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Political Beliefs Vs. Search Engine Autocomplete: How Citizens Choose Search Queries to Find Information About Climate Change

Democracy
Internet
Climate Change
Communication
Survey Research
Voting Behaviour
Victoria Vziatysheva
Universität Bern
Vihang Jumle
Universität Bern
Mykola Makhortykh
Universität Bern
Maryna Sydorova
Universität Bern
Victoria Vziatysheva
Universität Bern

Abstract

In a highly saturated media environment, search engines serve as an important gateway to political information. While numerous studies explore how users navigate search results, less research has been done on how users formulate search queries to find information on various political issues. Yet the choice of a query is crucial, as it largely determines what information users are exposed to on search engines, which can have direct implications for democratic decision-making as well as the risks of democratic erosion Earlier research on political information-seeking behaviour has provided extensive evidence that people tend to favour information confirming their beliefs, a phenomenon also known as selective exposure. Selective exposure to information has been increasingly discussed in the context of democratic erosion, in particular regarding challenges it poses for the informedness of citizens and the amplification of societal polarisation. However, in the case of search queries, the evidence of selective exposure remains fragmented. While some studies find that search query formulation is motivated by personal attitudes and beliefs (e.g., Ekström et al., 2024), others show little to no support for this argument (e.g., Vziatysheva et al., 2024; van Hoof et al., 2022). These discrepancies can be explained both by differences in topics of search queries (e.g., highly polarising or less polarising) and the mode of data collection (e.g. whether respondents are asked to select a query from the curated list of answers or compose it independently). To better understand the reasons for selective exposure through search engines, we use a representative survey of Swiss citizens (N = 1,100), which explores how voters search for information about an environment-related popular initiative that will be voted on in Switzerland in 2025. With referenda taking place up to four times a year, Swiss (semi-)direct democracy represents a unique case for studying how citizens use search engines to seek political information to make voting decisions and how such use shapes different forms of information exposure. Specifically, we test the assumption that users may be less susceptible to selective exposure when formulating search terms themselves than when exposed to a curated list of queries (e.g., as in the case of autocomplete suggestions provided by search engines). We also investigate how pre-existing knowledge of the initiative, beliefs about climate change, political attitudes, and cognitive factors (i.e., thinking style) affect selective exposure via search engines. This study makes several contributions to the field of political communication. First, we show how individual characteristics of voters (e.g., knowledge or political attitudes) may affect selective information exposure on search engines and discuss how such exposure can influence democratic decision-making. Second, we provide a detailed account of how selective exposure may manifest itself under different search conditions (i.e., independent search vs. use of recommended queries). Finally, we compare these findings with a similar survey conducted prior to another round of popular votes on retirement policies, thus demonstrating the differences in information-seeking behaviour on different political issues.