IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/amposc/v54y2010i2p428-439.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The World Wide Web and the U.S. Political News Market

Author

Listed:
  • Norman H. Nie
  • Darwin W. Miller, III
  • Saar Golde
  • Daniel M. Butler
  • Kenneth Winneg

Abstract

We propose a framework for understanding how the Internet has affected the U.S. political news market. The framework is driven by the lower cost of production for online news and consumers' tendency to seek out media that conform to their own beliefs. The framework predicts that consumers of Internet news sources should hold more extreme political views and be interested in more diverse political issues than those who solely consume mainstream television news. We test these predictions using two large datasets with questions about news exposure and political views. Generally speaking, we find that consumers of generally left‐of‐center (right‐of‐center) cable news sources who combine their cable news viewing with online sources are more liberal (conservative) than those who do not. We also find that those who use online news content are more likely than those who consume only television news content to be interested in niche political issues.

Suggested Citation

  • Norman H. Nie & Darwin W. Miller, III & Saar Golde & Daniel M. Butler & Kenneth Winneg, 2010. "The World Wide Web and the U.S. Political News Market," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(2), pages 428-439, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:amposc:v:54:y:2010:i:2:p:428-439
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-5907.2010.00439.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2010.00439.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2010.00439.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stefano DellaVigna & Ethan Kaplan, 2007. "The Fox News Effect: Media Bias and Voting," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(3), pages 1187-1234.
    2. Tim Groseclose & Jeffrey Milyo, 2005. "A Measure of Media Bias," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(4), pages 1191-1237.
    3. Matthew Gentzkow & Jesse M. Shapiro, 2006. "Media Bias and Reputation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 114(2), pages 280-316, April.
    4. Charles S. Taber & Milton Lodge, 2006. "Motivated Skepticism in the Evaluation of Political Beliefs," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 50(3), pages 755-769, July.
    5. Jonathan S. Morris, 2007. "Slanted Objectivity? Perceived Media Bias, Cable News Exposure, and Political Attitudes," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 88(3), pages 707-728, September.
    6. John Dimmick & Yan Chen & Zhan Li, 2004. "Competition Between the Internet and Traditional News Media: The Gratification-Opportunities Niche Dimension," Journal of Media Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(1), pages 19-33.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hae Jung Oh & Zhieh Lor & Jihyang Choi, 2021. "News Repertoires and Political Information Efficacy: Focusing on the Mediating Role of Perceived News Overload," SAGE Open, , vol. 11(1), pages 21582440209, January.
    2. Jimmy Chan & Daniel Stone, 2013. "Media proliferation and partisan selective exposure," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 156(3), pages 467-490, September.
    3. Nicholas Charron & Paola Annoni, 2021. "What is the Influence of News Media on People’s Perception of Corruption? Parametric and Non-Parametric Approaches," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 153(3), pages 1139-1165, February.
    4. Baccini, Leonardo & Sudulich, Maria Laura & Wall, Matthew, 2016. "Internet effects in times of political crisis: online newsgathering and attitudes towards the European Union," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 62302, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    5. Valentino Larcinese & Luke Miner, 2017. "The Political Impact of the Internet on US Presidential Elections," STICERD - Economic Organisation and Public Policy Discussion Papers Series 63, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE.
    6. Stone, Daniel F., 2013. "Media and gridlock," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 94-104.
    7. Tatsuo Tanaka, 2019. "Does the Internet cause polarization? -Panel survey in Japan-," Keio-IES Discussion Paper Series 2019-015, Institute for Economics Studies, Keio University.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Guglielmo Briscese & Maddalena Grignani & Stephen Stapleton, 2022. "Crises and Political Polarization: Towards a Better Understanding of the Timing and Impact of Shocks and Media," Papers 2202.12339, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2023.
    2. Bernhardt, Lea & Dewenter, Ralf & Thomas, Tobias, 2023. "Measuring partisan media bias in US newscasts from 2001 to 2012," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    3. Redlicki, B., 2017. "Spreading Lies," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1747, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    4. Giovanni Facchini & Anna Maria Mayda & Riccardo Puglisi, 2017. "Illegal immigration and media exposure: evidence on individual attitudes," IZA Journal of Migration and Development, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 7(1), pages 1-36, December.
    5. Dewenter, Ralf & Dulleck, Uwe & Thomas, Tobias, 2018. "The political coverage index and its application to government capture," Research Papers 6, EcoAustria – Institute for Economic Research.
    6. Dewenter Ralf & Lüth Hendrik, 2015. "Eine alternative Definition von Suchneutralität / An alternative definition of search neutrality," ORDO. Jahrbuch für die Ordnung von Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, De Gruyter, vol. 66(1), pages 221-242, January.
    7. Piolatto, Amedeo & Schuett, Florian, 2015. "Media competition and electoral politics," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 80-93.
    8. Puglisi Riccardo, 2011. "Being The New York Times: the Political Behaviour of a Newspaper," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 11(1), pages 1-34, April.
    9. Dewenter, Ralf & Linder, Melissa & Thomas, Tobias, 2018. "Can Media Drive the Electorate? The Impact of Media Coverage on Party Affiliation and Voting Intentions," Working Paper 179/2018, Helmut Schmidt University, Hamburg.
    10. John Duggan & César Martinelli, 2008. "The Role of Media Slant in Elections and Economics," Wallis Working Papers WP54, University of Rochester - Wallis Institute of Political Economy.
    11. Ruben Durante & Brian Knight, 2012. "Partisan Control, Media Bias, And Viewer Responses: Evidence From Berlusconi'S Italy," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 10(3), pages 451-481, May.
    12. Rafael Di Tella & Ignacio Franceschelli, 2011. "Government Advertising and Media Coverage of Corruption Scandals," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(4), pages 119-151, October.
    13. Friebel, Guido & Heinz, Matthias, 2014. "Media slant against foreign owners: Downsizing," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 97-106.
    14. Stefano DellaVigna & Ethan Kaplan, 2007. "The Fox News Effect: Media Bias and Voting," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(3), pages 1187-1234.
    15. Heng Chen & Li Han, 2022. "Do the Media Bow to Foreign Economic Powers? Evidence from a News Website Crackdown," HKUST CEP Working Papers Series 202201, HKUST Center for Economic Policy.
    16. Alejandro Castañeda & César Martinelli, 2018. "Politics, entertainment and business: a multisided model of media," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 174(3), pages 239-256, March.
    17. Sobbrio, Francesco, 2014. "Citizen-editors' endogenous information acquisition and news accuracy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 43-53.
    18. Liu, Manwei, 2021. "Interdependent individuals : How aggregation, observation, and persuasion affect economic behavior and judgment," Other publications TiSEM ab3ef470-c4a4-4d6c-ba1a-4, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    19. Ester Faia & Andreas Fuster & Vincenzo Pezone & Basit Zafar, 2024. "Biases in Information Selection and Processing: Survey Evidence from the Pandemic," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 106(3), pages 829-847, May.
    20. Strömberg, David & Prat, Andrea, 2011. "The Political Economy of Mass Media," CEPR Discussion Papers 8246, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:amposc:v:54:y:2010:i:2:p:428-439. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1540-5907 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.