Toward a Person x Situation Model of Selective Exposure Repressors, Sensitizers, and Choice of Online News on Financial Crisis

초록

The present study attempted to predict selective exposure to media messages as a function of personality and situation, which has rarely been examined in prior relevant research. Employing a quasi-experimental method, the interplay between prevailing perceived threat from the economic crisis that started in 2008 and each of the two personality types when dealing with threat repression and sensitization was examined to predict online news selection behavior, as unobtrusively recorded. A significant interaction between perceived threat and sensitization tendency was obtained for both the selection of financial crisis-related news and avoidance of financial crisis-unrelated news. The implications of this exclusive pattern of online news selection behavior are discussed.

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