Red Media, Blue Media Running head: RED MEDIA, BLUE MEDIA Red Media, Blue Media: Evidence of Ideological Selectivity in Media Use

We show that the demand for news varies with the perceived affinity of the news organization to the consumer’s political preferences. In an experimental setting, conservatives and Republicans preferred to read news reports attributed to Fox News and to avoid news from CNN and NPR. Democrats and liberals exhibited exactly the opposite syndrome -dividing their attention equally between CNN and NPR, but avoiding Fox News. This pattern of selective exposure based on partisan affinity held not only for news coverage of controversial issues, but also for relatively “soft” subjects such as crime and travel. The tendency to select news based on anticipated agreement was also strengthened among more politically engaged partisans. Overall, our results suggest that the proliferation of new media and enhanced media choices will contribute to the further polarization of the news audience. Red Media, Blue Media 1 The division of America into predictably “red” and “blue” states and the gradual decline in the number of genuine “battlegrounds” (Abramowitz & Saunders, 2006) where either party has a genuine chance of victory suggests that American politics today is more polarized than in eras past. The standard explanation for polarized politics is the tendency for candidates to cater to the preferences of political activists. Because activists on both sides represent the far ideological wings of the parties (McCloskey, Hoffman, & O’Hara, 1960; Stone, Rapoport, & Abramowitz, 1990), rational candidates avoid middle-of-the-road appeals (Abramowitz, Alexander, & Gunning, 2006; Fiorina, Abrams, & Pope, 2005; Jacobson, 2000). Political activists are polarized, but at the level of the mass public there is considerable debate. Some scholars believe that increased polarization is only an illusion, stemming from the tendency of the media to treat conflict as more newsworthy than consensus (see Fiorina et al., 2005). Alternatively, the impression of mass polarization may reflect the nomination of extreme rather than centrist candidates, and an electorate that votes along party lines (Layman & Carsey, 2002). Other researchers, however, point to evidence that increasing numbers of ordinary citizens have migrated to the opposite ends of the liberal-conservative scale. Between 1972 and 2004, for instance, the average difference in ideological self-placement between non-activist Democrats and Republicans more than doubled (Abramowitz & Saunders, 2006). An alternative indicator of political polarization -and one that also suggests increased polarization at the mass level -is the intensification of partisan attitudes. There is a wealth of time series data tracking Americans’ evaluations of the incumbent president. These data show that on balance, Democrats’ and Republicans’ negative evaluations of a president of the other party have steadily intensified (Abramowitz & Saunders, 2006; Jacobson, 2006). The approval data document a widening partisan chasm between Republicans and Democrats; the percentage of partisans who respond at the extremes (“strong approval” or “strong disapproval”) has Red Media, Blue Media 2 increased significantly over time. In fact, polarized assessments of presidential performance are higher today than at any other time in recent history, including the months preceding the resignation of President Nixon. In this sense at least, mass public opinion is polarized. Media Consumption as an Antecedent of Polarization It is no mere coincidence that the trend towards a more divided electorate has occurred simultaneously with the revolution in information technology. Forty years ago, the great majority of Americans got their daily news from one of three network newscasts. These newscasts offered a homogeneous and generic “point -counterpoint” perspective on the news, thus ensuring that exposure to the news was a common experience. The development of cable television and the explosion of media outlets on the Internet have created a more fragmented information environment in which cable news, talk radio, and twenty-four hour news outlets compete for attention. Consumers can access -with minimal effort -newspapers, radio and television stations the world over. Given this dramatic increase in the number of available news outlets, it is not surprising that media choices increasingly reflect partisan considerations. People who feel strongly about the correctness of their cause or policy preferences seek out information they believe is consistent rather than inconsistent with their preferences. The Revival of Selective Exposure The argument that people prefer to approach supportive over non-supportive information precedes the onset of new media and dates back to the heyday of cognitive consistency theories in the 1950s (e.g. Festinger, 1957). The theory predicted that as a means of minimizing dissonance, people would seek out information they expected to agree with. Given the nonpartisan, “objective” content of mainstream American press coverage, early tests of this hypothesis focused on exposure to political campaigns rather than news and documented the tendency of partisan voters to report greater exposure to appeals from the candidate or party they Red Media, Blue Media 3 preferred (Lazarsfeld, Berelson, & Gaudet, 1948; Schramm & Carter, 1959; Sears & Freedman, 1967). This pattern of exposure to in-party appeals was considered the principal explanation for the reinforcing effects of campaigns (Klapper, 1964). An important theoretical limitation of the early work on selective exposure was that it failed to distinguish between deliberate or motivated exposure and “de facto” exposure that was a byproduct of voters’ personal networks or social context. High-income voters, for instance, might have encountered more pro-Republican messages not because they actively screened out information about the Democrat, but because their friends and neighbors were disproportionately Republican (Cotton, 1985; Sears & Freedman, 1967). More direct tests of whether people deliberately avoid exposure to disagreeable information yielded mixed results suggesting that dissonance avoidance was a relatively weak motive for the acquisition of information (see McGuire, 1968; Sears, 1968). While some controlled studies uncovered traces of motivated exposure to in-party sources (Bartlett, Drew, Fahle, & Watts, 1974; Iyengar & McGrady, 2007; Stempel, 1961; Sweeney & Gruber, 1984), others did not (e.g., Chaffee & Miyo, 1983; Meffert, Chung, Joiner, Waks, & Garst, 2006; Sears, 1968). Moreover, the preference for congenial information seemed to occur under limited circumstances (e.g., Frey, 1986). For example, people first asked to make a decision and then presented with information choices tended to select information consistent with their decision (Jonas, Schulz-Hardt, Frey, & Thelen, 2001). The fact that researchers have been hard pressed to detect consistent traces of partisan selective exposure among American voters is attributable in part to the evolving institutional context of campaigns. As political campaigns became less controlled by political parties and more media-based (see Polsby, 1983), voters found it increasingly difficult to encounter partisan messages or messengers (see Mutz & Martin, 2001). Instead, they encountered the same “pointRed Media, Blue Media 4 counterpoint,” unbiased media coverage no matter where they turned (see Allen & D’Alissio, 2000). But this overtly neutral media environment changed dramatically with the diffusion of cable television and the Internet. The new, more diversified information environment makes it not only more possible for consumers to seek out news they might find agreeable, but also provides a strong economic incentive for news organizations to cater to their viewers’ political preferences (Mullainathan & Schleifer, 2005). The emergence of Fox News as the leading cable news provider is testimony to the viability of this “niche news” paradigm. Between 2000 and 2004, while Fox News increased the size of its regular audience by some 50%, the other cable providers showed no growth (Pew Research Center for the People and Press, 2004). A growing body of evidence suggests that consumers are in fact exercising greater selectivity in their news choices. In the first place, in keeping with the well-known “hostile media” phenomenon (Gunther, Christen, Liebhart, & Chia, 2001; Vallone, Ross & Lepper, 1985), partisans of either side have become more likely to impute bias to mainstream news sources (Smith, Lichter, & Harris, 1997). Cynical assessments of the media have surged most dramatically among conservatives; according to a Pew Research Center for the People and the Press survey, Republicans are twice as likely as Democrats to rate major news outlets including the three network newscasts, the weekly news magazines, NPR, and PBS as biased (Pew Research Center for the People and Press, 2004). As indicated by the recent furor over the New York Times’ front-page story suggesting an inappropriate relationship between Senator McCain and a female lobbyist (Rutenberg, Thompson, & Kirkpatrick, 2008), critical coverage from a source viewed as biased becomes a rallying event for supporters of the targeted candidate. In the immediate aftermath of the publication of the report, the McCain campaign set a record for the Of course, it is possible that there are also non-political reasons for the competitive edge enjoyed by the Fox Network. Red Media, Blue Media 5 amount of money raised online (Bumiller, 2008). In response to their perceptions of hostile bias in the mainstream media environment, partisans of both sides have begun to explore alternative sources of news. A study of selfreported media exposure during the 2000 and 2004 campaigns uncovered significant evidence of differential media use among Republicans and Democrats (Pfau, Houston, & Semmler, 2007). Republicans gravitated to talk radio, radio news and television advertising, while Democrats avoided talk radio and tuned in to television newsmagazines, and late night entertainment television (Pfau et al., pp. 2007, pp. 36-38). In short, there is growing evidence that in the new media environment, partisans’ attribute bias to mainstream news outlets and gravitate to alternative sources perceived as more congenial to their preferences. But are these perceptions grounded in reality? Put differently, is there evidence that “new” media do in fact deliver more slanted or biased news? At least in the case of Fox News, the answer is in the affirmative. In its relatively short life span, Fox News has staked out a distinctive reputation for delivering a pro-conservative perspective on issues and events. A systematic comparison of Fox News’ coverage of national issues with the coverage provided by other new media and two “old” media (AP and UPI) demonstrated that Fox News’ reputation was deserved -the outlet’s news coverage showed a consistently pro-Republican slant (see Groeling & Baum, 2007). Despite the fact that real-world conditions generated significantly more “bad news” stories about Republican candidates contesting the 2006 congressional elections (due mainly to the series of lobbyingrelated scandals involving Republican incumbents), Fox News was the only news outlet in which negative stories about Republicans did not outnumber balanced or positive stories. Unlike previous studies of media bias in which the key indicator of bias is not news content per se but some proxy for content (e.g. Gentzkow & Shapiro, 2006; Groseclose & Milyo, 2005), this study Red Media, Blue Media 6 provides direct content-based evidence of ideological slant in Fox News. The availability of Fox News, in fact, makes it possible for Republicans and conservatives to seek out a more sympathetic perspective and, conversely, to avoid exposure to discordant points of view. Given the evidence concerning partisans’ perceptions of Fox News and the actual slant conveyed by the outlet, we may anticipate significant behavioral (as opposed to self-reported) differences between partisan groups in exposure to Fox News: conservatives and Republicans should seek it out while Democrats and liberals do the opposite. Moreover, given the current political environment we further anticipate that an “approach-avoidance” behavioral pattern will vary across the subject matter of news reports. In a world of polarized news consumers, conservatives should most prefer exposure to Fox News when the subject of the news is some controversial policy issue (e.g. the war in Iraq). They might also prefer Fox coverage when the news focuses on less politicized subjects (e.g. healthcare or travel), but to a lesser degree. Methodology Experimental Design We designed an online experiment to investigate the extent to which partisans on the right treat Fox News as a preferred provider. More specifically, we observed whether attention to the identical news story was increased or decreased when the story was attributed to Fox News, NPR, CNN or the BBC. Using the MSNBC daily news feed (which includes reports from a wide variety of news organizations), we randomly assigned news stories to one of four sources -Fox, NPR, CNN, or BBC. We attained the maximum level of realism by providing participants with the most recent news stories in real time. Study participants were provided with a brief headline accompanied by the logo of the news organization and asked to indicate (by clicking a box) which of four reports displayed on the screen they would like to read. Because respondents could also click a “Can’t Red Media, Blue Media 7 Say” box; each respondent had a choice between five alternatives. They repeated this task across six different subject matter categories evenly divided between “hard” and “soft” topics. The former included reports on American politics (e.g. the relations between President Bush and Democrats in Congress), the war in Iraq, and race relations. The soft topics included crime, travel, and sports. We also included a baseline or control condition in which all source logos were deleted; here participants could only choose between the reports based on the text of the accompanying headlines. In the analyses that follow, the control condition formed the baseline to which the selection rate of news stories in the treatment condition was compared. Any difference in the rate of selecting a particular story between the control and treatment conditions can only be attributed to the presence or absence of the source label because the same set of stories were provided to both groups. All other aspects of the presentation were equalized across the different conditions. For instance, the placement of a particular story or news source on the screen was randomized so that no particular source gained from being the first or last on the screen. Stories and sources were randomly matched. Thus, the design was fully counterbalanced on order, story headline, and news logo. The study was run between March 30 and April 16, 2006. The total sample of news stories was 383. Because the MSNBC feed features more rapid daily replacement of stories on political issues (i.e. Iraq and politics), the sample included more stories on Iraq and politics (60 and 71, respectively) than the more specialized topics of race and travel (40 and 11, respectively). The Sample Using the services of Polimetrix -an opinion research firm -we administered the experiment on a nationally representative sample of 1,023 (772 and 251 assigned to the treatment and control conditions respectively) registered voters. Polimetrix has developed a new Red Media, Blue Media 8 methodology for sampling from pools of opt-in respondents (the sampling methodology is available at www.polimetrix.com). Their two-stage procedure first draws a conventional probability sample a large-scale RDD sample (the target sample). Next, for each member of the target sample, Polimetrix selects one or more matched members from their pool of opt-in Internet respondents. This is called the matched sample. Polimetrix implements matching -searching for an available opt-in respondent who is as similar as possible to the corresponding member of the target sample -using the variables of race, gender, age, education, and imputed party identification and ideology. The end result is a sample of opt-in respondents with equivalent characteristics as the target sample on the matched characteristics listed above; under most conditions, the matched sample will converge with a true random sample (see Rivers, 2005). Hypotheses Given the line-up of news sources, we naturally hypothesized that the demand for news stories would be heightened among Republicans and those with conservative political views when stories were labeled as Fox reports. Conversely, we expected participants on the left of the political spectrum to show greater interest in stories assigned to CNN or NPR. Even though CNN and NPR both claim to be committed to non-partisan and objective reporting (as does Fox), in the context of the four sources available to study participants, the content provided by CNN and NPR more closely matched the preferences of Democrats than the content provided by Fox. And since the BBC is a foreign news source with a well-known reputation for independent journalism, we expected uniform indifference for the BBC label among Democrats, Republicans and non-partisans alike. Red Media, Blue Media 9 We further hypothesized that the effects of the source manipulation would be stronger for political subject matter where partisan divisions are intense, but weaker when the news dwelled on non-political subjects such as travel destinations or sporting events. Based on the polarization literature, we also hypothesized that the source manipulation would be weakened among less attentive partisans and those with no party preference since they are likely to be unaware of the partisan slant of particular news outlets, while more attentive partisans are well aware of the partisan location of Fox, NPR or CNN. Thus, we expected that the interaction of political interest and ideology/partisanship would significantly affect news selection -more interested conservatives, for instance, would display stronger preferences for Fox. Analysis Our dependent variable consisted of five “unordered” choices. An unordered choice situation is one in which outcomes cannot be scaled, i.e. outcome A does not necessarily denote more of the underlying concept than outcome B, and B more than C for all observations. Thus, the appropriate analytic tool is an unordered choice model in which individuals choose the option that gives them the most utility. For the ith individual with j choices, the utility of the jth choice can be given by: Uij = Xijβ + uij. Because this individual’s choice reveals his preference, if any individual i chooses j, then the utility of j is great than the utility from all other options, say, k. Although multinomial logit (see Agresti, 1996; Maddala, 1983) is the conventional way of modeling random utility functions, it is unsuitable for the current choice problem at hand. In MNL, the explanatory variables (X), being characteristics of an individual, are themselves constant across the choice alternatives. A limitation of the MNL model is that it allows only one response function (the type of restriction imposed on the dependent variable) for all independent variables in the model. In practice, this means that MNL cannot be used to examine a choice Red Media, Blue Media 10 situation where choices can be attributed to characteristics of the choice alternatives. That is, the basic MNL model typically permits only individual-specific attributes to be included as covariates. On the other hand, we specify that Pr(Yi = j) is a function of both alternativeand individual-specific attributes and their interactions. More specifically, in our current study, the key alternative-specific attributes are the labels associated with the different news reports respondents encountered, whereas the individual attribute of primary interest is respondents’ political ideology. A more flexible specification of choice functions is provided by the conditional logit model (See Long, 1997; Maddala, 1983; McFadden, 1974). Conditional logit is appropriate for examining situations in which a choice among alternatives is treated as a function of the characteristics of the alternatives in addition to the characteristics of the individual making the choice. More succinctly, the conditional logit model can be written as follows: 1 exp( ) exp( ) ij ij J ik k X P X α α = = ∑ , where Xij indicates variables measuring the characteristics of alternative J relative to individual i and disturbances uij, are assumed to be independent across alternatives. In McFadden’s conditional logit model, variables characterizing the choices (i.e. the categories of the dependent variable in the MNL model) can be included as covariates. In other words, news story attributes that differ across alternatives but are constant across respondents within an alternative can be in the vector of explanatory variables since they could be reasons for choosing one alternative over another. Accordingly, the conditional logit model partitions covariates into (1) alternative-specific attributes of the choices (such as news story labels), and (2) characteristics of the individual (such as education, party identification, etc.). To estimate the Red Media, Blue Media 11 effects of some individual characteristic, the researcher typically creates j-1 dummy variables for choices and interacts each of them with an individual-level attribute variable. Intuitively, conditional logit groups together the alternatives in each participant’s choice set (or menu). A binary outcome variable shows which alternative was actually picked; it is a dummy variable equal to 1 for the alternative at which the respondent matriculated and 0 for all of the other alternatives. McFadden’s conditional logit model has been applied to a wide variety of choice situations including employer preferences for characteristics of employees (e.g., Logan, 1996), consumer preferences for product attributes (Berry, 1994), employees’ choice of health insurance plans (e.g., Parente, Feldman, & Christianson, 2004), voters’ candidate choices (e.g., Adams & Merrill, 2000; Cutler, 2004), government formation in parliamentary democracies (e.g., Martin & Stevenson, 2001), or, in the canonical example, preferences for transportation options (e.g., McFadden, 1974).