Learning political information from the news: A closer look at the role of motivation

Much has been written about the role of motivations in driving information-seeking behaviors. Literature in cognitive and educational psychology recognize that motivations play an important role in stimulating learning. The quality of learning, operationalized as retention of new information in memory, is influenced greatly by the level and type of motivation that drives people's learning. In this dissertation, we are interested in how motivations affect the process of learning from the news.; Classical works that explore motivations suggest it can take many forms. The uses and gratifications perspective in mass communication theory explicitly recognizes that there are many different reasons for why people consume media---one of which is seeking information---and scholars implicitly acknowledge that the specific reason or goal that directs media use behaviors will strongly influence media effects. Yet, research in learning of political information from the news lagged behind in applying this approach.; In this dissertation we propose a model that traces the influence of motivational factors on following news about general public affairs and particular issues. We seek to extend existing works on the role of motivation in influencing political knowledge by testing a multi-dimensional model of motivations. We then posit a two-tiered model of motivations. The first tier is comprised of psychological needs and life circumstances, and the second tier is comprised of motivations to follow general and issue-specific news. Next, we examine whether the different types of motivation have independent effects on exposure to news and attention paid to relevant stories, and investigate their consequence on learning from the news. Finally, we test the motivation-driven model in two contexts: following news about public affairs in general, and following news about particular issues.; Propositions were tested on two large sample datasets from the Electronic Dialogue and Healthcare Dialogue Projects conducted at the Annenberg School for Communication. Both datasets had extensive measures on media exposure, attention, political opinion, and knowledge about general public affairs, as well as comparably extensive measures on issues of health care, education, and crime.; Results confirm most of our hypotheses. Motivations toward following general public affairs and particular issues in the news emerged as being conceptually and empirically distinct. We also found support for the two-tiered model proposed. Psychological needs were associated with motives toward following general news, while in the issues context, having life circumstances relevant to an issue causes one to find the issue personally salient. Further, evidence here supports the notion that the various types of motivations have independent effects on exposure and attention to news. Finally, we found that motivations, owing to their influence on exposure and especially attention to news, have significant indirect effects on knowledge about politics and issues. Theoretical, methodological, and practical implications are discussed.