Abstract
This chapter examines the reasons behind extreme media selection under an “information search” condition. Using mainstream and extreme media content, subjects were prompted to select the media choice they believed would give them the “best information to make their political choices.” Predictors of media selection are replicated here, but Taylor turns to qualitative process tracing to study why people make their media choices and how they feel about those choices afterward. Taylor finds that people selecting into extreme media are entertainment seeking, and that subjects who viewed extreme media found it more entertaining than people who selected into mainstream television news. This chapter deepens our understanding of extreme media selection, and shows that extreme media are an extension of the “infotainment” format television.
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Taylor, J.B. (2017). A Deep Dive into Extreme Television Media Selection. In: Extreme Media and American Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41183-5_2
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