News Seekers, News Avoiders, and the Mobilizing Effects of Election Campaigns: Comparing Election Campaigns for the National and the European Parliaments

Abstract

The notion that election campaigns mobilize people politically is often treated as conventional wisdom. There is, however, a scarcity of research on the mobilizing effects of election campaigns in the current high-choice media environment. The same holds true for research on the role of the media—and more specifically on how the mobilizing effects differ between news seekers and news avoiders—and on how mobilizing effects might differ between first- and second-order national election campaigns. Against this background, the purpose of this study is to investigate the mobilizing effects of elections in a high-choice media environment and how they differ between first- and second-order national election campaigns and between news seekers and news avoiders. Empirically, the study draws on a four-wave panel study conducted in Sweden during the 2014 elections to the European Parliament and the national parliament.