Partisan media effects beyond one-shot experimental designs

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Kathleen Searles ◽  
Joshua P. Darr ◽  
Mingxiao Sui ◽  
Nathan Kalmoe ◽  
Raymond Pingree ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Media Effects ◽  
News Media ◽  
Online News ◽  
Repeated Exposure ◽  
Experimental Designs ◽  
Fox News ◽  
Partisan Media ◽  
News Effects ◽  
Partisan News

Abstract Previous study demonstrates that partisans perceive in-party news outlets as fair, and out-party news outlets as unfair. However, much of this study relies on one-shot designs. We create an ecologically valid design that randomly assigns participants to news feeds within a week-long online news portal where the balance of in-party and out-party news outlets has been manipulated. We find that sustained exposure to a feed that features out-party news media attenuates Democrats' beliefs that Fox News is unfair, but the same is not true for Republican's perceptions of MSNBC's fairness. Unexpectedly, repeated exposure to in-party news did increase Republicans' beliefs that Fox News is unfair. This study updates our understanding of partisan news effects in a fragmented online news environment.

Quantitative and qualitative analysis of linking patterns of mainstream and partisan online news media in Central Europe

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Hrckova ◽  
Robert Moro ◽  
Ivan Srba ◽  
Maria Bielikova
Keyword(s):  
Peer Review ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
News Media ◽  
Automatic Detection ◽  
Online News ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Hyperlink Network Analysis ◽  
Partisan Media ◽  
Partisan News

PurposePartisan news media, which often publish extremely biased, one-sided or even false news, are gaining popularity world-wide and represent a major societal issue. Due to a growing number of such media, a need for automatic detection approaches is of high demand. Automatic detection relies on various indicators (e.g. content characteristics) to identify new partisan media candidates and to predict their level of partisanship. The aim of the research is to investigate to a deeper extent whether it would be appropriate to rely on the hyperlinks as possible indicators for better automatic partisan news media detection.Design/methodology/approachThe authors utilized hyperlink network analysis to study the hyperlinks of partisan and mainstream media. The dataset involved the hyperlinks of 18 mainstream media and 15 partisan media in Slovakia and Czech Republic. More than 171 million domain pairs of inbound and outbound hyperlinks of selected online news media were collected with Ahrefs tool, analyzed and visualized with Gephi software. Additionally, 300 articles covering COVID-19 from both types of media were selected for content analysis of hyperlinks to verify the reliability of quantitative analysis and to provide more detailed analysis.FindingsThe authors conclude that hyperlinks are reliable indicators of media affinity and linking patterns could contribute to partisan news detection. The authors found out that especially the incoming links with dofollow attribute to news websites are reliable indicators for assessing the type of media, as partisan media rarely receive links with dofollow attribute from mainstream media. The outgoing links are not such reliable indicators as both mainstream and partisan media link to mainstream sources similarly.Originality/valueIn contrast to the extensive amount of research aiming at fake news detection within a piece of text or multimedia content (e.g. news articles, social media posts), the authors shift to characterization of the whole news media. In addition, the authors did a geographical shift from more researched US-based media to so far under-researched European context, particularly Central Europe. The results and conclusions can serve as a guide how to derive new features for an automatic detection of possibly partisan news media by means of artificial intelligence (AI).Peer reviewThe peer review history for this article is available at the following link: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-10-2020-0441.

Resisting Political Fragmentation on the Internet

Daedalus ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 140 (4) ◽  
pp. 108-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Kelly Garrett ◽  
Paul Resnick
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Online News ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Political Fragmentation ◽  
Software Designers ◽  
The Face ◽  
Desirable Behavior ◽  
Partisan News

Must the Internet promote political fragmentation? Although this is a possible outcome of personalized online news, we argue that other futures are possible and that thoughtful design could promote more socially desirable behavior. Research has shown that individuals crave opinion reinforcement more than they avoid exposure to diverse viewpoints and that, in many situations, hearing the other side is desirable. We suggest that, equipped with this knowledge, software designers ought to create tools that encourage and facilitate consumption of diverse news streams, making users, and society, better off. We propose several techniques to help achieve this goal. One approach focuses on making useful or intriguing opinion-challenges more accessible. The other centers on nudging people toward diversity by creating environments that accentuate its benefits. Advancing research in this area is critical in the face of increasingly partisan news media, and we believe these strategies can help.

Sowing Distrust of the News Media as an Electoral Strategy

2020 ◽  
pp. 426-454
Author(s):  
Jonathan M. Ladd ◽  
Alexander R. Podkul
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Media Effects ◽  
News Media ◽  
Political Information ◽  
General Decline ◽  
The Media ◽  
Second Period ◽  
Partisan News

Since the 1970s, trust in the news media went through a period of general decline and then a second period (since 2000) of polarization by party. Currently, trust in the media is low among those of all political affiliations, but it is substantially lower among Republicans than Democrats. Scholars have investigated a variety of plausible causes of this increasing distrust of the media, yet the largest source of this change seems to be increasing amounts of criticism of the institutional media from politicians and political pundits. This trend also has important consequences for how people acquire political information and make election decisions. Those who distrust the news media are more likely to consume information from partisan news outlets, and are more resistant to a fairly wide variety of media effects on public opinion. Because it can partially insulate one’s supporters from many types of media persuasion, partisan attacks on the news media have become an increasingly prominent political tactic.

scholarly journals The Influence of Partisan Media in the Face of Global Pandemic: How News Media Influenced COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matt Motta ◽  
Dominik Stecula
Keyword(s):  
Adverse Event ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
News Media ◽  
Causal Effect ◽  
Vaccine Uptake ◽  
Vaccine Hesitancy ◽  
Media Effect ◽  
Fox News ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
Partisan Media

While vaccination against COVID-19 represents a clear path toward resuming “normal life,” attitudes toward vaccination and vaccine uptake has been highly politically contentious. In this paper, we investigate (1) whether or not partisan news outlets covered COVID-vaccination issues in different ways, and (2) whether differences in coverage contributed to the vaccine politicization. We do this by bringing together novel sentiment-scored COVID vaccine stories (N > 17,000) from cable and mainstream news outlets, N > 180,000 vaccine adverse event reports to the Dept. of Health and Human Services (which we validate both here and in past research as a proxy for public vaccine sentiment), and six original surveys (N = 6,499) measuring vaccination intentions and media use behavior throughout the pandemic. We find that Fox News’ vaccine-related coverage was significantly more negative than that of other cable and mainstream sources. Critically, these differences in tone influenced public opinion about vaccines. Adverse event reports tended to increase following heightened periods of negativity on Fox News, which robustness checks suggest is not likely to be a reverse causal effect. Correspondingly, self-reported Fox News exposure in the opinion data is associated with elevated levels of vaccine hesitancy throughout the pandemic. Collectively, the results provide new insights into the persuasive power of partisan media. While some might expect the promise of ending a global pandemic to interrupt conventional media effect processes, we find that differences in covered vaccine-related issues had both predictable and polarizing effects on public opinion.

scholarly journals The consequences of online partisan media

2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (14) ◽  
pp. e2013464118
Author(s):  
Andrew M. Guess ◽  
Pablo Barberá ◽  
Simon Munzert ◽  
JungHwan Yang
Keyword(s):  
Computational Social Science ◽  
Panel Survey ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Fox News ◽  
Powerful Approach ◽  
Partisan Media ◽  
Nationally Representative ◽  
Extreme Media ◽  
Partisan News

What role do ideologically extreme media play in the polarization of society? Here we report results from a randomized longitudinal field experiment embedded in a nationally representative online panel survey (N = 1,037) in which participants were incentivized to change their browser default settings and social media following patterns, boosting the likelihood of encountering news with either a left-leaning (HuffPost) or right-leaning (Fox News) slant during the 2018 US midterm election campaign. Data on ≈ 19 million web visits by respondents indicate that resulting changes in news consumption persisted for at least 8 wk. Greater exposure to partisan news can cause immediate but short-lived increases in website visits and knowledge of recent events. After adjusting for multiple comparisons, however, we find little evidence of a direct impact on opinions or affect. Still, results from later survey waves suggest that both treatments produce a lasting and meaningful decrease in trust in the mainstream media up to 1 y later. Consistent with the minimal-effects tradition, direct consequences of online partisan media are limited, although our findings raise questions about the possibility of subtle, cumulative dynamics. The combination of experimentation and computational social science techniques illustrates a powerful approach for studying the long-term consequences of exposure to partisan news.

The Timing of Partisan Media Effects during a Presidential Election

2016 ◽  
Vol 69 (4) ◽  
pp. 655-666 ◽  
Author(s):  
Glen Smith
Keyword(s):  
Media Effects ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Political Knowledge ◽  
Barack Obama ◽  
Election Cycle ◽  
Fox News ◽  
High Knowledge ◽  
Partisan Media ◽  
New Evidence

This article examines when partisan media effects occur during presidential campaigns. I argue that partisan media are most likely to influence candidate impressions early in the election cycle, when voters have less crystallized impressions of the candidates and are less motivated to defend their party’s nominee. Using multiple methods and two large-scale surveys spanning 2008, I show that Fox News affected favorability toward Barack Obama during the first five months of the election year, but those effects largely disappeared over the last five months. The results varied by political knowledge, however, as Fox News affected low-knowledge viewers throughout the entire year, but only affected high-knowledge viewers early in the election cycle. These results provide important new evidence on how partisan media affect viewers and when those effects occur during a presidential election.

Reading the Tea Leaves—the News about the News

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Khadijah Costley White
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Tea Party ◽  
Online Video ◽  
Tea Leaves ◽  
High Ranking ◽  
Fox News ◽  
The Media

This chapter looks at how the media explained, critiqued, and reported on their own role in the branding and coverage of the Tea Party, and what that says about news media function and convergence in a headphone culture. Whether it was a “media war” on Fox News, a reporter’s rant at CNBC, or a defamatory online video triggering the dismissal of a high-ranking Obama appointee for “racism,” one thing was clear—at its core, Tea Party news narratives were also a story about modern journalism. This section of the book explains how members of the news media portrayed (implicitly and explicitly) their own roles, functions, and values as they advanced the Tea Party’s recognition, messaging, and growth through the logics, action, and discourse of branding.

Online News Media as Interactive Community Bulletin Boards

Media Asia ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 197-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alice Y. L. Lee
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Online News ◽  
Bulletin Boards

scholarly journals There can be only one truth: Ideological segregation and online news communities in Ukraine

2021 ◽  
pp. 174276652110099
Author(s):  
Aleksandra Urman ◽  
Mykola Makhortykh
Keyword(s):  
Online News ◽  
Online Platform ◽  
News Content ◽  
Echo Chambers ◽  
Region Of Residence ◽  
Online Environments ◽  
Partisan News

The paper examines ideological segregation among Ukrainian users in online environments, using as a case study partisan news communities on Vkontakte, the largest online platform in post-communist states. Its findings suggest that despite their insignificant numbers, partisan news communities attract substantial attention from Ukrainian users and can encourage the formation of isolated ideological cliques – or ‘echo chambers’ – that increase societal polarisation. The paper also investigates factors that predict users’ interest in partisan content and establishes that the region of residence is the key predictor of selective consumption of pro-Ukrainian or pro-Russian partisan news content.

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