Patterns of Engagement: Identifying Associations Between Listening Styles and Community News Consumption

In today's hypermediated world, individuals have myriad opportunities to engage with their communities via mediated communication. Such mediated community engagement involves “listening in” or turning to the news, social media, and other outlets. In this chapter, we contend that listening and mediated community engagement are both grounded in a motivational disposition to connect and share in the human experience of others. Specifically, as a form of mediated community engagement, using and attending to community news reflects the same social-moral motivation underlying people's tendency to find social connection and build rapport when listening to others. Exploring the co-expression of listening styles and community engagement in a survey of Latino voters after the 2016 U.S. presidential election, we identify the presence of four distinct types of news users – universally engaged, universally disengaged, community-engaged, and mainstream-engaged – and show that individuals who engage with their community through the media report more relational and less transactional motivations to listen to others. Cognitive listening motivations are less associated with news use that focuses on one's community. These findings suggest that a desire to “listen to connect” may drive mediated community engagement.