ScholarWorks@동국대학교

초록

This study examined how relative information preference on TV and YouTube affects political participation in South Korea, focusing on the mediating roles of political news consumption and fact-checking and the moderated mediation role of generational differences. Using data from the 2022 Korean Media Survey (n = 5,391), the current study tested a moderated mediation model comparing legacy media (TV) with platform media (YouTube) across generations. Results revealed that TV information preference directly increased political participation, whereas YouTube information preference did not. However, both TV and YouTube information preferences indirectly enhanced political participation through political news consumption and fact-checking. Generational differences moderated these indirect effects: Generation Y showed stronger mediation effects than Baby Boomers, driven by higher political news consumption, more frequent fact-checking, and a greater preference for informational content on YouTube relative to other genres. These findings extend prior research on single-medium information preference by comparing legacy and platform media within a unified framework and by identifying the mechanisms through which relative information preference leads to political participation. The study also highlights that generational moderation of these mediating pathways manifests differently across TV and YouTube, emphasizing the importance of platform-specific analyses in understanding political participation. Copyright © 2026 by the Korean Society for Journalism and Communication Studies

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