Feeling informed or being informed about politics? Effects of first- and second-level incidental exposure on political surveillance knowledge and internal political efficacy

Uninformed participation might be a threat to the functioning of democracies. Scholars have pointed out the discrepancy that social media use is positively associated with political engagement but, if at all, has an unclear relationship with political knowledge. One of the most prominent ways citizens encounter political information on social media is incidental exposure (IE). Building on recent theorizing, we distinguish between first- (superficial scanning of IE content) and second-level IE (more thorough processing of IE content) and study the association with political surveillance knowledge and internal political efficacy. We relied on three-wave panel data (N = 686) collected during the German national election campaign in 2021. We estimated a random intercept cross-lagged panel model to distinguish between-persons (i.e., the trait component of IE) and within-persons (i.e., the state component of IE) associations. We found no within-persons relationship between first-level IE and knowledge or internal political efficacy over time. Second-level IE did not increase internal efficacy. However, second-level IE increased political knowledge in the last phase before the election (between W2 and W3) but not in the campaign’s initial phase (W1 to W2). Further, we found that individuals who often engage in second-level IE have higher scores on internal political efficacy but do not actually know more about politics. In sum, the superficial scanning of incidentally encountered political information does not foster a knowledgeable electorate. Implications are discussed.