted in the early 1970s showed that 40% of the
respondents
reported watching programs because they appeared on the
channel they
were already watching or because someone else wanted to see
them.
Audience research has proposed a two-stage model according to
which
people first decide to watch television and then pick the
available pro-
gram they like best. Klein aptly called this model the "Theory
of Least

8. Objectionable Program." If television viewers are routinely
"glued to the
box" and select the best available program, we can explain why
so many
News vs. Entertainment" 319
Americans watched television news in the 1960s and 70s despite
modest
political interest. Most television viewing in the broadcast era
did not
stem from a deliberate choice of a program, but rather was
determined by
convenience, availability of spare time and the decision to
spend that time
in front of the TV set. And since broadcast channels offered a
solid block
of news at the dinner hour and again after primetime, many
viewers were
routinely exposed to news even though they watched television
primarily
to be entertained.
Once exposed to television news, people learn about politics.
Although
a captive news audience does not exhibit the same political
interest as a
^self-selected one and therefore may not learn as much,
research on passive
^ learning suggests that even unmotivated exposure can produce
learning.
Hence, even broadcast viewers who prefer entertainment
programs absorb

9. at least basic political knowledge when they happen to tune in
when only
news is on.
I propose that such accidental exposure should become less
likely in
a high-choice environment because greater horizontal diversity
(the
number of genres available at any particular point in time)
increases the
chance that viewers will find content that matches their
preferences.
The impact of one's preferences increases, and "indiscriminate
viewing"
becomes less likely. Cable subscribers' channel repertoire (the
number of
frequently viewed channels) is not dramatically higher than that
of non-
subscribers, but their repertoire reflects a set of channels that
are more
closely related to their genre preferences. Two-stage viewing
behavior
thus predicts that news audiences should decrease as more
alternatives
are offered on other channels. Indeed, local news audiences tend
to be
smaller when competing entertainment programming is
scheduled. Baum
and Kernell show that cable subscribers, especially the less
informed
among them, are less likely to watch the presidential debates
than other-
wise similar individuals who receive only broadcast television.
Accord-
ing to my first hypothesis, the advent of cable TV increased the
knowledge

10. gap between people with a preference for news and people with
a prefer-
ence for other media content.
Internet access should contribute to an increasing knowledge
gap as
well. Although the two media are undoubtedly different in many
respects,
access to the Internet, like cable, makes media choice more
efficient. Yet,
while they both increase media users' content choice, cable TV
and the
Internet are not perfect substitutes for each other. Compared at
least to
dial-up Internet service, cable offers greater immediacy and
more visuals.
The web offers more detailed information and can be
customized to a
greater extent. Both media, in other words, have unique
features, and
access to both of them offers users the greatest flexibility. For
instance,
people with access to both media can watch a campaign speech
on cable and
then compare online how different newspapers cover the event.
Depend-
ing on their needs or the issue that interests them, they can
actively search
320 Markus Prior
a wealth of political information online or passively consume
cable poli-
tics. Hence, the effects of cable TV and Internet access should

11. be additive
and the knowledge gap largest among people with access to both
new
media.
There are several reasons why exposure to political information
increases the likelihood that an individual will cast a vote on
election
day. Exposure increases political knowledge, which in turn
increases
turnout because people know where, how, and for whom to vote.
Fur-
thermore, knowledgeable people are more likely to perceive
differences
between candidates and thus less likely to abstain due to
indifference.
Independent of learning effects, exposure to political
information on cable
news and political web sites is likely to increase people's
campaign inter-
est. Interest, in turn, affects turnout even when one controls for
political
knowledge. Entertainment fans with a cable box or Internet
connection,
on the other hand, will miss both the interest- and the
information-based
effect of broadcast news on turnout. My second hypothesis thus
predicts
a widening turnout gap in the current environment, as people
who prefer
news vote at higher rates and those with other preferences
increasingly
stay home from the polls.
♦ ♦ *

12. Conclusion
When speculating about the political implications of new media,
pundits
and scholars tend to either praise the likely benefits for
democracy in the
digital age or dwell on the dangers. The optimists claim that the
greater
availability of political information will lead more people to
learn more
about politics and increase their involvement in the political
process. The
pessimists fear that new media will make people apolitical and
provide
mind-numbing entertainment that keeps citizens from fulfilling
their
democratic responsibilities. These two predictions are often
presented /
as mutually exclusive. Things will either spiral upwards or
spiral down-
wards; the circle is either virtuous or vicious. The analyses
presented here
show that both are true. New media do indeed increase political
knowl-
edge and involvement in the electoral process among some
people, just as
the optimists predict. Yet, the evidence supports the pessimists'
scenario
as well. Other people take advantage of greater choice and tune
out of
politics completely. Those with a preference for entertainment,
once they
gain access to new media, become less knowledgeable about
politics and
less likely to vote. People's media content preferences become
the key to
understanding the political implications of new media.

13. * * *
The decline in the size of news audiences over the last three
decades
has been identified as cause for concern by many observers who
have
"News vs. Entertainment" 321
generally interpreted it as a sign of waning political interest and
a disap-
pearing sense of civic duty. Yet changes in available content
can affect
news consumption and learning even in the absence of
preference changes.
People's media use may change in a modified media
environment, even if
their preferences (or political interest or sense of civic duty)
remain con-
stant. By this logic, the decreasing size of the news audience is
not neces-
sarily an indication of reduced political interest. Interest in
politics may
simply never have been as high as audience shares for evening
news sug-
gested. A combined market share for the three network
newscasts of
almost 90% takes on a different meaning if one considers that
people had
hardly any viewing alternatives. It was "politics by default," not
politics
by choice. Even the mediocre levels of political knowledge
during the

14. broadcast era, in other words, were partly a result of de facto
restrictions
of people's freedom to choose their preferred media content.
Ironically, we might have to pin our hopes of creating a
reasonably
evenly informed electorate on that reviled form of
communication, politi-
cal advertising. Large segments of the electorate in a high-
choice environ-
ment do not voluntarily watch, read, or listen to political
information.
Their greatest chance for encounters with the political world
occurs when
commercials are inserted into their regular entertainment diet.
And expo-
sure to political ads can increase viewers' political knowledge.
At least for
the time being, before recording services like TiVo, which
automatically
skip the commercial breaks, or subscriber-financed premium
cable chan-
nels without advertising become more widespread, political
advertising
is more likely than news coverage to reach these viewers.
It might seem counterintuitive that political knowledge has
decreased
for a substantial portion of the electorate even though the
amount of
political information has multiplied and is more readily
available than
ever before. The share of politically uninformed people has
risen since we
entered the so-called "information age." Television as a medium
has often

15. been denigrated as "dumb," but, helped by the features of the
broadcast
environment, it may have been more successful in reaching less
interested
segments of the population than the "encyclopedic" Internet. In
contrast to
the view that politics is simply too difficult and complex to
understand,
this study shows that motivation, not ability, is the main
obstacle that
stands between an abundance of political information and a
well- and
evenly informed public.
When differences in political knowledge and turnout arise from
ine-
quality in the distribution of resources and skills,
recommendations for
how to help the information have-nots are generally
uncontroversial. To
the extent that knowledge and turnout gaps in the new media
environ-
ment arise from voluntary consumption decisions,
recommendations
for how to narrow them, or whether to narrow them at all,
become more
contestable on normative grounds. As [Anthony] Downs
remarked a
long time ago, "[t]he loss of freedom involved in forcing people
to acquire
322 Markus Prior
information would probably far outweigh the benefits to be

16. gained from a
better-informed electorate." Even if a consensus emerged to
reduce media
choice for the public good, it would still be technically
impossible, even
temporarily, to put the genie back in the bottle. Avoiding
politics will
never again be as difficult as it was in the "golden age" of
television.
* * *
Discussion Questions
1. Are you concerned by the findings in Prior's study? If not,
why not?
If you are, can you think of any way to overcome the problem
he has
identified?
2. What lessons should public officials take from Prior's study?
Should
they pay less attention to public opinion because of the gaps in
information and interest among members of the public?
3. Do you think the sharing of news and information through
social
media such as Twitter and Facebook exacerbates or diminishes
the
trends identified by Prior?
U.S. Imposes New Tariffs, Ramping Up ‘America First’ Trade
Policy

17. The Trump administration said new barriers on solar panels and
washing machines are
aimed at protecting domestic production from cheap imports
By Jacob M. Schlesinger and Erin Ailworth
Updated Jan. 22, 2018 10:26 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump slapped steep tariffs
on imports of solar panels
and washing machines, kicking off his second year in office by
showing he is ready to start
implementing his long-promised “America First” trade policy.
The moves were announced Monday in response to U.S.
industry pleas for relief from a
recent flood of cheap imports and are the first of what
administration officials said would be
a series of trade-enforcement actions in the coming months.
The tariffs are aimed mainly at Asian manufacturers—Chinese
makers of solar panels
and South Korean producers of washing machines. But the
administration announced few
exceptions for any countries, indicating a willingness to impose
comprehensive new protec-
tive policies for U.S. companies against global competition. The
new curbs also would affect
trading partners from Mexico and Canada to Europe.
“The president’s action makes clear again that the Trump
administration will always de-
fendAmericanworkers, farmers, ranchers, andbusinesses,”
U.S.TradeRepresentativeRobert
Lighthizer said in a statement.

18. The president plans to hold a signing ceremony of the measures
in the Oval Office Tues-
day, publicly touting his newly muscular trade-enforcement
policy three days before he plans
to explain that approach to a skeptical audience at the World
Economic Forum in Davos,
Switzerland.
Specifically, the administration said it would impose tariffs on
washing machines at a
rate of up to 50%, with the rates phasing out over the next few
years. The tariffs would be
combined with quotas. Tariffs on solar modules would be as
high as 30%, and also would
phase out over time.
The solar petition was filed by Suniva Inc. and SolarWorld
Americas Inc., two embattled
solar panel makers with operations in the U.S. that have filed
for bankruptcy protection.
The washing machine petition was filed by Whirlpool Corp. ,
which is locked in a tough
competitive fight with Samsung Electronics Co. and LG
Electronics Inc., both of South Ko-
rea. Whirlpool’s stock rose 3% in after-hours trading in
response to the move, which was
announced after U.S. markets closed.
The actions drew criticism from free-market economists
warning of new costs to con-
sumers and the dangers of trade wars. But it drew praise from
some Democrats normally
critical of the president, showing the potential of the new
Trump trade policy to scramble the
political landscape this year.

19. “I applaud the administration for this strong relief,” said Ohio
Democratic Sen. Sherrod
Brown, who faces a tough re-election fight in a hard-hit
manufacturing state that Mr. Trump
carried in the 2016 election.
Some of Mr. Trump’s fellow Republicans weren’t as sanguine.
“Here’s something Repub-
licans used to understand: Tariffs are taxes on families,”
Nebraska GOP Sen. Ben Sasse said
in a statement.
Trading partners were quick to complain. China’s Commerce
Ministry blasted the tariffs
as an “abuse of trade remedy measures.” The Mexican
government said it will use “all legal
resources at its disposal” in response.
1
Mr. Trump has long promised to pursue a harder trade line by
dusting off little-used trade laws that had largely been avoided
by his predecessors, especially since the 1995 creation of the
World Trade Organization, whose goal has been to discourage
such unilateral actions by nations.
The Trump administration is imposing the new barriers under
a 1974 trade law that permits companies to seek relief if they
can prove “serious injury” from a sudden surge in imports. That
“safeguard” law was last invoked by the George W. Bush
admin-
istration in 2002 to protect steelmakers, but it later removed
thesteeltariffsaftertheWorldTradeOrganizationdeemedthem
improper.

20. No president has considered such protections since then. Now
the Trump administration has taken up two “safeguard” cases,
andwiththepresidentapprovingnewtariffsinbothcases, more
industries are expect to follow in seeking similar relief.
In addition, the administration is weighing new protections for
the steel and aluminum industries in the name of national secu-
rity, invoking a law that hasn’t been used since the 1980s. Deci-
sions are expected by April.
Officials also are expected to announce soon recommendations
for potential sanctions against China in retaliation for allegedly
forcing U.S. companies to turn over valuable intellectual prop-
erty.
Indeed, administration officials say that there will be a much
greaterfocusthisyearonattackingBeijing’sgovernment-steered
trade policy, and the $300-billion-plus annual U.S. trade deficit
with China.
While Mr. Trump had been extremely critical of Chinese trade
policy during the presidential campaign, he largely held back
from taking action last year, in part because he was seeking co-
operation in reining in North Korea’s nuclear arms program.
“If you look at solar closely, you have a clear example of
Chinese
industrial policy propping up an industry, creating excess ca-
pacity in an industry, there being significant harm to the United
States and globally as well,” a White House trade official told
re-
porters. “We need to figure out how to deal with that, not just
for the solar industry, but for a lot of different industries where
you’re going to see the same playbook trotted out.”
Both the washing machine and solar actions are likely to face a
challenge from trading partners before the WTO. Since the or-
ganization’s creation, the U.S. has invoked the safeguard law
six
times. Each action has been taken to the trade courts in Geneva,
which often have deemed them improper.

21. South Korean Trade Minister Kim Hyun-Chong said at a
meeting with local business and
industry leaders in Seoul Tuesday he would file a complaint
against the latest “protectionist”
and “unfair” U.S. safeguard measures to the WTO.
Under the trade rules invoked by the Trump administration
Monday—Section 201 of the
1974 trade act—Suniva, SolarWorld, and Whirlpool first needed
to get approval from the
independent U.S. International Trade Commission to declare
that they qualified for safeguard
relief.
The four-member panel voted unanimously in both cases to
support the petitions, and
then recommended to the White House late last year that it
impose some form of protection
2
for the domestic industry. The Monday announcement came
days before the White House
faced a legal deadline to respond to the ITC recommendation.
In anticipation of the Trump move, foreign makers of both
washers and solar panels
ramped up exports to the U.S. at the end of 2017 to get ahead of
the barriers, and consumers
could now see a sudden drop in supply.
The remedies imposed by the administration fell short of
requests from the solar and
washing-machine makers, which had both sought steeper tariffs.

22. But both groups praised
Mr. Trump for his actions. Suniva thanked the Trump
administration “for holding China and
its proxies accountable.”
“Today the president is sending a message that American
innovation and manufacturing
will not be bullied out of existence without a fight,” the
company said.
Whirlpool Chairman Jeff M. Fettig issued a statement thanking
the Trump administration
and calling the washing machine decision “a victory for
American workers and consumers
alike.”
U.S. solar-panel installers, who have benefited from the surge
of cheap imports, attacked
the decision.
Ed Fenster, co-founder and executive chairman of Sunrun Inc., a
solar installer based in
California, called on “states with huge solar workforces, from
South Carolina to California” to
“step up to overcome this federal headwind” with offsetting
policies.
The Solar Energy Industries Association, a group that represents
installers and others
acrossthesolarindustry, andwhichopposedtheprotectionpetition,
estimatesthatthetariffs
imposed by the Trump administration will cost 23,000 jobs this
year and result in the delay
or cancellation of billions of dollars in solar investments. “They
will create a crisis in a part of
our economy that has been thriving,” said Abigail Ross Hopper,

23. president of the association.
South Korea’s LG Electronics Inc., in a statement, said it was
“very disappointed in this
misguided decision,” adding that; “this is a textbook case about
how certain companies can
game the process to use trade laws to try to accomplish what
they can’t accomplish in the
marketplace.”
In both the solar and washing machine cases, the U.S. industry
had earlier won protection
from imports under more commonly used trade laws designed to
offer protection against
goods that are improperly subsidized, or “dumped”—sold
unfairly below cost.
Butinbothcases,
theysaidthatforeignrivalssimplyshiftedproductiontoothercountrie
s
toavoidthetariffs,
promptingthedemandstheTrumpadministrationprovidebigger,
blunter
trade protections provided under the safeguard law.
—Andrew Tangel contributed to this article.
Write to Jacob M. Schlesinger at [email protected] and Erin
Ailworth at Erin.Ail-
[email protected]
3