Media supply information, frames, models, and cues whose effects interact with selective exposure.

Panel or experimental evidence is stronger than correlating platform use with attitudes at one time.

Media socialization can be gradual, as repeated portrayals teach what politics is and who belongs in it, or immediate, as an event supplies new information. Exposure is rarely random: prior interests guide source choice and algorithms respond to earlier behavior. Good evidence therefore separates selection into an information environment from the effect of encountering its messages.

Video lesson: Political socialization | US government and civics | Khan Academy