"The results of this dissertation suggest that most Russians are aware, at least to some degree, of the biases of state media. Nonetheless, they still consider these sources to provide valuable information. This, in part, stems from beliefs about the access these news outlets have to information and
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some distrust in available alternative sources. It is not the case that Russians are generally active supporters of the kinds of censorship that state news outlets deploy. However, concerns about censorship must be traded off against news consumers' other priorities. In some circumstances, news audiences will even prefer a degree of censorship if information is framed as a threat to social stability. Overall, state news outlets have succeeded in producing a product that many Russian news consumers genuinely value, even if the contents are subject to bias and distortion. Russian news audiences and the content of state media to be interesting, important, and relevant. It encourages positive emotions such as pride and hope. It a rms those who are deeply attached to their Russian identity and feel positively about their leaders." (Abstract)
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"In chapter 2, the book lays down its foundations with a review of a large body of experimental psychology research on how and why individuals can preserve their beliefs, sometimes in the face of all evidence, logic, and argument to the contrary. The second part of the chapter shows that millions of
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people do the same in the real world outside the laboratories, whatever the media say [...] Chapter 3 considers political partisanship and party identification - that is, strong attachments to political ideas, values, and organizations. Experiments show that people are likely to engage in belief preservation where partisan opinions are concerned, and the same seems to be true of partisans in the outside world [...] Chapter 4 broadens the scope of inquiry to examine how non-partisanship and non-party political beliefs and values can influence the ways the majoritiy of individuals receive and process news reports and draw conclusions from them [...] The first eight chapters deal mainly with the micro, demand side of the equation - but there is also the macro, supply side of news media systems. Supply and demand are often analyzed separately, although understanding media effects requires examining the interaction between them [...] Chapter 9 compares commercial and public service broadcasting, showing that they have different effects on political knowledge, trust, participation, and democratic support. Chapter 10 turns to the classic theory of news media pluralism as a cornerstone of modern democracy [...] The research strategy of this book involves comparing and contrasting a large number of studies of media effects on political attitudes and behavior in order to compare and contrast the conclusions they reach. The book does not merely traingulate in order to reach reliabe conclusions, but it polyangulates, using many different studies written by sociologists, political scientists, psychologists, and economists who employ a variety of methods to investigate many possible media effects on politics. American and British research is used in the main, but single-country research on Russia, the Netherlands, Canada, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, and Belgium is included, as are comparative studies of European Union member states." (Chapter 1, page 2-5)
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"El presente informe estudia a los jóvenes de entre 16 y 29 años, en relación con la televisión y la política nacional. Se indaga en su nivel de equipamiento tecnológico audiovisual, en sus hábitos de consumo televisivo y, de manera más específica, en sus preferencias informativas sobre pol
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ítica. Los datos usados provienen de cuatro encuestas realizadas y publicadas durante 2017 por el CNTV. Las cuatro encuestas tienen muestras de representatividad nacional." (Presentación)
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"The vast majority of survey respondents, irrespective of their gender and geographical location, recognized the importance of media, particularly electronic media. They acknowledged media role in keeping people informed, entertained and opinion formation. Although people heralded the media for focu
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sing on some burning issues related to women, marginalized and deprived groups of people, they were aware of the weaknesses of the sector arising from political pressure and polarization, and the lack of professional competence and ethics. They hope for the media to be more neutral and provide accurate news and information with a local focus. While women agreed that media contributed to their well-being, marginalized communities did not feel they were adequately represented by the media in voicing issues and concerns particular to them. Electronic media (television, radio and mobile phones) was found most popular among respondents and participants, and they felt FM radio stations and content distributed over mobile phones, were most likely to influence people, their thoughts, ideas, opinions. Print media, especially newspapers, were still popular in the urban areas whereas social media was gaining popularity throughout the country." (Summary of findings, page 35)
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