Current issue

The Korean Society for Journalism & Communication Studies - Vol. 64 , No. 4

[ Article ]
Korean Journal of Journalism & Communication Studies - Vol. 64, No. 4, pp. 210-246
Abbreviation: KSJCS
ISSN: 2586-7369 (Online)
Print publication date 31 Aug 2020
Received 10 Apr 2020 Revised 27 Jul 2020 Accepted 04 Aug 2020
https://doi.org/10.20879/kjjcs.2020.64.4.006

정치적 무지에 대한 무지 : 실제 지식과 인지된 지식이 정치 참여에 미치는 효과 분석
김현우** ; 이종혁***
**경희대학교 언론정보학과 석사 (hwkim93@naver.com)
***경희대학교 언론정보학과 교수 (jonghhhh@khu.ac.kr)

Ignoring Political Ignorance : Effects of Actual Political Knowledge and Perceived Political Knowledge on Political Participation
Hyeonwoo Kim** ; Jong Hyuk Lee***
**Master, Department of Journalism and Communication, Kyung Hee University (hwkim93@naver.com)
***Professor, Department of Journalism and Communication, Kyung Hee University, corresponding author (jonghhhh@khu.ac.kr)

초록

정치 지식이 낮은 집단이 자신의 지식 수준을 과대평가하고 적극적으로 정치에 참여하는 현상을 어떻게 보아야 할까? 본 연구는 메타 인지 능력과 더닝-크루거 효과(Dunning-Kruger effect)를 이론적 근거로 이 문제를 풀어보았다. 구체적으로 본 연구는 온라인 설문조사를 통해 실제 정치 지식, 인지된 정치 지식, 정치 참여, 뉴스 이용, 정치 대화 등을 측정하였다. 분석 결과, 정치 지식 수준이 낮은 집단은 자신의 지식 수준을 실제보다 높게 평가하는 반면, 정치 지식 수준이 높은 집단은 자신의 지식 수준을 실제보다 낮게 평가했다. 정치 지식 수준이 낮은 집단의 이와 같은 과신은 자신의 무지에 대한 무지 때문인 것으로 나타났다. 이를 통해 정치 지식의 영역에서도 더닝-크루거 효과가 재현됨을 확인하였다. 또한 정치 지식이 높은 집단은 관습적 정치 참여를, 낮은 집단은 슬랙티비즘 유형이 정치 참여를 즐기는 것으로 분석되었다. 인지된 정치 지식은 이런 영향 관계를 증폭시키는 조절변인으로 기능하였다. 또한 자신의 정치 지식 수준에 대한 오인을 개선하기 위해서는 정치 대화가 유용한 것으로 드러났다. 그러나 뉴스 이용은 유의미한 도움을 주지 못하였다. 본 연구는 그동안 정치커뮤니케이션 영역에서 논의되어 온 정치 지식을 사회심리학적 관점으로 개념을 확장하고 풍부한 해석을 더했다는 의의를 갖는다.

Abstract

It is a common phenomenon that people with low political knowledge overestimate their knowledge level and actively participate in politics. This study tried to tackle this problem based on the meta-cognitive ability and the Dunning-Kruger effect. According to Kruger and Dunning, individuals who lack abilities in a particular area tend to overestimate their abilities, whereas individuals who have high abilities underestimate their actual abilities. The overestimation is due to the lack of meta-cognitive skills, which means that they do not have enough ability to understand what they know and what they do not know. On the other hand, the underestimation occurs because they do not make an objective judgment on the ability of others. This study verified whether this distorted perception occurs in the area of political communication and explored what effect this phenomenon has on political participation. For this purpose, this study conducted an online survey with the help of a research firm. A quota sampling method was employed so that the respondents’ gender and age distributions were similar to those of the national population. In the survey, many items measuring actual political knowledge, perceived political knowledge, political participation, news use, and political discussion were included. Finally, 561 respondents’ answers were analyzed. Results showed that the group with low political knowledge rated their knowledge level higher than the actual level, while the group with high political knowledge level rated their knowledge level lower than the actual level. This overconfidence of the group with low political knowledge was due to their lack in meta-cognitive ability, which indicates ignorance of ignorance. This confirms that the Dunning-Kruger effect takes place in the realm of political knowledge. Another finding was that the group with high political knowledge was engaged in conventional political participation, while the group with low political knowledge was engaged in slacktivism. Conventional political participation involves voting behaviors and political discussions about candidates. On the other hand, slacktivism refers to activities such as reading or posting online political posts through Facebook and YouTube. It is considered as an activity that does not affect actual political change even though it deals with much information and opinion. This study also found that the perceived political knowledge served as a moderating variable in a way to amplify the effect of actual political knowledge on political participation. Additionally, political discussion was proved to be useful in order to improve the misconception about one's level of political knowledge. However, news use was not a significant helper. This study contributes to political communication studies by expanding the concept of political knowledge and adding a rich interpretation to it from the perspective of social psychological theories.


KeywordsPolitical knowledge, Dunning-kruger effect, Political participation, Slativism, Political dialogue
키워드: 정치 지식, 더닝-크루거 효과, 정치 참여, 슬랙티비즘, 정치 대화

Acknowledgments

This manuscript was revised based on the first author's master's thesis. (본 연구는 제1저자의 석사학위 논문을 토대로 수정 작성됐습니다.)


References
1. Ahn, H. K., & Shin, B. S. (2006). Netizens' political efficacy and voting behavior: A Case study of the 16th Presidential Election in Korea. Korean Policy Sciences Review, 10(1), 27-49.
2. Andersen, V. N., & Hansen, K. M. (2007). How deliberation makes better citizens: The Danish deliberative poll on the Euro. European Journal of Political Research, 46(4), 531-556.
3. Anson, I. G. (2018). Partisanship, political knowledge, and the Dunning-Kruger Effect. Political Psychology, 39(5), 1173-1192.
4. Anspach, N. M., Jennings, J. T., & Arceneaux, K. (2019). A little bit of knowledge: Facebook’s News Feed and self-perceptions of knowledge [On-Line]. Research & Politics, 6(1), 1-9. Retrieved from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2053168018816189
5. Ariely, D., Loewenstein, G., & Prelec, D. (2003). “Coherent Arbitrariness”: Stable Demand Curves Without Stable Preferences. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 118(1), 73-106.
6. Brady, H. E. (1999). Political participation. In J. P. Robinson, P. R. Shaver, & L. S. Wrightsman (Eds.), Measures of political attitudes (pp. 737-801). New York, NY: Academic Press.
7. Brown, A. L. (1978). Knowing when, where, and how to remember: A problem of metacognition. In R. Glaser (Ed.), Advanced in instructional psychology, Vol. 1 (pp. 77-165). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
8. Carpini, M. X. D., & Keeter, S. (1993). Measuring political knowledge: Putting first things first. American Journal of Political Science, 37(4), 1179-1206.
9. Carpini, M. X. D., & Keeter, S. (1996). What Americans know about politics and why it matters. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
10. Chaffee, S. H., Zhao, X., & Leshner, G. (1994). Political Knowledge and the Campaign Media of 1992. Communication Research, 21(3), 305-324.
11. Christensen, H. S. (2011). Political activities on the Internet: Slacktivism or political participation by other means? [On-Line]. First Monday, 16(2).
12. Cowen, T. (2005). Self-deception as the root of political failure. Public Choice, 124(3-4), 437-451.
13. Cross, K. P. (1977). Not can, but will college teaching be improved? New Directions for Higher Education, 17, 1-15.
14. de Vreese, C. H. (2007). Digital Renaissance: Young Consumer and Citizen? The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 611(1), 207-216.
15. Druckman, J. N. (2005). Does Political information matter? Political Communication, 22(4), 515-519.
16. Dunning, D., Johnson, K., Ehrlinger, J., & Kruger, J. (2003). Why people fail to recognize their own incompetence. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 12(3), 83-87.
17. Eccles, J. S. (1987). Gender roles and women’s achievement-related decisions. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 11(2), 135-172.
18. Ehrlinger, J., & Dunning, D. (2003). How chronic self-views influence (and potentially mislead) estimates of performance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84(1), 5-17.
19. Ehrlinger, J., Johnson, K., Banner, M., Dunning, D., & Kruger, J. (2008). Why the unskilled are unaware: Further explorations of (absent) self-insight among the incompetent. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 105(1), 98-121.
20. Eveland, W. P. (2001). The cognitive mediation model of learning from the news. Communication Research, 28(5), 571-601.
21. Eveland, W. P. (2004). The effect of political discussion in producing informed citizens: The roles of information, motivation, and elaboration. Political Communication, 21(2), 177-193.
22. Eveland, W. P., & Scheufele, D. A. (2000). Connecting news media use with gaps in knowledge and participation. Political Communication, 17(3), 215-237.
23. Eveland, W. P., Hayes, A. F., Shah, D. V., & Kwak, N. (2005). Understanding the relationship between communication and political knowledge: A model comparison approach using panel data. Political Communication, 22(4), 423-446.
24. Eveland, W. P., Morey, A. C., & Hutchens, M. J. (2011). Beyond deliberation: New directions for the study of informal political conversation from a communication perspective. Journal of Communication, 61(6), 1082-1103.
25. Felson, R. B. (1981). Ambiguity and bias in the self-concept. Social Psychology Quarterly, 44(1), 64-69.
26. Festinger, L. (1954). A theory of social comparison processes. Human Relations, 7(2), 117-140.
27. Flavell, J. H. (1979). Metacognition and cognitive monitoring. American Psychologist, 34, 906-911.
28. Glenn, C. L. (2015). Activism or “Slacktivism?”: Digital media and organizing for social change. Communication Teacher, 29(2), 81-85.
29. Groshek, J., & Dimitrova, D. (2011). A cross-section of voter learning, campaign interest and intention to vote in the 2008 American election: Did Web 2.0 matter. Communication Studies Journal, 9(1), 355-375.
30. Jang, S., & Ryu, S. (2017). The influence of political efficacy, political knowledge and political cynicism on political participation: Focus on college students in Korea. Journal of Political Communication, 47, 137-162.
31. Jung, N., Kim, Y., & de Zúñiga, H. G. (2011). The mediating role of knowledge and efficacy in the effects of communication on political participation. Mass Communication and Society, 14(4), 407-430.
32. Kann, M. E., Berry, J., Grant, C., & Zager. P. (2007). The Internet and youth political participation [On-Line]. First Monday, 12(8). Retrieved from https://firstmonday.org/article/view/1977/1852
33. Katz, E., & Lazarsfeld, P. F. (1955). Personal influence: The part played by people in the flow of mass communications. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.
34. Kenski, K., & Stroud, N. J. (2006). Connections between internet use and political efficacy, knowledge, and participation. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 50(2), 173-192.
35. Keum, H., & Cho, J. (2015). The influences of news use and political discussion on political knowledge, efficacy, and participation: The relative effects of media and communication channels. Korean Journal of Journalism & Communication Studies, 59(3), 452-481.
36. Khazan, O. (2013, April 30). UNICEF tells slacktivists: Give money, not Facebook likes. The Atlantic. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/04/unicef-tells-slacktivists-give-money-not-facebook-likes/275429/
37. Kim, J., & Kim, E. J. (2008). Theorizing dialogic deliberation: Everyday political talk as communicative action and dialogue. Communication Theory, 18(1), 51-70.
38. Kim, M. G., Shin, I. Y., Kwon, M., & Kim, J. (2011, January). Confirming the causality among news media use, political discussion, and political knowledge. Paper presented at the meeting of The HCI Society of Korea, Pyeongchang, Korea.
39. Ko, R. J. (2006). Self over-evaluation on the academic achievement: the role of better-than-average effect. Unpublished master’s thesis, Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea.
40. Kruger, J., & Dunning, D. (1999). Unskilled and unaware of it: How difficulties in recognizing one’s own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77(6), 1121-1134.
41. Kunda, Z. (1990). The case for motivated reasoning. Psychological Bulletin, 108(3), 480-498.
42. Lassen, D. D., & Serritzlew, S. (2011). Jurisdiction Size and Local Democracy: Evidence on Internal Political Efficacy from Large-scale Municipal Reform. American Political Science Review, 105(2), 238-258.
43. Lee, H. S. (2003). Analyzing the influences of mass media and the Internet uses on voters' interest in the 16th presidential election campaign and candidates recognition. Korean Journal of Broadcasting and Telecommunication Studies, 17(4), 7-36.
44. Lee, J. T. (2014). Condition and mechanism of cultural differences in the better-than-average effect. Korean Journal of Social and Personality Psychology, 28(3), 127-143.
45. Lee, J. W., Yates, F. J., Sninotsuka, H., Singh, R., Onglatcc, M. L. U., Yen, N., Gupta, M., & Bhatnagar, D. (1995). Cross national difference in overconfidence. Asian Journal of Psychology, 1(2), 63-69.
46. Lenart, S. (1994). Shaping political attitudes: The impact of interpersonal communication and mass media. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
47. Lodge, M., & Hamill, R. (1986). A partisan schema for political information processing. American Political Science Review, 80(2), 505-519.
48. Luskin, R. C. (1990). Explaining political sophistication. Political Behavior, 12(4), 331-361.
49. Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1991). Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation. Psychological Review, 98(2), 224-253.
50. Morozov, E. (2012). The net delusion: The dark side of internet freedom. Washington, D.C.: Public Affairs.
51. Neuman, W. R. (1986). The paradox of mass politics: Knowledge and opinion in the American electorate. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
52. Ortoleva, P., & Snowberg, E. (2015). Overconfidence in political behavior. American Economic Review, 105(2), 504-535.
53. Park, K. S. (1987). A model establishment of symbolic interaction theory: Focused on dyadic communication. Korean Journal of Sociology, 21, 45-54.
54. Prior, M. (2009). Improving media effects research through better measurement of news exposure. The Journal of Politics, 71(3), 893-908.
55. Russell, B. (1998). The triumph of stupidity. In H. Ruja (Ed.), Mortals and Others, Volume II: American Essays 1931-1935 (pp. 27-28). Oxon, UK: Routledge.
56. Ryu, J. (2010). Research note on Korean voters’ political knowledge. Journal of Korean Politics, 19(1), 45-70.
57. Shah, D. V., Cho, J., Eveland, W. P., & Kwak, N. (2005). Information and expression in a digital age. Communication Research, 32(5), 531-565.
58. Shulman, S. W. (2014). The internet still might (but probably won’t) change everything. I/S: A Journal of Law and Policy, 1(1), 111-145.
59. Sinkavich, F. J. (1995). Performance and metamemory: Do students know what they don’t know? Journal of Instructional Psychology, 22(1), 77-87.
60. Solhaug, T. (2006). Knowledge and self-efficacy as predictors of political participation and civic attitudes: with relevance for educational practice. Policy Futures in Education, 4(3), 265-278.
61. Tichenor, P. J., Donohue, G. A., & Olien, C. N. (1970). Mass media flow and differential growth in knowledge. Public Opinion Quarterly, 34(2), 159-170.
62. Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1974). Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases. Science, 185(4157), 1124-1131.
63. Van der Meer, T., & van Ingen, E. (2009). Schools of democracy? Disentangling the relationship between civic participation and political action in 17 European countries. European Journal of Political Research, 48(2), 281-308.
64. van Deth, J. W. (2014). A conceptual map of political participation. Acta Politica, 49(3), 349-367.
65. Verba, S., & Nie, N. H. (1987). Participation in America: Political democracy and social equality. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
66. Wagner, J. (1983). Media do make a difference: The differential impact of mass media in the 1976 Presidential Race. American Journal of Political Science, 27(3), 407-430.
67. Wanta, W., & Hu, Y.-W. (1994). The effects of credibility, reliance, and exposure on media agenda-setting: A path analysis model. Journalism Quarterly, 71(1), 90-98.
68. Weaver, D., & Drew, D. (1995). Voter learning in the 1992 presidential election: Did the “nontraditional” media and debates matter? Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 72(1), 7-17.
69. Weinstein, N. D. (1987). Unrealistic optimism about susceptibility to health problems: Conclusions from a community-wide sample. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 10(5), 481-500.
70. Wyatt, R. O., Katz, E., & Kim, J. (2000). Bridging the spheres: Political and personal conversation in public and private spaces. Journal of Communication, 50(1), 71-92.
71. Yang, J., & Lee, H. (2013). Communication effects gap among news consumers with different cross-platform uses: Focused on political knowledge, efficacy, and conversation. Korean Journal of Broadcasting and Telecommunication Studies, 27(5), 162-203.

부록
1. 고여진 (2006). <학업 성취 영역에서의 자기 과대평가 연구: 평균-이상 효과를 중심으로>. 연세대학교 대학원 석사학위 논문.
2. 금희조·조재호 (2015). 미디어를 통한 뉴스 이용과 대화가 정치 지식, 효능감, 참여에 미치는 영향: 미디어의 종류와 대화 채널의 차별적 효과를 중심으로. <한국언론학보>, 59권 3호, 452-481.
3. 김민규·신인영·권미홍·김주환 (2011, 1월). <뉴스 미디어 이용, 정치 대화, 그리고 정치 지식 간의 인과관계 검증>. 한국HCI학회 학술대회. 평창.
4. 류재성 (2010). 한국 유권자의 정치 지식에 관한 연구 현황과 과제. <한국정치연구>, 19권 1호, 45-70.
5. 박기순 (1987). 상징적 상호작용 이론의 모형 정립: 2인 커뮤니케이션을 중심으로. <한국사회학>, 21호, 45-54
6. 안형기·신범순 (2006). 정치참여 결정 요인으로서의 인지적 효능감: 네티즌의 투표행위를 중심으로. <한국정책과학학회보>, 10권 1호, 27-49.
7. 양정애·이현우 (2013). 크로스플랫폼 뉴스소비 유형에 따른 커뮤니케이션 효과 격차: 정치지식, 정치효능감, 정치대화를 중심으로. <한국방송학보>, 27권 5호, 162-203.
8. 이종택 (2014). 평균 이상 효과에서 문화차의 발생 조건과 설명 기제. <한국심리학회지>, 28권 3호, 127-143.
9. 이효성 (2003). 대중매체와 인터넷 이용이 16대 대선관심과 후보인지도에 미치는 영향에 대한 고찰. <한국방송학보>, 17권 4호, 7-36.
10. 장석준·유승관 (2017). 대학생들의 정치효능감, 정치지식, 정치냉소주의가 정치참여에 미치는 영향 연구. <정치커뮤니케이션 연구>, 47호, 137-162.