Explication of Political User-Generated Content and Theorizing about Its Effects on Democracy with a Mix-of-Attributes Approach and Documenting Attribute Presence with a Quantitative Content Analysis

The present study attempts to stimulate a new program of communication-effects investigations needed to catch up with the significant recent technological transformations in the communication environment. Eveland's (2003) mix-of-attributes (MOA) approach is argued to represent a needed adjustment to how communication field investigates media effects in today's communication environment. The MOA approach is used to explicate political user-generated content (UGC) and its five technological attributes. In this study, the most popular political UGC and traditional media Web sites are content analyzed to obtain a detailed description of the attribute presence across prominent groups of UGC Web sites, and to compare presence of attributes on UGC versus traditional news Web sites. Cluster analysis is used to develop a theoretically- and empirically-grounded classification of political UGC. Despite relatively low presence of attributes across different UGC Web sites, the study confirms usefulness of the MOA framework. Presence of attributes on traditional news Web sites suggests that the theoretical importance of the attributes might increase over time. This study advances communication-effects theory by: (1) examining the nature and potential effects of political UGC; and by (2) illustrating how MOA approach can be applied, given its strengths and weaknesses. Additional implications of results, study limitations, and directions for future research are discussed.