POLTRACK: Paper on attitudinal predictors of alternative news consumption published

Prof. Dr. Cornelius Puschmann and Patrick Zerrer from the Digital Communication and Information Diversity Lab (DCID), together with Dr. Sebastian Stier and Helena Rauxloh from the GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, have published an article entitled “Politicized and Paranoid? Assessing Attitudinal Predictors of Alternative News Consumption” in the ‘Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media’. The data on which the analysis is based comes from the POLTRACK project, which is being conducted at the DCID Lab from 2022-2025.

Abstract:

The study of far-right alternative news sources has recently become the focus of scholarly interest. Such sources target news consumers characterized by extreme political views and distrust of mainstream news. However, research on the predictors of alternative news consumption is still scarce. We approach this gap by combining online tracking and survey data from 2,009 German panelists. We find that conspiratorial thinking and a pro-Russian stance predict consumption of alternative news both in absolute and relative terms. Our analysis thus contributes to a more nuanced understanding of consumers of alternative news.