Information represents an essential input in social processes influencing human sentiment, attitudes, and behavior. With the rise of internet, information consumption habits have changed. The standard process of consuming news via traditional mass media (such as newspapers, radio and television) is now substituted, or complemented by news consumption via online sources. We study the effects of this behavioral change on environmental attitudes in Europe. More precisely, we ask whether this change has contributed to increased polarisation in environmental attitudes. We utilize a large-scale survey data across multiple European countries in the period from 2002 to 2010. We find evidence that traditional media (television, radio and newspapers) consumption, as well as internet use is associated with pro-environmental attitudes. Importantly, we also show that political preferences of an individual moderate the manner in which internet use is related to environmental attitudes. Among progressive and green voters, greater internet use is positively correlated with environmental attitudes. Among conservative voters, internet use appears to be negatively related to environmental attitudes. The pattern is similar, but much weaker, for TV consumption which constitutes a similar high-choice environment (compared to radio and newspapers). These results support the notion that internet use tends to strengthen people’s pre-existing beliefs (measured by voting behavior), much beyond the effect of TV viewership.

信息是影响人类情感、态度和行为的社会过程的重要输入。随着互联网的兴起，信息消费习惯发生了变化。通过传统大众媒体（例如报纸、广播和电视）消费新闻的标准流程现已被通过在线来源的新闻消费所取代或补充。我们研究这种行为变化对欧洲环境态度的影响。更准确地说，我们要问的是，这种变化是否加剧了环境态度的两极分化。我们利用 2002 年至 2010 年期间对多个欧洲国家进行的大规模调查数据。我们发现有证据表明传统媒体（电视、广播和报纸）消费以及互联网使用与环保态度相关。重要的是，我们还表明，个人的政治偏好会调节互联网使用与环境态度的关系。在进步派和绿色选民中，更多的互联网使用与环境态度呈正相关。在保守派选民中，互联网的使用似乎与环境态度呈负相关。电视消费的模式类似，但要弱得多，电视消费构成了类似的高选择环境（与广播和报纸相比）。这些结果支持这样一种观点，即互联网的使用往往会强化人们先前存在的信念（通过投票行为衡量），远远超出电视收视率的影响。