THE AGGREGATION EFFECT: DOES THE TYPE OF NEWS AGGREGATION PERSONALIZATION INFLUENCE INFORMATION-SEEKING BEHAVIOR? By LAUREN D. FUREY A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2016 © 2016 Lauren D. Furey To my kind and courageous dad, who inspired me to always follow my dreams ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Pursing my Ph.D. has been one of the most challenging and rewarding experiences of my life. I would not have made it through this program without the love, support, kindness, and guidance of my family, teachers, and friends. I am incredibly lucky to have such wonderful people in my life, and I would like to thank everyone who helped me reach my dream of becoming a journalism professor. First, I would like to pay special tribute to my wife, Heather, for her unwavering love and support through two challenging graduate degrees. She has been there every day to share her confidence during stressful moments, and she always found time, despite the demanding workload, to fit in adventures and make life fun. I am also incredibly thankful for the love and encouragement of our two families. My mom has been an ever-present inspiration, and I am so honored that I’ve had the opportunity to, quite literally, follow in her footsteps. My brother, David, has taught me how to overcome obstacles with grace and strength, and I am so happy my sister, Liz, could be my partner in crime the past few years as we conquered our graduate programs together. And finally, I would like to thank my amazing in-laws and the Schoenbecks for their constant encouragement through lots of homemade cookies, cards, and care packages. Deepest gratitude is due to my advisor, Norm Lewis, for being my pillar the past three years. He not only guided me through the course of completing this dissertation but also through the first and hardest class of my doctoral program. Dr. Lewis’ expertise has helped me become a better scholar, writer, and teacher. In addition, he is one of the most selfless people I have ever met, and I will strive to my hardest to reflect his kindness in my interactions with students. 4 I would also like to thank my other committee members, Spiro Kiousis, Tamir Sorek, Michael Weigold, and Sriram Kalyanaraman for their guidance, which has pushed me to make my past, present, and future research more informed, rigorous, and both theoretically and practically significant. I am humbled and honored that I have gotten the opportunity to work with such amazing scholars, who are in equal measure wonderful people. Last but certainly not least, I would like to acknowledge all of the amazing friends I have made during my tenure at the University of Florida. Not only were they an incredible support system over the past three years, but they are also some of the best friends I have ever had. I am so grateful that I will get to call these people friends for life. 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................................................................................................. 4 LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................ 9 LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................ 10 ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................... 13 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................... 14 Conceptualizing News Aggregators ........................................................................ 14 Study Purpose ........................................................................................................ 16 Effects of Selective Exposure from Aggregators ..................................................... 19 Increased Polarization ...................................................................................... 19 Amplified Narcissism ........................................................................................ 22 Hindered Democracy ........................................................................................ 23 Current Status of Research .................................................................................... 26 Academic Contribution ............................................................................................ 28 2 LITERATURE REVIEW .......................................................................................... 30 Theoretical Framework ........................................................................................... 30 Conceptualizing Attitudes ................................................................................. 30 Rationale for ELM ............................................................................................. 32 Two Processing Routes.................................................................................... 35 Factors Increasing Motivation to Process ......................................................... 38 Effects of News Aggregation ................................................................................... 39 Conceptualizing Personalization ...................................................................... 39 Effects of Personalization on Attitudes ............................................................. 41 Effects of Personalization on Information-Seeking Behavior ............................ 42 Conceptualizing Different Types of Aggregators .............................................. 45 Effects of Different Types of Aggregators ......................................................... 47 Factors Influencing People’s Responses to News Aggregators .............................. 48 Cognitive Elaboration ....................................................................................... 48 Perceived Credibility ......................................................................................... 50 Effects of Different Types of News .......................................................................... 50 Conceptualizing Different Types of News ......................................................... 50 Responses to Different Types of News ............................................................ 52 Factors Influencing People’s Responses to Different Types of News ..................... 53 Interaction of Different Types of Aggregators and Different Types of News ........... 54 3 METHODS .............................................................................................................. 56 6 Overview ................................................................................................................. 56 Rationale for Experimental Method ......................................................................... 56 Limitations of Experiments ...................................................................................... 59 Participants ............................................................................................................. 60 Procedure ............................................................................................................... 61 Stimulus Materials .................................................................................................. 62 Type of News Manipulations ............................................................................ 62 Aggregation Manipulations ............................................................................... 63 Manipulation Checks............................................................................................... 65 Dependent Variables .............................................................................................. 65 Attitude toward the Content .............................................................................. 66 Information-Seeking Behavior .......................................................................... 66 Intervening Variables .............................................................................................. 67 Cognitive Elaboration ....................................................................................... 67 Perceived Credibility ......................................................................................... 68 Demographic Variables ........................................................................................... 68 4 RESULTS ............................................................................................................... 69 Descriptive Analysis of Data ................................................................................... 69 Preparing Measures for Analysis ............................................................................ 72 Manipulation Checks............................................................................................... 74 Hypothesis Testing ................................................................................................. 75 Type of Aggregator Results .............................................................................. 75 Intervening Variable Results for Type of Aggregator ........................................ 78 Type of News Results ...................................................................................... 80 Intervening Variable Results for Type of News ................................................