News Consumption and Political Consumerism

The next ECREA 2022 session is on media exposure, and begins with Ole Kelm. He notes the expansion of political participation through the use of online and social media; we now have institutional participation, protests, civic engagement, political consumerism, online activities, and other forms of participation both on- and offline. Political consumerism in particular includes elements such as boycotts, buycotts, discursive political consumerism, and lifestyle political consumerism.

News consumption underpins those activities, and the role of news consumption in boycotts and buycotts has already been investigated; social media activities and political discussions further inform and influence such forms of action, and are themselves positively related to news consumption. But discursive and lifestyle political consumerism have been less studied so far.

But what are the causal relationships here? The present study conducted a representative three-wave panel study in Germany in 2020, and asked participants about their boycott or buycott activities as well as discursive and lifestyle political consumerism., with particular focus on environmental issues. Discursive political consumerism was related to engagement in discussion on environmentally friendly activities, and lifestyle consumerism to vegetarian or vegan lifestyles.

News consumption was positively related to all except for boycotts; social media activities was positively related to all four forms; political discussions were, perhaps unsurprisingly, only related to discursive political consumerism. Lifestyle political consumerism also had an effect on political discussions. Also, there were a number of cross-effects between the three waves of the panel study. Political consumerism is thus not only about shopping decisions, but also about influencing others, and these processes deserve more scholarly attention. But it is also important to distinguish between these different activities, as they operate in very specific ways.