Selective exposure to podcast and political participation: The mediating role of emotions

Using an online national survey data collected during the 2012 South Korean Presidential campaign, this study examined whether and how partisan podcast consumption has an effect in activating the individuals' emotions towards candidates. This study also investigated whether citizens' such emotions consequently influenced political participation. The results showed that the more liberal a person was, the more they listened to a liberal podcast program, Naneun Ggomsuda. Such selective exposure to a liberal podcast program was positively associated with negative emotion and negatively related to positive emotion towards a conservative party presidential candidate. In contrast, the use of the liberal podcast was positively associated with positive emotion and negatively associated with negative emotion towards a liberal party presidential candidate. Both negative and positive emotions towards political candidates were significantly related with individuals' political participation. Most importantly, the results showed that the emotions mediated the relationship between partisan podcast use and political participation. Implications of the findings are discussed.