Partisan Media Research Articles

Effects of Over-Time Exposure to Partisan Media and Coverage of Polarization on Perceived Polarization

ABSTRACT America is said to be more polarized than ever before, and extensive research examines the causes and effects of political polarization. A less studied but more pronounced trend is that citizens perceive society and politics as sharply divided. We focus on news exposure as a key reason for these perceptions. We disentangle the unique effects of exposure to partisan outlets and to news coverage of polarization in general, whether in partisan or centrist news media. We rely on 9 months of online behavioral data (127,400,000 visits) from large samples in the U.S. and Poland (total N = 2,462 & 2,120), paired with a three-wave panel survey on participants' attitudes and perceptions. We measure individual exposure, over-time and unobtrusively, to partisan outlets as well as to news coverage of polarization through a fine-tuned BERT-based machine learning classifier. We find that both exposures increase perceived polarization, independently, in both countries. Yet, in both contexts, it is news coverage of polarization, regardless of whether it is ideologically left, right, or centrist news outlets, that is the strongest driver of perceived polarization. These changes are confined to personal-level polarization (perceived distance between oneself and members of the opposing party), while no measure significantly influences perceptions of society, more generally, as being polarized. These findings have important implications for our understanding of how the media’s increasing tendency to focus on conflict as a central reporting frame can be the driver of often exaggerated perceptions of partisan divisions.

To Seek or Not to Seek? An Assessment of Partisan Media Avoidance and Its Correlates

ABSTRACT Scholars have noted the importance of studying avoidance of partisan media. However, most partisan media studies have only included measures of seeking out these sources of information and assume that avoidance is operationally measured as a lack of use of partisan media. Some scholars have argued that avoidance is conceptually distinct, so assessing avoidance as a lack of use may not be the best approach to measuring avoidance. In this paper, we extend this line of research by demonstrating that our measures of active partisan avoidance are separate concepts from use of these same outlets. Using two data sets and confirmatory factor analysis, our results reveal that models where use and avoidance are treated as separate concepts fit the data better than when these concepts are treated as one factor. We also evaluate the validity of these measures. In general, this study suggests that scholars may want to consider assessing avoidance when studying this concept rather than just assessing use.

How political consultants can leverage partisan media combativeness in the U.S.

ABSTRACT The growth of partisan media presents new challenges for political consultants. Informed by social identity theory and truth-default theory, this paper examines how U.S. voters react to politicians in combative news interviews. Experiment 1 (N = 320) establishes that an ingroup politician gains more trust among ingroup voters when interviewed by cross-partisan media accusing the politician of deception than when interviewed more congenially by co-partisan media. Experiment 2 (N = 131) finds that perceived media hostility increases Democrats’ and Republicans’ trust in a politician regardless of whether the interviewer accuses the politician of deception or is congenial. Experiment 3 (N = 126) replicates the findings when a Democrat is accused of deception on Fox News. The study tested a moderated mediation model, finding that Republican and Democratic voters do not react differently in the process. The discussion highlights the practical and theoretical implications of hostile media perceptions and ingroup–outgroup partisan bias in a polarized media environment with conflicting exposure to live fact-checking and deception detection.

Globaloney: Extended Party Networks and the Dissemination of Anti-Globalization Insults

From where does discontent against globalization originate? Current explanations emphasize material conditions and the emergence of globalization-skeptical parties. We argue that party-affiliated factions play a critical but underappreciated role. Such factions provide foundational support for elite appeals, acting entrepreneurially to construct new narratives that are later invoked by elites. We test this by studying a unique case: the “globalist” insult on Twitter. We find that “globalist” mentions co-occur with hashtags and terms associated with right-wing conspiracies, “alt-right” media figures, and Donald Trump. We further find that the most consistent correlate of the “globalist” insult is its use by the alt-right media organization Breitbart, not by traditional political elites or in response to changes in economic conditions. The results suggest that a conceptualization of political parties as organizers of political conflict, specifically ones that incorporate factions and non-elite entities like partisan media, helps make sense of anti-globalization political movements.

Affective polarization is uniformly distributed across American States.

US partisans view each other with increasing negativity. While many attribute the growth of such affective polarization to nationally cross-cutting forces, such as ideological partisan sorting or access to partisan media, others emphasize the effects of contextual and institutional forces. For the first time, we introduce and explore data sufficiently granular to fully map the extent of partisan animosity across the US states. With a massive, nationally representative survey we find that, counter to expectations, variation in affective polarization across states is relatively small, and is instead largely a function of individual-level attitudinal (but not demographic) characteristics. While elections pit regions of the country against others, our results suggest affective polarization is a national, not regional, problem, requiring national interventions.

Living in a Diverse Community: Effects of Geographical Variations in Diversity on Partisan Communication

This study examines the effects of geographical variations in diversity on political communication within the context of partisan media and audiences. Partisan heterogeneity, as an indicator of political diversity, was conceptualized as a geographical context of the distribution of party preferences within a county. Using a set of nationwide panel survey data with county-level statistics, we conducted multilevel modeling to test its effects on partisan news use, political discussion, knowledge, and affective polarization. The results indicate that county-level partisan heterogeneity reduced the average levels of like-minded news consumption. Moreover, it attenuated the positive relationship between like-minded news use and political talk with strong ties. Additionally, we found that the context of partisan heterogeneity significantly moderated the mediation effects of partisan news use on political knowledge and affective polarization through political discussion. Implications of these results on partisan communication were discussed.

Does the Losing Side Lose the Democratic Faith? Partisan Media Flow and Democratic Values During the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election

ABSTRACT This study examines the relationship between partisan media consumption and changes in democratic values during the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. By integrating self-reported news consumption data with the partisan slant of news outlets, we explore how different media environments shape voters’ attitudes about democracy. Our analysis of a two-wave panel survey conducted before and after the election reveals significant changes in democratic values among general voters, including both Biden and Trump supporters. The findings also highlight the complex effects of a polarized media ecosystem on political beliefs, demonstrating that partisan media flow influences democratic values beyond the traditional winner-loser dichotomy.

The Rise of the “Democrat Party”: Republican Elites, Partisan Slurs, and Linguistic Polarization

In a time of heightened affective and negative partisanship, we examine the intra-elite party dynamics underlying insulting partisan rhetoric. Our focus is on Republicans' reference to their partisan opponents as the “Democrat Party,” an ungrammatical mislabeling intended as a slur. We show that this usage, while not new, has exploded in recent years. This increase comes at the same time as significant change within the Republican Party. We argue that the tumultuous changes ushered in by the 2016 election have created fertile ground for factional turnover and enabled the rise of this partisan slur. We further contend that the epithet’s meaning has subtly shifted, suggesting that performatively partisan actors within the party, namely, partisan media, have become centralized actors within the Republican network. Using several corpora of political communication by Republican politicians and conservative media, we document a general rise in mislabelings of the Democrats concentrated in 2018–2019. We further show that the adoption of this insult by notable Republican elites like Donald Trump is due primarily to right-wing media’s influence. We conclude with a discussion of the normative implications of increasingly partisan media-centric, performative politics within the American right.

The Impact of Partisan Media on Minority Groups: Incivility and Polarization in American Political Discourse

The purpose of this research article is to examine the complex relationship between partisan media and its impact on minority groups, specifically African Americans, Latinos, and Asians, in American political discourse. Through a comprehensive analysis of news headlines from major cable news networks such as CNN, Fox, and MSNBC, the study examines how selective framing and biased coverage by media outlets influence the portrayal of this minority groups. By employing sentiment analysis techniques on a dataset extracted from LexisNexis, the study reveals the prevalence of negative tones in news headlines related to African Americans, Latinos, and Asian Americans. The findings shed light on the role of partisan media in shaping public perceptions, reinforcing biases, and contributing to political polarization. The implications of these findings underscore the importance of promoting informed and inclusive media practices to foster a more equitable and engaged society.

Effects or use?: Examining the over-time effects of media use and racial resentment

ABSTRACT In this paper, we examine the relationships between racial resentment and use of partisan media in the U.S. Our paper first examines the correlation between these two variables then tries to assess whether there are over-time relationships between them. Our paper first establishes that racial resentment is indeed associated with higher levels of using conservative media and lower levels of using liberal media. We then examine whether people’s level of racial resentment drives their use or avoidance of specific media content or if using these different outlets changes people’s levels of racial resentment. We find some evidence that racial resentment tends to be associated with avoiding liberal media outlets. By contrast, racial resentment does not predict changes in conservative media use. Moreover, we do not find that media use affects racial resentment.

The Emotional Power of Partisan Media: A Computer Vision Analysis of the 2020 Democratic Party Presidential Primaries

ABSTRACT Building on theories of emotional contagion and affective priming, the study assesses the emotional impact of the U.S. partisan media’s coverage of six leading political candidates’ images during the 2020 New Hampshire Democratic Party presidential primary. Results show that the partisan media’s representations of the candidates’ facial expressions of emotions are associated with the voters’ feelings toward the politicians in their desired directions. Additionally, the partisan-media-primed emotions among the voters consistently align with their voting decisions. Methodologically, the study combines state-of-the-art computer vision techniques and survey research conducted with a representative sample of New Hampshire voters.

How scientific and partisan media shape support for research on stratospheric aerosol injection

ABSTRACT Stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) is a controversial technique that has been suggested as a means of temporarily halting global warming. A study conducted on 441 individuals in the US in November 2023 investigated the impact of three video presentations either promoting or opposing research on SAI. Two of the videos were presented by scientific experts either promoting or opposing further research into this technology. The third was politicized, featuring Tucker Carlson on Fox News, and arguing that SAI would endanger Americans. We found that all three of the video presentations had a strong influence on general support for or against research, and that the politicized presentation not only reduced support for research but also reduced trust in science and technology to provide solutions to problems facing humanity. The findings suggest the strong impact of messaging on public opinion about research into SAI as a climate change intervention strategy.

Damn Their Media, Damn the Other Side: Direct and Indirect Effects of Relative Hostile Media Perception on Affective Polarization

ABSTRACT This study examined how relative hostile media perception (i.e. a perceived credibility gap between pro- and counter-attitudinal partisan media outlets) connects to affective polarization. Drawing on theoretical foundations of the corrective action and the self-effects of communication, we tested whether expressive political participation resulting from relative hostile media perceptions exacerbated affective polarization. Findings from a two-wave national survey indicated that relative hostile media perception predicted affective polarization, and this relationship was mediated by expressive political participation. This study supplements the traditional focus on news exposure with a perspective centered on audience perceptions about how partisan media contribute to affective polarization.

Contextualizing Representations of Violence in #Blacklivesmatter Coverage with Inductive Computational Content Analysis

ABSTRACT News coverage of social movements traditionally adheres to the protest paradigm, which focuses on violent and confrontational tactics instigated by activists. Recent work has called for a reevaluation of this theory through the lens of partisan media bias. We demonstrate how partisan media bias systematically shapes coverage of the summer 2020 Black Lives Matter protests that occurred in the aftermath of the police murder of George Floyd. Using an inductive computational content analysis, we surface words and phrases that best predict whether an article was published in a left-, center-, or right-leaning outlet. We then perform a qualitative close reading of those terms in context to determine how partisan media bias shapes depictions of the same events: namely, in representations of protestors and violence. Right-leaning media depict protestors as violent rioters, looters, and antifa members committing property damage, whereas center- and left-leaning media emphasize the peaceful nature of the protests motivated by the police killing of Floyd and systematic racism. We consider the implications of these findings on broader public opinion within media ecosystems.

Media Slant and Public Policy Views

We study how exposure to partisan news channels (i.e., Fox News vs. MSNBC) affects individual views on four policy issues — climate change, gun rights, abortion, and immigration. First, using GPT to annotate news transcripts, we document large differences in the way the two networks cover these issues. Second, exploiting exogenous variation in viewership due to channels' positions in cable lineups, we show that exposure to Fox News (MSNBC) is associated with more conservative (progressive) views, even when controlling for self-reported ideology and party affiliation. Our findings indicate that partisan media contribute to the rise of political polarization in the US.

Seeing Red (And Blue): Partisan Identity, Emotions, and Selective Exposure

ABSTRACT Selective exposure occurs when individuals gravitate toward attitude-consistent information. In the United States, partisan identity guides selective exposure behavior. While partisanship is the typical culprit for partisan media selectivity, scholars have recommended examining the causal mechanisms underlying this relationship. This study examines the relationship between partisan identity threat and reassurance and selective exposure as well as the moderating effect of partisan identity strength and mediating effect of anger and enthusiasm. We find that partisan identity threat is associated with anger, reassurance with enthusiasm, and that the relationship increased as partisan strength increased. Threat and reassurance did not directly spur selective exposure, though we found an indirect effect of partisan reassurance on selective exposure via enthusiasm, which strengthened as partisanship intensified.

Breaking Agenda Setting Boundaries: A Multi-Dimensional Approach to Understanding Salience of Gun Control in the Polarized Public Sphere

ABSTRACT We reexamine agenda setting by analyzing the salience of gun control within diverse U.S. audience groups. Utilizing data spanning from 2015 to 2022, we investigate the impact of traditional media, partisan media coverage, discourse on Twitter (now X), real-world gun-related events, and Google Trends search behavior on the perceived importance of gun control. Our findings indicate that while traditional media and Twitter discourse do not significantly sway the salience of gun control, partisan media coverage and specific information-seeking search behaviors do. Notably, media opposing an audience’s political ideology and searches for gun-related information are influential. The effect of real-world shooting events on issue salience is complex, with shootings influencing liberals, but with conservatives showing an initial decrease in perceived importance. Our approach explains issue salience for all ideological groups quite well and offers the most comprehensive understanding of the interplay between personal experiences, search behaviors, and a polarized media environment in shaping public salience on gun control to date.

Countering the “Climate Cult” – Framing Cascades in Far-Right Digital Networks

ABSTRACT In many contemporary democracies, digital networks on the far-right have established themselves as “alternatives” to liberal institutions. Within this nexus of parties, hyper-partisan news, and social media channels, opposition to climate change mitigation has emerged as a central cross-cutting issue. Despite the prominence of these trends, we still know relatively little about the hierarchies that govern these communicative ties. This study draws on the concept of cascading frame activation to trace communication flows between four distinct actor types within the German far right. We apply a mixed-methods approach across social media and websites over a period of 19 months. First, we conduct a time series analysis via a vector autoregression model, to assess potential causal relationships between the issue agendas of far-right actor types. Automated text analysis then inductively generates a lexicon exclusive to far-right posts about climate change, which we qualitatively assess and manually cluster into distinct frame categories. We conclude by tracing framing cascade sequences across the various actor types. Our results reveal significant associations between the issue agenda of far-right actors, especially among right-wing news sites (RNS) and hyperactive accounts. Within this network, the most dominant frames demarcate out-groups, such as the Green Party or climate activists. Notably, RNS play a central role in shaping this discourse, initiating 42% of the identified frames before they find wider dissemination. These findings expand our understanding of hierarchies and new communication pathways among partisan media, political parties, and their extended digital networks on the far right.

The (Political) Show Must Go On: The Effects of Political Media and Family Relationships on Affective Polarization

Given the importance of both family and partisanship in identity formation, these two may be at odds for those in cross-partisan families. Within these households, exposure to cross-partisan media is inevitable, serving to prime partisan identity and even acting as a catalyst for partisan conflict. Although much work has investigated the role of media in affective polarization, and the role of family in partisanship, little work bridges the two. Therefore, this post-test-only experiment ( N = 411) investigates the role of family in the relationship between outgroup attack-focused partisan media exposure and affective polarization.

Trump, Twitter, and Truth Social: how Trump used both mainstream and alt-tech social media to drive news media attention

ABSTRACT Former President Donald Trump is well-known for dominating the attention-driven hybrid media system through his controversial tweets, which spurred social media user engagement and news media attention. The removal of Trump from Twitter/X raises questions about his continued ability to drive news attention through his alt-tech platform, Truth Social. Our analysis shows that the retweets and “retruths” Trump gained predicted related news attention across the political spectrum. However, our results also point to shifts in news attention, including diminished direct embedding of his “truths,” a lower proportion of stories on his Truth Social activity among all stories about him, and greater partisan media attention to his Truth Social activity in 2022, as compared to 2016. These findings advance our understanding of Trump’s social media based communicative power, changing journalistic practices, and the place of alt-tech in the media system.