scholarly journals Wojcieszak et al No Polarization from Partisan News IJPP Forthcoming

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Magdalena Wojcieszak ◽  
Sjifra Edith de Leeuw ◽  
Ericka Menchen-Trevino ◽  
Seungsu Lee ◽  
Ke Maddie Huang-Isherwood ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Panel Surveys ◽  
Political News ◽  
Communication Ecology ◽  
Learning Classifier ◽  
News Websites ◽  
Information And Communication ◽  
Democrats And Republicans ◽  
Partisan News

Many blame partisan news media for polarization in America. This paper examines the effects of liberal, conservative, and centrist news on affective and attitude polarization. To this end, we rely on two studies that combine two-wave panel surveys (N1 = 303, N2 = 904) with 12 months worth of web browsing data submitted by the same participants comprising roughly 38 million visits. We identify news exposure using an extensive list of news domains and develop a machine learning classifier to identify exposure to political news within these domains. The results offer a robust pattern of null findings. Exposure to partisan and centrist news websites – no matter if it is congenial or cross-cutting – does not enhance polarization. These null effects also emerge among strong and weak partisans as well as Democrats and Republicans alike. We argue that these null results accurately portray the reality of limited effects of news in the “real world.” Politics and partisan news account for a small fraction of citizens’ online activities, less than 2% in our trace data, and are nearly unnoticeable in the overall information and communication ecology of most individuals.

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.

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.

scholarly journals The Role of Mass Media in World Politics: Media Coverage of Battles for Capital Cities during Civil Conflicts

2018 ◽  
pp. 7-21
Author(s):  
A. Adelgareeva ◽  
I. Okunev
Keyword(s):  
Civil Wars ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Media Content ◽  
International News ◽  
Global Media ◽  
Capital Cities ◽  
Civil Conflicts ◽  
Political News

The article centers on the political aspects of international news making, i.e. the coverage of major political news by global media. Nowadays we are witnessing rising interest towards the modus operandi of global media, its newly-acquired functions and its role as a world politics actor. In this study new empirical data is used to assess the role global media plays in the representation of major civil conflicts and to revisit the commonly-accepted understanding of its political functions. With the help of discourse analysis, the authors investigate the realities of the civil wars in Libya and Syria through the lens of their representations in international news, the aim being to unveil the influence of the existing social frames on the pertinent media content.

scholarly journals Negativity in Political News of Spanish News Media

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
MR Berganza Conde ◽  
◽  
C Arcila Calderón ◽  
R de Miguel Pascual
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Political News

Participatory spaces in online media: Half-opening the gates to users

2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 389-397 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mirjana Pantic
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
User Participation ◽  
Online Media ◽  
News Content ◽  
News Websites ◽  
The World ◽  
Media Organizations

This gatekeeping theory-based study investigates ongoing practices that most prominent news media organizations employ to enable user participation. A thorough analysis of 20 top news websites in the world suggests that reader participation in developing news content and reacting to it is limited. Specifically, major news websites allow participation in areas that increase website traffic, while enabling citizens to produce stories is not a widely adopted form of reader participation.

Bypassing the press gallery: from Howard to Hanson

2018 ◽  
Vol 167 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caroline Fisher ◽  
David Marshall ◽  
Kerry McCallum
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
News Media ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Political News ◽  
The Public ◽  
Theoretical Position ◽  
Digital Era ◽  
The Press ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Media Logic

Traditionally politicians have been dependent on political news media to get their message across to the public. The rise of social media means that politicians can bypass the Press Gallery and publish directly to their target audiences via Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms. This article argues that Prime Minister John Howard’s (1996–2007) use of talk back radio and early forays on YouTube were pivotal in the trend towards ‘disintermediation’ in Australian politics. It draws on two studies. One involving interviews with 87 key media actors from the Howard era including journalists, broadcasters, politicians and media advisers; and a second, which includes fresh interviews with contemporary press secretaries. This article examines the shift from a ‘mass media logic’ to a ‘hybrid logic’, considered from a mediatization theoretical position. We also ask important questions about the press gallery’s ongoing relevance in the digital era, when politicians preside over their own social media empires.

The Impact of the Gulf War on the Ingredients of Presidential Evaluations: Multidimensional Effects of Political Involvement

1993 ◽  
Vol 87 (4) ◽  
pp. 963-975 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jon A. Krosnick ◽  
Laura A. Brannon
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Foreign Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Involvement ◽  
Military Conflict ◽  
Political News ◽  
Gulf Crisis ◽  
Overall Performance ◽  
Multidimensional Effects ◽  
The Impact

When the United States began its overt military conflict with Iraq in January 1991, the news media focused unceasingly on the Gulf crisis. Using national survey data, we show that this emphasis altered the ingredients of Americans' assessments of George Bush's performance. After the war, assessments were based more on beliefs about Bush's effectiveness in managing the conflict and less on confidence in his handling of other foreign relations matters or the domestic economy. Consequently, Bush's overall performance ratings increased dramatically following the war. We also show that the media's impact on political judgments was regulated by citizens' levels of political knowledge, exposure to political news, and interest in the war. Greater impact was associated with higher levels of knowledge and lower levels of exposure and interest. These findings challenge traditional views of these dimensions of political involvement and support a view derived from contemporary psychological theories of information processing.

The agenda-setting power of fake news: A big data analysis of the online media landscape from 2014 to 2016

2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (5) ◽  
pp. 2028-2049 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris J Vargo ◽  
Lei Guo ◽  
Michelle A Amazeen
Keyword(s):  
Big Data ◽  
News Media ◽  
Agenda Setting ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Big Data Analysis ◽  
Online Media ◽  
Fake News ◽  
News Websites ◽  
Partisan Media ◽  
Selection Of

This study examines the agenda-setting power of fake news and fact-checkers who fight them through a computational look at the online mediascape from 2014 to 2016. Although our study confirms that content from fake news websites is increasing, these sites do not exert excessive power. Instead, fake news has an intricately entwined relationship with online partisan media, both responding and setting its issue agenda. In 2016, partisan media appeared to be especially susceptible to the agendas of fake news, perhaps due to the election. Emerging news media are also responsive to the agendas of fake news, but to a lesser degree. Fake news coverage itself is diverging and becoming more autonomous topically. While fact-checkers are autonomous in their selection of issues to cover, they were not influential in determining the agenda of news media overall, and their influence appears to be declining, illustrating the difficulties fact-checkers face in disseminating their corrections.

Soft News and Foreign Policy: How Expanding the Audience Changes the Policies

2007 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
MATTHEW A. BAUM
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
New Media ◽  
News Media ◽  
Political News ◽  
The Public ◽  
Soft News ◽  
Policy Debates ◽  
Political Events ◽  
Foreign Policy Crises ◽  
Strategic Context

Since the 1980s, the mass media have changed the way they cover major political stories, like foreign policy crises. As a consequence, what the public learns about these events has changed. More media outlets cover major events than in the past, including the entertainment-oriented soft news media. When they do cover a political story, soft news outlets focus more on “human drama” than traditional news media – especially the character and motivations of decision-makers, as well as individual stories of heroism or tragedy – and less on the political or strategic context, or substantive nuances, of policy debates. Many Americans who previously ignored most political news now attend to some information about major political events, like wars, via the soft news media. These changes have important implications for democratic politics. Most importantly, a large number of particularly persuadable potential voters are now tuning in to politics via soft news outlets. This gives politicians an incentive to develop strategies for reaching out to them. Such individuals care less about the nuances of policy and more about the personality of leaders and any sensational human drama that a policy, like a war, entails. Soft news consumers care less about geopolitics than about body bags. Politicians who want their votes are therefore likely to emphasize body bags more than geopolitics. In short, the “new” media environment changes both the style and substance of politics in democracies.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document