Title: Selective exposure to podcast and political participation: the mediating role of emotions

Authors: Youngju Kim; Yonghwan Kim; Yuan Wang

Addresses: College of Communication and Information Sciences, The University of Alabama, Reese Phifer Hall 438, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487, USA ' Department of Telecommunication and Film, College of Communication and Information Sciences, The University of Alabama, Reese Phifer Hall 486A Tuscaloosa, AL 35487, USA ' College of Communication and Information Sciences, The University of Alabama, Reese Phifer Hall 438, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487, USA

Abstract: Using an online national survey data collected during the 2012 South Korean Presidential campaign, this study examined whether and how partisan podcast consumption has an effect in activating the individuals' emotions towards candidates. This study also investigated whether citizens' such emotions consequently influenced political participation. The results showed that the more liberal a person was, the more they listened to a liberal podcast program, Naneun Ggomsuda. Such selective exposure to a liberal podcast program was positively associated with negative emotion and negatively related to positive emotion towards a conservative party presidential candidate. In contrast, the use of the liberal podcast was positively associated with positive emotion and negatively associated with negative emotion towards a liberal party presidential candidate. Both negative and positive emotions towards political candidates were significantly related with individuals' political participation. Most importantly, the results showed that the emotions mediated the relationship between partisan podcast use and political participation. Implications of the findings are discussed.

Keywords: emotions; mobile media; podcasts; political participation; selective exposure; South Korea; presidential elections; party candidates; public attitudes; partisan podcast use.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMC.2016.075021

International Journal of Mobile Communications, 2016 Vol.14 No.2, pp.133 - 148

Received: 06 Feb 2015
Accepted: 07 Jul 2015
Published online: 29 Feb 2016 *

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