DSpace Angular :: Browsing by Author "Valenzuela Leighton, Sebastián Andrés"

Browsing by Author "Valenzuela Leighton, Sebastián Andrés"

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A Call to Contextualize Public Opinion-Based Research in Political Communication
(2019) Rojas, Hernando; Valenzuela Leighton, Sebastián Andrés
A Study on Information Disorders on Social Networks during the Chilean Social Outbreak and COVID-19 Pandemic
(2023) Mendoza Rocha, Marcelo; Valenzuela Leighton, Sebastián Andrés; Núñez-Mussa, Enrique; Padilla Arenas, Fabián; Providel, Eliana; Campos, Sebastián; Bassi, Renato; Riquelme, Andrea; Aldana, Valeria; López, Claudia
Information disorders on social media can have a significant impact on citizens’ participation in democratic processes. To better understand the spread of false and inaccurate information online, this research analyzed data from Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. The data were collected and verified by professional fact-checkers in Chile between October 2019 and October 2021, a period marked by political and health crises. The study found that false information spreads faster and reaches more users than true information on Twitter and Facebook. Instagram, on the other hand, seemed to be less affected by this phenomenon. False information was also more likely to be shared by users with lower reading comprehension skills. True information, on the other hand, tended to be less verbose and generate less interest among audiences. This research provides valuable insights into the characteristics of misinformation and how it spreads online. By recognizing the patterns of how false information diffuses and how users interact with it, we can identify the circumstances in which false and inaccurate messages are prone to becoming widespread. This knowledge can help us to develop strategies to counter the spread of misinformation and protect the integrity of democratic processes.
A trend study in the stratification of social media use among urban youth: Chile 2009-2019
(2021) Correa, Teresa; Valenzuela Leighton, Sebastián Andrés
This trend study describes changes and continuities in the stratification of usage of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and WhatsApp in Chile between 2009-2019—the decade that witnessed the rise of social media. Using the Youth, Media and Participation Study—a probabilistic survey conducted on an annual basis among 1,000 individuals aged 18 to 29 living in the three largest urban areas in Chile (N = 10,518)—we analyze how frequency of use and type of activities conducted on social media has varied over time along socioeconomic status, gender, and age cohort. Instead of a uniform trend towards less (or greater) inequality, the results show that each platform exhibits a unique dynamic. For instance, whereas SES-based inequality in frequency of use has decreased on Facebook over time, it has remained stable on WhatsApp and increased on Twitter and Instagram. In addition, significant differences in the likelihood of conducting different activities(e.g., chatting, commenting news, sharing links) remained across groups, even on platforms such as Facebook where frequency of use has equalized over time.
Agenda Setting and Journalism
(2019) Valenzuela Leighton, Sebastián Andrés
People use the news media to learn about the world beyond their family, neighborhood, and workplace. As news consumers, we depend on what television, social media, websites, radio stations, and newspapers decide to inform us about. This is because all news media, whether through journalists or digital algorithms, select, process, and filter information to their users. Over time, the aspects that are prominent in the news media usually become prominent in public opinion. The ability of journalists to influence which issues, aspects of these issues, and persons related to these issues, are perceived as the most salient has come to be called the agenda-setting effect of journalism. First described by Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw in a seminal study conducted during the 1968 elections in the United States, agenda-setting theory has expanded to include several other aspects beyond the transfer of salience of issues from the media agenda to the public agenda. These aspects include: the influence of journalism on the attributes of issues and people that make news; the networks between the different elements in the media and public agendas; the determinants of the news media agenda; the psychological mechanisms that regulate agenda-setting effects; and the consequences of agenda setting on both citizens’ and policymakers’ attitudes and behaviors. As one of the most comprehensive and international theories of journalism studies available, agenda setting continues to evolve in the expanding digital media landscape.People use the news media to learn about the world beyond their family, neighborhood, and workplace. As news consumers, we depend on what television, social media, websites, radio stations, and newspapers decide to inform us about. This is because all news media, whether through journalists or digital algorithms, select, process, and filter information to their users. Over time, the aspects that are prominent in the news media usually become prominent in public opinion. The ability of journalists to influence which issues, aspects of these issues, and persons related to these issues, are perceived as the most salient has come to be called the agenda-setting effect of journalism. First described by Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw in a seminal study conducted during the 1968 elections in the United States, agenda-setting theory has expanded to include several other aspects beyond the transfer of salience of issues from the media agenda to the public agenda. These aspects include: the influence of journalism on the attributes of issues and people that make news; the networks between the different elements in the media and public agendas; the determinants of the news media agenda; the psychological mechanisms that regulate agenda-setting effects; and the consequences of agenda setting on both citizens’ and policymakers’ attitudes and behaviors. As one of the most comprehensive and international theories of journalism studies available, agenda setting continues to evolve in the expanding digital media landscape.People use the news media to learn about the world beyond their family, neighborhood, and workplace. As news consumers, we depend on what television, social media, websites, radio stations, and newspapers decide to inform us about. This is because all news media, whether through journalists or digital algorithms, select, process, and filter information to their users. Over time, the aspects that are prominent in the news media usually become prominent in public opinion. The ability of journalists to influence which issues, aspects of these issues, and persons related to these issues, are perceived as the most salient has come to be called the agenda-setting effect of journalism. First described by Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw in a seminal study conducted during the 1968 elections in the United States, agenda-setting theory has expanded to include several other aspects beyond the transfer of salience of issues from the media agenda to the public agenda. These aspects include: the influence of journalism on the attributes of issues and people that make news; the networks between the different elements in the media and public agendas; the determinants of the news media agenda; the psychological mechanisms that regulate agenda-setting effects; and the consequences of agenda setting on both citizens’ and policymakers’ attitudes and behaviors. As one of the most comprehensive and international theories of journalism studies available, agenda setting continues to evolve in the expanding digital media landscape.
Agenda-Setting Theory
(Oxford Academic, 2014) McCombs, Maxwell; Valenzuela Leighton, Sebastián Andrés
Analisando o uso de redes sociais para o comportamento de protesto: o papel da informação, da expressão de opiniões e do ativismo
(2014) Valenzuela Leighton, Sebastián Andrés
Estudos recentes têm demonstrado conexões entre a frequência do uso de redes sociais e a participação política. No entanto, não há uma elucidação clara de como esse uso de redes sociais se traduz em um aumento da atividade política. O presente artigo examina três possíveis explicações para essa relação, no âmbito do comportamento de protesto dos cidadãos: a informação (redes sociais como uma fonte de notícias), a expressão de opiniões (uso das redes sociais para expressar opiniões políticas) e o ativismo (juntando-se a causas e descobrindo informações para a mobilização por meio de redes sociais). Para colocar essas relações à prova, este trabalho utiliza dados de pesquisa de opinião, coletados no Chile em 2011, durante manifestações que exigiam mudanças amplas em políticas educacionais e energéticas. Os resultados sugerem que o uso de redes sociais para a expressão de opiniões e para ativismo pode mediar a relação entre o uso geral das redes sociais e o comportamento de protesto. Estes resultados podem aumentar nosso conhecimento sobre os usos e efeitos das redes sociais e fornecer novas evidências sobre o papel das plataformas digitais como facilitadoras da ação política direta.
Competing Frames and Melodrama: The Effects of Facebook Posts on Policy Preferences about COVID-19
(2021) Valenzuela Leighton, Sebastián Andrés; Bachmann Cáceres, Ingrid Andrea; Mujica, Constanza; Grassau, Daniela; Labarca, Claudia; Halpern, Daniel; Puente, Soledad
The tension between health and economic considerations regarding COVID-19 has resulted in a framing contest, in which proponents and adversaries of strong containment measures hold oppositional frames about the pandemic. This study examines the effects of competing news frames on social media users' policy preferences and the moderation of framing effects played by melodramatic news treatment. Results from a pre-registered online survey experiment in Chile (N = 518) show that participants exposed to Facebook posts with an economic frame were significantly less supportive of measures that restrict mobility (e.g., quarantines) than participants in the control group. Contrary to expectations, exposure to a public health frame also reduced support for stay-at-home orders, and the presence of melodramatic features had no significant impact on users' preferences. Other variables, however, did alter these framing effects, such as fear of COVID-19 and frequency of social media news use. These findings paint a rather complex picture of framing effects during the pandemic in a digital media environment.
Cuando los algoritmos son editores: cómo las redes sociales, la IA y la desinformación alteran el consumo de noticias
(Universidad de Chile, 2024) Valenzuela Leighton, Sebastián Andrés; Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Facultad de Comunicaciones
Esta es una versión editada de la charla magistral del autor en la inauguración de la Conferencia Académica por el Día Mundial de la Libertad de Prensa de UNESCO 2024 y que organizaron la Universidad de Chile y la Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile el 4 de mayo de 2024 en Santiago.
Local Government, Social Media and Management of COVID-19: The Case of Chilean Mayoral Communication
(2023) Luna, Juan Pablo; Alcatruz, Daniel; Pérez Muñoz, Cristian; Rosenblatt, Fernando; Toro Maureira, Sergio; Valenzuela Leighton, Sebastián Andrés
Most research on governments’ use of social media focuses on the national or federal level. We therefore know little about the way local authorities harness social media platforms to communicate with their constituencies. This paper studies the role structural and political variables played in Chilean mayors’ political communication strategies during 2020–2021, a period of municipal elections marked by lockdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We evaluate whether the volume and characteristics of mayors’ social media posts are related to political factors (partisanship; alignment or not with the governing block; years in office), socioeconomic characteristics (poverty rate; age profile; health infrastructure; etc.); and the incidence of COVID-19 cases and deaths at the municipal level. We found that mayors’ social media communication strategies depend on the functions that different municipalities perform in the territory, and that socioeconomic variables differentiate these activities. More specifically, we found that mayors of poorer communities made more extensive use of social media during lockdown periods than did mayors of more affluent municipalities.
Patterns of Persistence: Studying News Repertoires Before, During, and After Covid-19
(2025) Valenzuela Leighton, Sebastián Andrés; Bachmann C., Ingrid; Valdes, Natalia Solis
In the realm of news consumption, individuals often establish recurrent patterns, integrating diverse sources into distinct repertoires. However, these patterns can change during unprecedented events like wars, political turmoil, and catastrophic incidents that alter daily routines. This study examines the potential of large-scale disruptions to transform news repertoires over the long run. Using survey data collected by the Digital News Report from 2019 to 2022 in Chile-a country with a stringent COVID-19 response, including extensive lockdowns, school and workplace closures, travel bans, and mandatory mask mandates-we employed latent class analysis to identify four distinct news repertoires: minimalists, pluralists, hyper consumers, and local news seekers. Each group displayed unique socio-demographic, motivational and attitudinal antecedents. Despite this, news consumption patterns showed significant stability over time, highlighting the resilience of news repertoires amid societal disruptions.
Reflections on a Legacy: Thoughts from Scholars about Agenda-Setting Past and Future
(2022) Schmierbach, Mike; McCombs, Maxwell; Valenzuela Leighton, Sebastián Andrés; Dearing, James W.; Guo, Lei; Iyengar, Shanto; Kiousis, Spiro; Kosicki, Gerald M.; Meraz, Sharon; Scheufele, Dietram A.; Stoycheff, Elizabeth; Vargo, Chris; Weaver, David H.; Willnat, Lars
Social Media and Belief in Misinformation in Mexico: A Case of Maximal Panic, Minimal Effects?
(2022) Valenzuela Leighton, Sebastián Andrés; Muñoz, Carlos; Santos, Marcelo
Contrary to popular narratives, it is not clear whether using social media for news increases belief in political misinformation. Several of the most methodologically sound studies find small to nonexistent effects. However, extant research is limited by focusing on few platforms (usually Facebook, Twitter or YouTube) and is heavily U.S. centered. This leaves open the possibility that other platforms, such as those that rely on visual communication (e.g., Instagram) or are tailored to strong-tie network communication (e.g., WhatsApp), are more influential. Furthermore, the few studies conducted in other countries suggest that social media use increases political misperceptions. Still, these works use cross-sectional designs, which are ill suited to dealing with omitted variable bias and temporal ordering of processes. Using a two-wave survey fielded in Mexico during the 2021 midterm elections (N = 596), we estimate the relationship between frequency of news exposure on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and WhatsApp, and belief in political misinformation, while controlling for both time-invariant and time-dependent individual differences. In contrast to political discussion, information literacy and digital skills, none of the social platforms analyzed exhibits a significant association with misinformed beliefs. We also tested for possible indirect, moderated, and reciprocal relationships, but none of these analyses yielded a statistically significant result. We conclude that the study is consistent with the “minimal media effects” paradigm, which suggests that efforts to address misinformation need to go beyond social platforms.
Studying the downstream effects of fact-checking: Experiments on correction formats, belief accuracy, and media trust
(2023) Bachmann C., Ingrid; Valenzuela Leighton, Sebastián Andrés; Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
Repeated exposure to misinformation not only reduces the accuracy of people’s beliefs, but it also decreases confidence in institutions such as the news media. Can fact-checking—journalism’s main weapon against misinformation—worsen or ameliorate distrust in journalists and the media? To answer this question, we conducted two pre-registered experiments in Chile (total N = 1,472) manipulating message and receiver factors known to regulate the persuasiveness of fact-checks: transparency elements, arousing images, and political alignment. The results of both studies show that, across message formats, fact-checks are similarly effective at reducing people’s misperceptions. However, these positive effects on belief accuracy come at a cost: Compared to control groups, users exposed to political fact-checks trust news less and perceive the media as more biased, especially after reading corrections debunking pro-attitudinal misinformation. We close with a discussion of the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.
The agenda-setting role of the news media
(Routledge, 2019) Valenzuela Leighton, Sebastián Andrés; Maxwell McCombs
The agenda-setting role of the news media is one of the most documented theories of media effects, with over 500 separate studies conducted around the world demonstrating the influence of journalism on public opinion. At its core, agenda setting predicts that the elements that are relevant in the media agenda, such as issues, public figures and descriptions of these issues and figures, will become relevant elements in the public agenda. Over the five decades since Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw (1972) introduced the concept of agenda setting, the theory has expanded to cover six different areas, including: basic agenda-setting effects, contingent conditions for those effects, attribute agenda setting, origins of the media agenda, consequences of the agenda-setting process for people’s attitudes and behavior, and network agenda setting. The different components of the theory are discussed throughout the chapter, paying particular attention to research methods and new digital platforms, such as social media.
The Missing Link: Identifying Digital Intermediaries in E-Government
(2024) Toro-Maureira, Sergio; Olivares, Alejandro; Sáez-Vergara, Rocío; Valenzuela Leighton, Sebastián Andrés; Valenzuela, Macarena; Correa, Teresa
The digitalization of public administration has advanced significantly on a global scale. Many governments now view digital platforms as essential for improving the delivery of public services and fostering direct communication between citizens and public institutions. However, this view overlooks the role played by ‘digital intermediaries’—agents who, while not formally part of the government, significantly shape the provision of e-government services. Using Chile as a case study, we analyze these intermediaries through a national survey on digitalization. We find five types of intermediaries: family members, peers, political figures, bureaucrats, and community leaders. The first two classes comprise ‘close’ intermediaries, while the latter three comprise ‘hierarchical’ intermediaries. Our findings suggest that all these intermediaries are a critical but underexplored element in the digitalization of public administration.
The Paradox of Participation Versus Misinformation: Social Media, Political Engagement, and the Spread of Misinformation
(2019) Valenzuela Leighton, Sebastián Andrés; Halpern, Daniel; Katz, James E.; Miranda, Juan Pablo
The mechanisms by which users of platforms such as Facebookand Twitter spread misinformation are not well understood. In thisstudy, we argue that the effects of informational uses of socialmedia on political participation are inextricable from its effects onmisinformation sharing. That is, political engagement is both amajor consequence of using social media for news as well as akey antecedent of sharing misinformation. We test our expecta-tions via a two-wave panel survey of online media users in Chile, acountry experiencing information disorders comparable to those ofthe global North. Analyses of the proposed and alternative causalmodels with two types of structural equation specifications (fixedeffects and autoregressive) support our theoretical model. Weclose with a discussion on how changes in the way people engagewith news and politics – brought about by social media – haveproduced a new dilemma: how to sustain a citizenry that is enthu-siastically politically active, yet not spreading misinformation?
The Personal Is the Political? What Do WhatsApp Users Share and How It Matters for News Knowledge, Polarization and Participation in Chile
(2021) Valenzuela Leighton, Sebastián Andrés; Bachmann, Ingrid; Bargsted, Matías
Mobile instant messaging services (MIMs) are important gateways to news exposure and political conversations. Nevertheless, we still know little about the specific uses and consequences of using messaging apps on other aspects of democratic citizenship. This is especially true in Latin American countries, where usage of MIMs is more widespread than any other social media. Using a two-wave panel survey conducted in the context of the 2017 Chilean elections, this study examines the information sharing practices of WhatsApp users, comparing the antecedents and effects of the spread of personal (e.g., family, work) and public affairs content (e.g., news, political messages). Findings show that sharing on WhatsApp was rather equal across social groups, and that it could exert a significant influence on learning about politics and issues in the news as well as on protesting and other political behaviors. We discuss possible explanations, limitations, and significance of these results for digital journalism research and practice.
The Threat of Misinformation on Journalism’s Epistemology: Exploring the Gap between Journalist’s and Audience’s Expectations when Facing Fake Content
(2024) Núñez Mussa, Enrique; Riquelme, Andrea; Valenzuela Leighton, Sebastián Andrés; Aldana, Valeria; Padilla, Fabián; Bassi, Renato; Campos, Sebastián; Providel, Eliana; Mendoza, Marcelo
This study analyzes the discourse of reporters, editors and audiences in focus groups and in-depth interviews, examining the expectations on journalists when facing misinformation. While both groups agree that journalistic information is critical, how this expectation is met varies. On the one hand, the audience’s way of knowing involves diverse assessments regarding valuable information; also, they are dubious about journalists’ intentions. On the other hand, journalists exhibit a limited understanding of the audience’s informational needs and encounter practical challenges in rigorously fact-checking, affecting their authority in knowledge generation. The study proposes a discussion on acknowledging their complex epistemologies to benefit mutual understanding. Doing this can establish structural support for journalistic information, contributing to trust in journalism when challenged by sources spreading misinformation.
Value resonance and the origins of issue salience
(Routledge, 2013) Valenzuela Leighton, Sebastián Andrés

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