Fair and Balanced? News Media Bias and Influence on Voters

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship of mass media on consumers’ partisanship and ideology. The link between real or perceived bias by news organizations and consumers ideological preferences is often assumed, but relatively few empirical tests have been conducted. This paper investigates whether the particular newspaper that citizens read correlates with partisan preferences. Data include survey responses from the 1992 British General Election study. Britain provides a unique environment for such a test as most major newspapers have clearly perceived partisan biases. Respondents’ party identification, newspaper readership, and major party evaluations demonstrate that media consumption correlates with partisan and ideological preferences, although news consumers who read papers are more likely to modify their perceptions of party ideology in the direction of press bias. Media consumption correlates with ideological preferences and perceptions of political parties.