Partisan Gaze: Examining the Impact of Political Party Preferences on Exposure to News Content (An Eye-Tracking Study)

Abstract

This research aims to investigate how people perceive political information being presented to them, particularly when the content conflicts with their political beliefs. This study theorizes that those with specific political party affiliations have a greater tendency to avoid gazing at political content that differs from their beliefs. An eye-tracking experiment was conducted at SFU Burnaby with a sample size of 17 participants who were randomly assigned to one of two treatment conditions. They were tasked with completing a pre-experiment questionnaire, followed by the treatment phase, before concluding with a post-experiment questionnaire. Participants were presented with a news article from the 2024 BC Elections period, containing drug policy initiatives of BC’s three main political parties - NDP, Conservative, and Green. Eye-tracking data and survey data were cross-tabulated in linear regressions and t-tests to statistically analyze where participant gazes were most drawn and fixated on for the longest duration to identify what they avoided as a result. Findings show the significant presence of the inverse effect where those who identified with a specific political party tended to expose themselves more to opposing party content, encouraging further exploration into disconfirmation bias.