Luckily, when I get swamped with work and too busy to blog, my brilliant friend, Elizabeth, cocktail mixer and tarot reader extraordinaire, usually finds me some fascinating articles. Thanks, E!
THE FOX NEWS EFFECT: MEDIA BIAS AND VOTING
[SOURCE: Stefano DellaVigna & Ethan Kaplan]
Does media
bias affect voting? The authors address this question
by looking at the entry of Fox News in cable markets
and its impact on voting. Between October 1996 and
November 2000, the conservative Fox News Channel was
introduced in the cable programming of 20 percent of
US towns. Fox News availability in 2000 appears to be
largely idiosyncratic. Using a data set of voting data
for 9,256 towns, the authors investigate if
Republicans gained vote share in towns where Fox News
entered the cable market by the year 2000. They find a significant effect of the introduction of Fox News on the vote share in Presidential elections between 1996 and 2000.
Republicans gain 0.4 to 0.7 percentage points in the
towns which broadcast Fox News. They also find a
significant effect of Fox News on Senate vote share
and on voter turnout. The estimates imply that Fox
News convinced 3 to 8 percent of its viewers to vote Republican.
http://elsa.berkeley.edu/~sdellavi/wp/foxvote06-03-30.pdf
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If valid, this study, printed in Benton's Communications Daily (www.benton.org), makes a very strong case for the need to reinstitute the fairness doctrine and extend it to cable tv. It also highlights the importance of the study that Media Matters for America recently completed, showing that shows such as Meet the Press tend to book far more conservative than liberal "guests." The Dems better wrap their brains around this NOW, as the results show an impact on Senate races as well. How many elections are won or lost on a 3% to 8% margin???
Of course, I suppose there could be another explanation; maybe Fox tends to go into markets that are moving in a conservative direction. However, when the authors say that, "Fox News availability in 2000 appears to be largely idiosyncratic," I think that means that they don't believe this is a factor.
1 comment:
Interestingly in 1967 there was a book called "Texas Country Editor" about a small town newspaperman who unabashedly supported liberal points of view. In the book there was a chart of voting patterns, showing he swayed his surrounding areas
Ruth
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