This website uses cookies.

By clicking the "Accept" button or continuing to browse our site, you agree to first-party and session-only cookies being stored on your device to enhance site navigation and analyze site performance and traffic. For more information on our use of cookies, please see our Privacy Policy.

  1. Home
  2. Journals
  3. American Economic Review
  4. September 2017
  5. Bias in Cable News: Persuasion and Polarization

American Economic Review

ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)

Bias in Cable News: Persuasion and Polarization

  • Gregory J. Martin
  • Ali Yurukoglu
American Economic Review
vol. 107, no. 9, September 2017
(pp. 2565–99)
Download Full Text PDF
(Complimentary)

Abstract

We measure the persuasive effects of slanted news and tastes for like-minded news, exploiting cable channel positions as exogenous shifters of cable news viewership. Channel positions do not correlate with demographics that predict viewership and voting, nor with local satellite viewership. We estimate that Fox News increases Republican vote shares by 0.3 points among viewers induced into watching 2.5 additional minutes per week by variation in position. We then estimate a model of voters who select into watching slanted news, and whose ideologies evolve as a result. We use the model to assess the growth over time of Fox News influence, to quantitatively assess media-driven polarization, and to simulate alternative ideological slanting of news channels.

Citation

Martin, Gregory J., and Ali Yurukoglu. 2017. "Bias in Cable News: Persuasion and Polarization." American Economic Review, 107 (9): 2565–99. DOI: 10.1257/aer.20160812

Additional Materials

JEL Classification

  • D72 Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
  • L82 Entertainment; Media