“For democracy to function correctly, citizens need to have an adequate level of political knowledge on which to judge political representatives. Media use is generally regarded as being one of the key factors affecting the distribution of this information, but how has the greater media choice provided through the Internet and other mediums affected the knowledge of citizens? Jesper Strömbäck presents a case study from Sweden which maps the changing media use of citizens since the mid-1980s. He illustrates that as media choice has increased, there has also been a rise in the percentage of individuals who either actively seek out news or avoid it. This raises the prospect that greater media choice could create unequal levels of political knowledge across society, potentially reducing social cohesion and creating a fertile ground for protest movements. Two key assumptions in democratic theory are that in order for democracy to work, people need to be reasonably informed and there needs to be a high degree of equality in terms of the distribution of political knowledge. Without a sufficient degree of political knowledge, people will not be able to form an enlightened understanding of politics, participate effectively, or cast informed votes. In this context, the role of the media is crucial. Alongside everything else the media do, their most important democratic function is to provide people with the information they need to be free and self-governing. Across democracies, it is also widely established that the news media constitute the most important source of political information. In that sense, modern politics is decidedly ‘mediated’ politics. On a general level, (1) the higher the quality of political news coverage, (2) the more people follow the news about politics and society, and (3) the more even those who are otherwise not very interested in politics follow the news, the greater the prospects are that people will be reasonably informed and that a high degree of equality in political knowledge will prevail.”