A new measure for the tendency to select ideologically congruent political information: Scale development and validation

Selective exposure is a popular research construct, but the strategies used to operationalize ideologically congruent exposure in contemporary correlational research are problematic. This article offers a novel approach, asking people directly about their tendency to seek information that is ideologically congruent with their opinions. A new measure for the tendency toward congruent selective exposure is proposed and was tested on three different data sets. In all three studies, confirmatory factor analysis revealed a two-factor model, with one factor representing the tendency to select congruent information and the other representing the tendency to avoid incongruent information.