| There are two distinct purposes to this investigation: to develop the predictive power of the theory of political information efficacy and to determine how exposure to political information formats on the Internet under distinctly different interactive conditions affects cognitive and affective processes. Examined in the first section of this inquiry, then, are the relationships among information efficacy and political interest, knowledge, participation, and party affiliation. Second, the differential effects of exposure to news websites or social network sites and three levels of interactivity on young adults' political attitudes and learning levels in the context of the 2010 gubernatorial campaign in Florida are explored. Grounded in the uses and gratifications theoretical framework, the results suggest that political information efficacy predicts levels of political interest, knowledge, and party affiliation. Further, exposure to online political information sources also has significant effects on young adults' levels of political information efficacy, issue and image learning, and candidate evaluations. Specifically, exposure to both online political information sources results in significantly higher levels of political information efficacy; exposure to news web sites results in differentially significant issue learning; exposure to social network sites results in both differentially significant candidate image learning and evaluations. The implications of young citizens' social orientation toward news consumption and preference for using social network sites as portals for political information seeking are also explored. |
