Selective Topic Consumers: A Topic Repertoire Approach to Understanding Young Adults’ News Topic Choices, Political Knowledge, and Participation

In an era of news abundance, concerns have emerged regarding citizens’ topic-level news fragmentation and its political implications. This study introduces the concept of a news topic repertoire to capture the specific sets of topics that South Korean young adults regularly consume. Latent profile analysis identified four distinct repertoires: entertainment & crime, topic omnivores, hard news & crime, and topic minimalists (in order of frequency of use). Topic omnivores, who engage with the broadest range of topics, exhibited higher levels of both objective and subjective political knowledge and reported more active lifestyle-oriented political participation, underscoring the pro-democratic value of diverse news exposure. Yet, the findings also revealed a striking disconnect between political knowledge and participation. Despite their high political knowledge and engagement with lifestyle-oriented political activities, topic omnivores did not report particularly high levels of offline or online political participation. Likewise, individuals with a hard news & crime repertoire reported high objective political knowledge but limited political participation. This disjuncture between knowledge and participation complicates the normative assumption of a virtuous circle in which informed citizens naturally become politically active. Implications are discussed.