TY - JOUR A1 - Munzert, Simon A1 - BarberÁ, Pablo A1 - Guess, Andrew M. A1 - Yang, JungHwan T1 - Do Online Voter Guides Empower Citizens? Evidence from a Field Experiment with Digital Trace Data JF - Public Opinion Quarterly N2 - Voting Advice Applications (VAAs), which provide citizens with information on the party that best represents their political preferences, are often cited as evidence of the empowering capabilities of digital tools. Aside from the informational benefits of these voter guides, observational studies have suggested a strong effect on political participation and vote choice. However, existing impact evaluations have been limited by a reliance on convenience samples, lack of random assignment, or both. This raises questions about self-selection and the precise mechanisms underlying how voters learn about politics. Here, we provide evidence from a field experiment with survey outcomes conducted with a sample of over 1,000 German citizens in the 2017 federal election campaign. Using linked panel survey and digital trace data combined with a randomized encouragement to complete a VAA, we assess respondents’ compliance with treatment and observe how the use of this tool affects political behavior, attitudes, media consumption, political knowledge, and even social media activity. Our findings reveal that the overwhelming consensus in favor of positive effects on turnout and vote choice should be treated with caution, as we find no such effects. Rather, the actual virtue of VAAs in a complex online information environment lies in increasing knowledge about parties’ positions on issues—exactly the kind of information these tools were designed to provide. Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfaa037 VL - 84 IS - 3 SP - 675 EP - 698 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Guess, Andrew M. A1 - Barberá, Pablo A1 - Munzert, Simon A1 - Yang, JungHwan ED - Bail, Christopher Andrew T1 - The consequences of online partisan media JF - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences N2 - What role do ideologically extreme media play in the polarization of society? Here we report results from a randomized longitudinal field experiment embedded in a nationally representative online panel survey (N = 1,037) in which participants were incentivized to change their browser default settings and social media following patterns, boosting the likelihood of encountering news with either a left-leaning (HuffPost) or right-leaning (Fox News) slant during the 2018 US midterm election campaign. Data on ≈ 19 million web visits by respondents indicate that resulting changes in news consumption persisted for at least 8 wk. Greater exposure to partisan news can cause immediate but short-lived increases in website visits and knowledge of recent events. After adjusting for multiple comparisons, however, we find little evidence of a direct impact on opinions or affect. Still, results from later survey waves suggest that both treatments produce a lasting and meaningful decrease in trust in the mainstream media up to 1 y later. Consistent with the minimal-effects tradition, direct consequences of online partisan media are limited, although our findings raise questions about the possibility of subtle, cumulative dynamics. The combination of experimentation and computational social science techniques illustrates a powerful approach for studying the long-term consequences of exposure to partisan news. Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2013464118 VL - 118 IS - 14 ER -