Conservatives are More Likely Than Liberals to Exist in a Media Echo Chamber

We found that watching both liberal and conservative media equally contribute to holding partisan beliefs, i.e. those which align with those of particular political parties. However, in comparison to liberal beliefs, people holding conservative partisan beliefs were more likely to tune into conservative media and then subsequently held even stronger conservative beliefs.

We looked at how these relationships developed over time using a three-wave panel study collected by the survey firm YouGov in the lead up to the 2016 US presidential election. We measured data just after the political conventions in July, just after the Presidential debates in October, and the week before the general election. During each wave we asked how frequently participants used various media outlets and their views on three politicized issues: immigration, guns, and law enforcement.

We looked at the relationships between media use and beliefs in three different ways. First, to what extent did media use foster later political beliefs; second, to what extent did political beliefs foster later media use; and third, what was the overtime, reinforcing, nature of the relationship between media and belief?

Our results show that both liberal and conservative media could be causing changes to the public’s attitudes. In both cases, consuming partisan media was associated with holding beliefs consistent with the media outlet (i.e., conservative beliefs leading to conservative attitudes). Therefore, our results suggest that both liberal and conservative partisan media are likely contributing to polarization in the US.

We find different results when looking at the effect of beliefs on news selection. Our study did not find that holding a liberal position on a topic led to increased use of liberal media use in the future. By contrast, holding conservative beliefs was associated with increased use of conservative media sources. In other words, if you hold a conservative position relative to the issue of gun rights, then you’re likely to seek out Fox News in the future.

Related posts:

When you first start to write and want to grow your audience it is hard, really hard. You come into a market with thousands if not millions of other writes and you have to find a way for your content…

This is my pledge. I hope it serves as inspiration for you to write a pledge that will help guide you through the challenging moments you will face and the difficult decisions you will have to make.

Haemophilia B is a genetic disorder caused by missing or defective clotting factor IX (FIX, or factor 9), causing prolonged and often spontaneous bleeding externally and internally, into the muscles…