Partisan Media Research Articles

Tweeting apart: Democratic backsliding, new party cleavage and changing media ownership in Turkey

Turkey plunges headlong into democratic backsliding under Erdoğan’s presidency. The country was a forerunner in the decline of democratic standards in a decade from 2010 to 2020. In the first part of the article, we investigate how this democratic erosion suspends Turkey’s long-standing traditional party cleavage between religious conservatism and secularism. By tracing individuals who follow the members of the Turkish parliament on Twitter, we attach the deputies to their followers with the help of correspondence analysis. We illustrate that, as the ethnic identity divide remains significant, democracy-authoritarianism cleavage becomes the main party split that brings the supporters of an ideologically diverse group of opposition parties closer. In the second part, we conceptualize the democracy-authoritarianism divide as the main cleavage in Turkish party politics after 2017 to shed light on how the AKP’s different tactics of capturing traditional media generated a partisan media landscape.

Red media, blue media, and misperceptions: examining a moderated serial mediation model of partisan media use and COVID-19 misperceptions.

Misinformation and misperceptions about COVID-19 have undermined democratic system. Partisan media are regarded as one of the culprits for facilitating the spread of misinformation. Grounded in the extended communication mediation model, this study analyzes a U.S. survey sample and examines the conditional indirect effects of partisan media use on COVID-19 related misperceptions. Findings show that using conservative and liberal media both have positive effects on misperceptions and message derogation. Conservative media use has a negative impact on perceived response efficacy, whereas liberal media use positively influenced it. Furthermore, the effect of liberal media use on misperceptions became negative when serially mediated by perceived response efficacy and message derogation. Lastly, discussion network heterogeneity was a significant moderator, such that the indirect effects of partisan media use on misperceptions became weaker among those with a more heterogeneous discussion network. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12144-022-03772-x.

Entering the “foxhole”: Partisan media priming and the application of racial justice in America

Can accessing a partisan media environment—irrespective of its content—change how Americans interpret and assess news? We examine this question by focusing on one of the most fraught issues in American society: racial justice. Although studies suggest that repeated exposure to right-leaning media messaging can amplify racial resentment, we leverage a pair of survey experiments to test whether merely seeing a conservative media masthead can make Whites render justice with racialized considerations. Results show that—even keeping the content of stories identical—entering a simulated right-leaning media environment significantly conditions racial attitudes. We find evidence of both anti-Black and pro-White biases that are activated when respondents consume information under the Fox News masthead. This study has important implications for understanding how partisan media priming shapes political views and the distinctive nature of racism in America.

An information-based explanation for partisan media sorting

Partisan voters tend to seek political news from media sources that match their predispositions. Scholars and pundits often attribute this partisan media sorting to psychological biases, and they typically assume that it leads voters to make worse decisions at the ballot box. To reinterpret this evidence and provide an alternative explanation, we develop two formal models of media choice—one in which voters only want to hear good news about their party and another in which voters only care about making good electoral decisions. Both models predict partisan media sorting, so sorting does not constitute evidence that voters are poorly informed or that they are driven by psychological biases. However, the models do produce competing predictions about when voters will consume more or less news and about whether signals from the news should influence vote choices. Reassessing the empirical literature, we find some support for both explanations.

COVID-19 Vaccine Intention and Social Cognitive Theory: The Role of Individual Responsibility and Partisan Media Use in a Moderated Moderated Mediation Model

ABSTRACT Despite the sheer devastation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, vaccine hesitancy is a major barrier to a successful implementation of the vaccine. We apply two moderators to examine the associations of efficacy and expectancies with COVID-19 vaccine intention. Specifically, we use national survey data collected online in 2020 (N = 1264) and a moderated moderated mediation PROCESS model to examine 1) the associations between self-efficacy about COVID-19 and vaccine intention mediated by positive outcome expectancies and 2) moderating roles of individual responsibility and partisan media use. The findings show that the path from efficacy to expectancies is moderated by individual responsibility, while the path from expectancies to vaccine intention is moderated by liberal media use. Our findings support the strategic application of SCT to emphasize the role of personal responsibility in campaigns to encourage vaccination for the COVID-19 virus.

When Fake News and Personal Experience Contradict: Limits to Post-Truth in Turkey

ABSTRACT While many studies examine Erdoğan’s growing control over the Turkish media sector, there are hardly any studies that look at how post-truth affects the low-income urban consumers of partisan media in Turkey, which this article aims to do. This focus group study reveals that the partisan media has a significant impact on the views and behaviour of the relatively less educated urban poor, but personal experiences prove a significant factor in the success of post-truth politics. If interviewees are locked into a relation of interest with Justice and Development Party organizations, particularly if they are recipients of social aid, their loyalty to Erdoğan and inclination to believe fake news from partisan media are stronger. However, when their personal experiences are diametrically different from the claims made in fake news, these individuals are harder to be persuaded by partisan media.

Partisan media exposure, polarization, and candidate evaluations in the 2016 general election

AbstractObjectiveThis study aims to examine the influence of Republican and Democratic partisan television news on attitudes toward candidates for president immediately following the 2016 general election.MethodUsing two waves of the 2016 American National Election Study, we examine feelings toward Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton before and after the election.ResultsExposure to Republican partisan media did have a significant negative effect on feelings toward Hillary Clinton, even when controlling for party identification, ideology, and feelings toward Clinton before the election. Consumption of Democratic partisan television, however, had no influence on feelings toward Donald Trump.ConclusionFurther fragmentation and the expansion of partisan media has—and will continue to—benefit Republicans over Democrats.

Affective polarization and political engagement in the United States: what factors matter?

ABSTRACT This article examines the factors that predict affective polarization and political engagement in the United States. Using an original survey dataset (N = 1,100) of a fairly representative national sample, this study explored some factors (e.g., age, gender, political ideology, and partisan news media and social media) to see how they predict affective polarization and political engagement. The results could be helpful to further study widening affective polarization, which is reportedly affecting democracy itself, in this current political and public opinion atmosphere “Trumpfied” in the last couple of years. The insights found in this research could also help devise political and social campaign strategies that minimize polarization gaps. The results might enable corporate entities to better classify their consumers based on relevant issues associated with polarization and political engagement. Future research is encouraged to combine survey data and social media data for a more refined outcome.

Going against the grain? Examining the efficacy of media literacy interventions on congenial media effects

While people’s proclivity toward congenial partisan media has been well documented, methods of resistance are less researched. This study explores the congenial media effect, the phenomenon of our gravitation to and acceptance of like-minded media, and whether a media literacy intervention can mitigate people’s acceptance of ideologically congruent partisan media. In an online experiment (N = 199), conservatives and liberals were exposed to differing media literacy interventions, one reviewing the traits of objectivity and bias, another which combined the former with an opportunity to reflect on participants’ own political beliefs. All were then exposed to amenable partisan content on the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh. Results demonstrated that neither intervention affected participants’ perceptions of bias toward the material, however, liberals were more critical in their evaluations, deeming the partisan content as less credible than conservatives. Additionally, for liberals exposed to the objectivity and bias intervention, lower perceptions of credibility were seen compared to liberals who received no intervention.

News comment sections and online echo chambers: The ideological alignment between partisan news stories and their user comments

This study explored the presence of digital echo chambers in the realm of partisan media’s news comment sections in South Korea. We analyzed the political slant of 152 K user comments written by 76 K unique contributors on NAVER, the country’s most popular news aggregator. We found that the political slant of the average user comments to be in alignment with the political leaning of the conservative news outlets; however, this was not true of the progressive media. A considerable number of comment contributors made a crossover from like-minded to cross-cutting partisan media and argued with their political opponents. The majority of these crossover commenters were “headstrong ideologues,” followed by “flip-floppers” and “opponents.” The implications of the present study are discussed in light of the potential for the news comment sections to be the digital cafés of Public Sphere 2.0 rather than echo chambers.

Deficit Attention Disorder: Partisanship, Issue Importance and Concern About Government Overspending.

Political action and electoral behavior often stem from a conviction that an issue is important. Yet despite a growing literature on partisan bias, it remains unclear whether partisan attachment also affects the perceived importance of various issues. We propose a theory of partisan-motivated issue attention (PMIA), wherein citizens satisfy partisan instincts by shifting the perceived importance of an issue. We apply our theory to an issue involving a fundamental tool of the federal government—the power to deficit-spend—and test the hypothesis that partisans’ concern about government overspending significantly changes depending on which party presides over deficit-spending. Leveraging pre-registered experimental and observational studies, we find strong support for this hypothesis among both Republicans and Democrats. Lastly, using text analytical methods, we also find evidence of PMIA in televised partisan media. Our study thus demonstrates that putative concern about deficit-spending contains a sizable partisan component and, more broadly, uncovers an additional means by which partisan bias guides citizens’ attitude formation on policy-relevant issues in the United States.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11109-022-09783-5.

WHY U.S. CONSERVATIVE MOVEMENTS ARE WINNING: IT’S NOT TRUMP—IT’S THE INSTITUTIONS

Why have conservative movements gained in U.S. policy over the last few decades, while progressive ones have lost ground? I outline policy advances by conservative movements, which are puzzling, because they are unpopular, opposed by progressive movements, and draw inferior mainstream news coverage. I argue that these policy advances and setbacks are due mainly to transformations in political institutional contexts surrounding movements. Party relationships have been more effective for conservative movements because the Republican Party has rejected democratic political norms and has moved further right, promoted stronger identity formation, and allied with less conflictual policy demanders than Democrats. These effects are amplified because U.S. electoral institutions allow Republicans to rule without winning majorities of voters. In combination with these conditions, longstanding institutional political features hinder the passage of national legislation, which progressive movements require, while granting Republican officials control over legislative processes even when they are out of power. Conservative movements and Republicans also benefit enormously from a partisan media machine, with nothing equivalent for progressive movements and Democrats.

Message framing and COVID-19 vaccination intention: Moderating roles of partisan media use and pre-attitudes about vaccination.

One of the ways to overcome the sheer devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic is to get vaccinated. However, vaccine hesitancy could be a significant barrier. The main purposes of the current study are to examine the impact of four types of theory-driven messages on COVID-19 vaccination intention and to understand the moderating role of partisan media use and vaccination attitudes. The study used a between-subject randomized online experiment with four conditions. The manipulation messages were presented as screenshots from the CDC’s Facebook page. The total number of participants were 387 (female 43%, mean age 37 years). The participants were from the U.S. and older than 18 years. The findings show that loss vs. gain message frames did not have any impact on COVID-19 vaccine intention. The moderating effects of conservative media and attitudes show that in general, those who consumed lower conservative media and held positive attitudes were higher on vaccine intention, and individual vs. collective frames did not have a strong impact. However, among those participants who scored high on conservative media use, and held negative vaccination attitudes, the individual frame had a higher impact on vaccine intention. The current study experimentally tested the intertwined relationships among message frames, partisan media use, and attitudes on vaccine intention. These relationships are critical considering the political nature of the pandemic.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12144-022-02851-3.

Political Events in a Partisan Media Ecology: Asymmetric Influence on Candidate Appraisals

Political campaigns often feature jarring revelations against candidates. This study examines how audiences come to understand major campaign events, the extent to which they shape evaluations of candidates, and how their impact is filtered through an increasingly partisan news media environment. Using national rolling cross-sectional survey data collected over the 2016 U.S. presidential election period, we show partisan asymmetries in the way major campaign events influenced candidate appraisals. Event effects during the 2016 campaign were dependent on various media use patterns and concentrated among Independents. In particular, the reopening of the investigation into Clinton’s email server by James Comey reduced her favorability, especially when paired with liberal and conservative partisan media use. By providing a nuanced picture of partisan selective exposure and campaign effects, our findings reinforce that the role of campaigns in candidate appraisals should be understood at the intersection of media use, partisanship, and specific events during a contentious race.

Reactive and Asymmetric Communication Flows: Social Media Discourse and Partisan News Framing in the Wake of Mass Shootings

Marked by both deep interconnectedness and polarization, the contemporary media system in the United States features news outlets and social media that are bound together, yet deeply divided along partisan lines. This article formally analyzes communication flows surrounding mass shootings in the hybrid and polarized U.S. media system. We begin by integrating media system literature with agenda setting and news framing theories and then conduct automated text analysis and time series modeling. After accounting for exogenous event characteristics, results show that (a) sympathy and gun control discourses on Twitter preceded news framing of gun policy more than the other way around, and (b) conservatives on Twitter and conservative media reacted to progressive discourse on Twitter, without their progressive counterparts exhibiting a similar reactiveness. Such results shed light on the influence of social media on political communication flows and confirm an asymmetry in the ways partisan media ecosystems respond to social events.

How Partisan Cable News Mobilizes Viewers: Partisan Media, Discussion Networks and Political Participation

ABSTRACT Integrating the extant research on partisan selective exposure, discussion networks and communication mediation model, this survey study (N = 1,203) tests the relationship between proattitudinal partisan media use (Fox News, MSNBC) and discussion networks (like-minded, cross-cutting) in the context of political participation. My results find evidence of asymmetrical relationships, such that Republicans watching Fox News are more likely to participate in politics through like-minded discussion, while MSNBC use is more likely to mobilize viewers directly. This study advances our understanding of the effects of partisan media use and discussion networks on political participation in the era of partisan polarization.

When CNN Praises Trump: Effects of Content and Source on Hostile Media Perception

Research on hostile media perception (HMP) has suggested that both news slants and partisan source cues influence individuals’ perception of news bias. Yet, relatively little attention has been paid to the possibility that the two message features may interact. Extending the literature on HMP, the present experiment investigates the content-source interaction in the context of President Trump’s policy on immigration, with two audience characteristics as potential moderators: political ideology strength (PIS) and need for cognition (NFC). Results show that (1) the effect of news slants on HMP is greater when the news is from an in-group source and (2) such interaction is more pronounced for those with higher levels of PIS and lower levels of NFC. Implications for our understanding of HMP and for public opinion in an increasingly fragmented and partisan media environment will be discussed.

Partisan news versus party cues: The effect of cross-cutting party and partisan network cues on polarization and persuasion

The pervasiveness of partisan media and the 24/7 news cycle allow ample opportunity for partisan-motivated reasoning and selective exposure. Nonetheless, individuals still frequently encounter out-party media outlets and expert pundits through mainstream news and social media. We seek to examine the effects of cross-cutting partisan outlet cues (e.g. Fox News, MSNBC) and direct party cues (e.g. Republican, Democrat) on citizens’ perceptions of ideology, source credibility, and news consumption. Using an experiment that pits outlet cues against direct party cues, we find that cross-cutting outlet and direct party cues lead citizens to perceive pundits as more ideologically moderate. As a result, respondents find out-party pundits on in-party outlets to be less biased, increasing interest in the pundits’ perspectives. However, while cross-cutting pundits gain among the out-party, they lose among the in-party. This trade-off holds important normative implications for individual news consumption and the ability of outlets and pundits to appear unbiased while garnering the largest possible audience.

U.S. Public Opinion on China and the United States During the U.S.–China Trade Dispute: The Role of Audience Framing and Partisan Media Use

This study examines the relationship between selective and cross-cutting/non-partisan media exposure, perceived journalism framing, and U.S. public’s perception of China and the United States during the U.S.–China trade dispute. A national survey of U.S. adult population indicated that more people perceived that the media escalated the conflict between China and the United States than promoted peace between the countries. Perceived peace journalism framing was positively related to perception of China, whereas perceived war journalism framing was positively related to perception of the United States. Partisan media use has higher influence on perception of the United States than perception of China.

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

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.