IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/amposc/v62y2018i1p99-112.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

No Need to Watch: How the Effects of Partisan Media Can Spread via Interpersonal Discussions

Author

Listed:
  • James N. Druckman
  • Matthew S. Levendusky
  • Audrey McLain

Abstract

To what extent do partisan media sources shape public opinion? On its face, it would appear that the impact of partisan media is limited, given that it attracts a relatively small audience. We argue, however, that its influence may extend beyond its direct audience via a two‐step communication flow. Specifically, those who watch and are impacted by partisan media outlets talk to and persuade others who did not watch. We present experimental results that demonstrate this process. We therefore show that previous studies may have significantly underestimated the effect of these outlets. We also illustrate that how the two‐step communication flow works is contingent upon the precise composition of the discussion group (e.g., is it consistent of all fellow partisans or a mix of partisans?). We conclude by highlighting what our results imply about the study of media, preference formation, and partisan polarization.

Suggested Citation

  • James N. Druckman & Matthew S. Levendusky & Audrey McLain, 2018. "No Need to Watch: How the Effects of Partisan Media Can Spread via Interpersonal Discussions," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 62(1), pages 99-112, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:amposc:v:62:y:2018:i:1:p:99-112
    DOI: 10.1111/ajps.12325
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12325
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/ajps.12325?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
    ---><---

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Gorodnichenko, Yuriy & Pham, Tho & Talavera, Oleksandr, 2021. "Social media, sentiment and public opinions: Evidence from #Brexit and #USElection," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    2. Daniel Karell & Andrew Linke & Edward Holland & Edward Hendrickson, 2023. "“Born for a Storm†: Hard-Right Social Media and Civil Unrest," American Sociological Review, , vol. 88(2), pages 322-349, April.
    3. Michael Thaler, 2024. "The Fake News Effect: Experimentally Identifying Motivated Reasoning Using Trust in News," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 16(2), pages 1-38, May.
    4. Carolyn M. Hendriks & Selen A. Ercan & Sonya Duus, 2019. "Listening in polarised controversies: a study of listening practices in the public sphere," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 52(1), pages 137-151, March.

    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:62:y:2018:i:1:p:99-112. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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.