Mass media presentation of news stories more closely resembles entertainment than enlightenment. What effect does this have on: 1) the general public’s ability to recall political information; 2) their attitudes towards political actors and issues; and, 3) their ability to think critically about politics? Psychological research on the effect of “seductive details” has indicated that presenting interesting, but ultimately unimportant details in hopes of stimulating attention may serve to reduce individuals’ ability to remember and use information. To test for similar effects in print and television news, an experimental research design is employed to manipulate news presentation. One set of subjects is presented with serious news stories, while another is exposed to serious stories accompanied by frivolous stories. A number of techniques are employed to measure the effects of news as entertainment on recall, critical thinking, and political attitudes. Given that political information is acquired almost exclusively from the mass media, this dissertation raises important empirical and normative issues about the contribution of mass media to the general public’s information level and level of political sophistication. / text

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The fate of undocumented youth recently overwhelmed political dialogue on immigration and its effect on those individuals remains largely unstudied. This paper extends the scope of political information analyses from potential voters to undocumented childhood arrivals. Quantitative observations come from in-depth qualitative interviews in Los Angeles County, California and the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas. It finds important regional differences in the ability of immigration status to motivate cognitive engagement of politics. It questions the threat hypothesis, as highly politically knowledgeable DREAMers appear to reside in supportive environments. Such places help equip them with the ability to attribute blame and channel anger or enthusiasm. Findings suggest profound dissimilarities in the potential for political participation if and when DREAMer Latinos gain access to citizenship. / text

More and more, elections around the world seem to be won or lost on the basis of the candidates’ personal qualities rather than their policies. Despite its prevalence and consequences, we still know very little about what explains such candidate-centered voting, particularly in new democratic contexts. I argue that variation in candidate-centered voting is largely a function of political sophistication: voters with higher levels of political sophistication are better able to process information relating to policy and performance, which tends to be more cognitively demanding than information relating to candidate’s personalities. To test this argument, I estimate models of vote choice and electoral utility using survey data from the 2002 presidential election in Brazil. The results largely support my contention that political sophistication conditions the weight of candidate considerations relative to policy and performance considerations. / text

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Cette thèse par articles étudie les origines de la sophistication politique. Les chapitres un, deux et trois étudient l'impact d'une série de variables sur les connaissances politiques tandis que le chapitre quatre examine l'impact des connaissances politiques sur la façon dont les individus mettent à jour leurs opinions. Le premier article explore les effets de l'éducation collégiale, l'intérêt politique et les capacités cognitives sur le développement des connaissances politiques. Nous montrons que l'enseignement collégial général a un impact relativement petit sur le développement des connaissances politiques, mais l'enseignement collégial en sciences sociales et humaines a un impact positif sur la connaissance politique, mettant en évidence un effet substantiel de l'éducation. De plus, nous démontrons que les habiletés cognitives déterminent le niveau de connaissances générales, tandis que l'intérêt politique et l'éducation affectent également la variation des connaissances politiques au fil du temps. Le deuxième article étudie l'impact des aptitudes verbales à l'âge de cinq ans sur trois indicateurs importants de la sophistication politique: les connaissances politiques à 16 ans, ainsi que l'intérêt politique et la participation à 30 ans. Il est démontré que les aptitudes verbales à l'âge de 5 ans ont un impact fort et non linéaire sur les connaissances politiques à 16 ans, et l'intérêt politique à 30 ans, tandis que leur impact sur la participation future est fort et linéaire. Enfin, l'impact des variables parentales sur les connaissances politiques est considérablement réduit lorsque les compétences verbales précoces sont prises en compte. Le troisième article examine l'impact de l'ouverture aux expériences sur la sophistication politique. Il est soutenu que c'est l'intellectualisme qui explique la relation trouvée entre l'ouverture et l'information politique dans les recherches passées et que les nouvelles recherches utilisant le Ten Item Personality Inventory (TIPI) ne devraient pas reproduire ce résultat. L'article soutient que c'est parce que l'échelle TIPI évalue l'aspect esthétique de l'ouverture et est mal adapté pour capturer sa composante intellectuelle. Il est également démontré que l'impact de l'intellectualisme en tant que trait de personnalité tient aussi lorsque les habiletés cognitives sont prises en compte. Le dernier article a deux objectifs. Le premier est de considérer l'impact des connaissances politiques sur les perceptions du biais médiatique. Le second est d'étendre la recherche sur les perceptions des biais médiatiques à un électorat non américain. Nous constatons que, comme c'est le cas aux États-Unis, les conservateurs sont plus enclins à croire en l'existence de biais médiatiques. Il est également démontré que les citoyens les plus informés sont plus susceptibles de penser que les médias sont biaisés, mais ils ne sont pas plus susceptibles de percevoir ces biais lorsqu'ils ne sont pas d'accord avec un journaliste. Par conséquent, il appert que les citoyens plus informés ne sont pas plus susceptibles de faire montre de raisonnement motivé. / This thesis by articles investigates the origins of political sophistication. Chapters one, two, and three investigate the impact of a series of variables on political knowledge, while Chapter four looks at the impact of political knowledge on how individuals update their opinions. The first paper explores the effects of college education, political interest, and cognitive abilities on the development of political knowledge. It is shown that general college education has a minimal impact on political knowledge development, but college education in social sciences and humanities has a positive impact on political knowledge, highlighting a substantive effect of education. Moreover, it is shown that cognitive skills determine one's general knowledge level, while political interest and education also affect political knowledge variation over time. The second paper looks at the impact of early verbal skills on political sophistication. This paper investigates the impact of verbal skills at five years of age on three important indicators of political sophistication: political knowledge at 16, as well as political interest and turnout at 30. It is shown that verbal skills at 5 years of age have a strong and non-linear impact on political knowledge at 16, and political interest at 30, while their impact on future turnout is strong and linear. Finally, the impact of parental variables on political knowledge is significantly reduced when early verbal skills are accounted for. The third article looks at the impact of openness to experience on political sophistication. This paper seeks to investigate this relation by distinguishing two different aspects of openness to experience that are sometimes overlooked: the aesthetic and the intellectual components of openness. It is argued that the latter explains the relation found between openness and political knowledge in past research, and that new research using the Ten-Item Personality Inventory (TIPI) should not be expected to replicate this finding. The paper argues that this is because the TIPI scale assesses the aesthetic aspect of openness and is ill suited to capture its intellectual component. It is also shown that the impact of intellectualism as a personality trait also holds when cognitive skills are taken into account. The last paper has two goals. The first is to consider the impact of political knowledge on perceptions of media bias. The second is to extend research on media bias perceptions to a non-American electorate. It is shown that, as found in the US, Conservatives are more prone to believe in the existence of media bias. It is also shown that the most knowledgeable citizens are more likely to think that the media are biased, but they are not more likely to perceive bias when they disagree with a journalist. These results hold true even when a variety of potential confounding factors such as personality traits are taken into account.