News snacking and political learning: changing opportunity structures of digital platform news use and political knowledge

Abstract

The increasing prevalence of news snacking – that is, the brief, intermittent attendance to news in mainly digital and mobile media contexts – has been discussed as a problematic behavior potentially leading to a less informed public. Empirical research, however, that investigates the relationship between news snacking and political knowledge is sparse. Against the background of changed opportunity structures in increasingly digital and mobile media environments, this study investigates how news snacking relates to the breadth and depth of political knowledge in society. Based on an online survey of the German population (N = 558), we examine how snacking news affects political event and background knowledge gains using different digital news platforms. Results show that users who exhibit high levels of news snacking learn substantially less from news use across different types of digital platforms.