As a motivational factor of action, political efficacy is an important predictor of political behavior. The term was invented to capture the extent to which people feel that they can effectively participate in politics and shape political processes. Today, we have a comprehensive knowledge of the individual-level factors (socio-demographic variables, political preferences, etc.) that shape the level of internal and external dimensions of political efficacy. However, while it is widely demonstrated that media consumption influences the level of political efficacy, the country-level media context factors affecting it have rarely been studied. This article reports the findings of extensive research on how two crucial features of the media context, the political significance of the media and the level of political parallelism in the media system, shape the level of external and internal political efficacy. The investigation draws upon the data set of the seventh round (2014–2015) of the European Social Survey (ESS) and includes more than 22,000 respondents from 19 European democracies. The research hypothesizes that in countries where the media play a more important role, people have lower levels of external and higher levels of internal political efficacy. Political parallelism, which shows the extent to which media outlets are driven by distinct political orientations and interests within a particular media system, is expected to directly increase both external and internal political efficacy. Its indirect effect is also hypothesized, arguing that partisan media amplifies the winner–loser gap in political efficacy as a kind of “echo chamber.” The findings show that in countries where the media play a major role in shaping political discourse, people have lower levels of external political efficacy, while the political parallelism of the media system indirectly affects the external dimensions of political efficacy. Internal political efficacy is, however, not related to these context-level factors.

中文翻译：

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语境重要吗？媒体背景对外部和内部政治效能影响的跨国调查

作为行动的激励因素，政治效能是政治行为的重要预测指标。发明这个词是为了描述人们认为他们可以有效参与政治和塑造政治进程的程度。今天，我们对影响政治效能的内部和外部维度水平的个人层面因素（社会人口变量、政治偏好等）有了全面的了解。然而，虽然媒体消费影响政治效能水平的研究已被广泛证明，但影响它的国家层面的媒体背景因素却鲜有研究。本文报告了对媒体语境的两个关键特征、媒体的政治意义和媒体系统中的政治平行程度的广泛研究的结果，塑造外部和内部政治效能的水平。该调查利用了欧洲社会调查 (ESS) 第七轮（2014-2015）的数据集，包括来自 19 个欧洲民主国家的 22,000 多名受访者。该研究假设，在媒体发挥更重要作用的国家，人们的外部政治效能水平较低，而内部政治效能水平较高。政治平行性表明媒体在多大程度上受特定媒体系统内不同政治方向和利益的驱动，预计将直接提高外部和内部的政治效力。它的间接影响也是假设的，认为党派媒体作为一种“回声室”放大了政治效力上的赢家与输家的差距。研究结果表明，在媒体在塑造政治话语方面发挥主要作用的国家，人们的外部政治效能水平较低，而媒体系统的政治平行性间接影响了政治效能的外部维度。然而，内部政治效能与这些背景层面的因素无关。