Media Consumption and Political Polarization

Pew Research released its third and final study of political polarization in America today. The report focused on news media consumption, social media, and how people talked politics with their family and friends.

On the news media consumption front Pew found quite a bit of difference between the habits of those with consistently liberal values and those with consistently conservative values.

When asked which media source they turned to first to get their news people with consistently liberal values mentioned several news sources--CNN, NPR, MSNBC, New York Times--just about equally. When asked the same question people with consistently conservative values overwhelmingly mentioned one news source--Fox News--with local radio being a distant second.

IMAGE(http://www.journalism.org/files/2014/10/PJ_14.10.21_mediaPolarization-02.png)

Those with consistently conservative values distrust mainstream media sources and only trust media sources that are extremely conservative (and, technically, aren't actual news organizations, such as Hannity, Limbaugh, and Beck).

IMAGE(http://www.journalism.org/files/2014/10/PJ_14.10.21_mediaPolarization-11.png)

IMAGE(http://www.journalism.org/files/2014/10/PJ_14.10.21_mediaPolarization-12.png)

It's interesting to note that both those that have consistently liberal values and those with consistently conservative values overwhelmingly distrust the news sources favored by their opposites.

People with consistently liberal values, however, trust far more media sources than people with consistently conservative values: 28 out of 36 sources versus 8 out of 36.

IMAGE(http://www.journalism.org/files/2014/10/PJ_14.10.21_mediaPolarization-01.png)

It should also be noted that three out of the eight news sources people with consistently conservative values trusted (Fox, Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity, The Blaze, Breitbart, The Drudge Report, and the Wall Street Journal) were viewed as overwhelmingly distrustful by all respondents (Rush Limbaugh: 12% trust, 39% distrust; Glenn Beck: 10% trust, 24% distrust; and, Sean Hannity: 12% trust, 21% distrust). Somewhat shockingly overall opinions on the trustworthiness of Breitbart and the The Drudge Report were evenly mixed though the vast majority of respondents hadn't heard of those media sources (as well as The Blaze).

Huh; by those measures I'm wildly liberal.

Most liberals would, I think, disagree.

Malor wrote:

Huh; by those measures I'm wildly liberal.

Most liberals would, I think, disagree. :)

I find it helpful to think of 'caucusing' Bernie Sanders-style with a group you don't fit in with, but nevertheless are very similar to.

Well, when you purpose-build a propaganda "news" network to deliver a message to a particular audience, is it surprising that it actually can be made to work?

I like how no-one trusts Buzzfeed, despite the fact that they've actually done good journalism sometimes, it's just hard to take it seriously when said article is sitting next to yet another idiotic listicle about 18 times Pop Culture Character X was just so Y.

Wow. Conservatives don't trust Bloomberg but liberals do? Never thought I'd see that day.

Farscry wrote:

Wow. Conservatives don't trust Bloomberg but liberals do? Never thought I'd see that day.

They know who owns it.

I don't trust the established media. It has all been bought and paid for. Not much to do with the truth and good reporting.
Missing 'Last week tonight' !

And the non-established media is even more accurate? Really? Breitbart and Drudge, for example, don't strike me as shining examples of truth in reporting. (Neither does MSNBC, for that matter.)

Sweeping statements are usually wrong. I would be interested to see your ranking of news sources you trust to be more accurate and unbiased than the "established media", Sparhawk. NPR is the only source I'll listen to without automatically assuming it's biased, but I still have to filter some of their stuff. Not a lot, but it's there, just like any other source. AP and Reuters are pretty good, too.

So what are your favorite sources?

Farscry wrote:

Wow. Conservatives don't trust Bloomberg but liberals do? Never thought I'd see that day.

Per the above, conservatives don't trust any news source beyond Fox News. The other listed as trusted are not news sources but are personalities (i.e., talking heads). Whereas liberals seem to trust every other news source besides Fox News.

Poor under-appreciated Al Jazeera.

Al-Jazeera is actually pretty good.

Robear wrote:

Al-Jazeera is actually pretty good.

I think he was being serious. Quite a few of us on GWJ have mentioned that we like Al-Jazeera. They're frequently the first and best source covering things the other news networks don't bother with. They were early to Ferguson, for one.

DSGamer wrote:
Robear wrote:

Al-Jazeera is actually pretty good.

I think he was being serious. Quite a few of us on GWJ have mentioned that we like Al-Jazeera. They're frequently the first and best source covering things the other news networks don't bother with. They were early to Ferguson, for one.

I was being serious!

I had heard Al Jazeera was pretty good for awhile, and I first took the time to do an actual comparison with the last US Presidential debates, where their coverage was much more substantive and valuable by a wide margin. The fact that my statement being sarcastic was a perfectly reasonable assumption is an example of how little love it gets in the states.

Go BBC!

Actually, the BBC used to be quite liberal in it's outlook but these days they try very hard to be neutral. Even though I'd be classed as a liberal in the US I feel like that's a good thing. Dan Carlin has said that Fox news was created because Republicans were frustrated with overtly the liberal news on TV. Don't know if that's true.

Quite a few of us on GWJ have mentioned that we like Al-Jazeera.

Their angle on stuff can occasionally be quite odd, definitely a foreign worldview at times. (that's literal, not figurative )

However, while their take on things can be weird, I'm pretty goddamn certain that they're doing their best to tell the truth. It's actual journalism, not just ... whatever it is we have here.

I used to prefer the BBC, but it's gradually started to get infected with the same sensationalist crap that CNN has fully turned to.

My preferred news sources anymore are NPR, Al-Jazeera, a few science blogs/news-sited, and Reuters. And even of those, I gradually hit Reuters less frequently.

I know I have mentioned this before, but I remember back in the early 1980's watching an interview with the Washington bureau chief for Pravda. I think it was on 60 Minutes or some such show. In any event, the interviewer (I think it was Mike Wallace the journalist not the Miami Dolphins' wide receiver) asked him whether or not he was aware of the obvious bias of the Soviet press and its allegiance to the interests of the Soviet regime.

He answered with a laugh and mentioned that it was no more biased than the American press whose slavish allegiance to moneyed interests was obvious to all but Americans.

I remember laughing at him.

I was a fool.

I don't think it was as bad, back then. It didn't really get bad until so much media ownership got concentrated into so few hands.

I get most of my news from NPR, NYT, and WSJ (occasionally the Washington Post). Each of them have established ethics and have made obvious public apologies when there has been a breach of those ethics. I have challenge people to understand the ethics of their news sources and many say that they don't have the time (or something like that); but my response is always that:

Your news source is highly influential towards your worldview. If you do not care if your news source is ethical or not, then I do not care about your opinions on these matters.

Many "so-called" news sources in America (Rush, Hannity, Palin) are just opinions / editorials. Fox, CNN, MSNBC is almost all editorial content now. One problem is that many people have been exposed to this for so long that they lack a true understanding of the difference. Another problem is that humans will go out of their way to make sure their worldview is not challenged.

Flintheart Glomgold wrote:

Many "so-called" news sources in America (Rush, Hannity, Palin) are just opinions / editorials. Fox, CNN, MSNBC is almost all editorial content now. One problem is that many people have been exposed to this for so long that they lack a true understanding of the difference. Another problem is that humans will go out of their way to make sure their worldview is not challenged.

That's kind of the point I thought others would pick up on: folks that are consistently conservative count those conservative commentators as legitimate news sources and, most importantly, they are practically the only "news sources" they trust. I mean having half of all consistent conservatives getting their news primarily from Fox News--a news source that, what?, half a dozen studies have shown actually makes people less knowledgeable about current events--is a dangerous thing. There well and truly is an alternate reality that conservatives are living in.

OG_slinger wrote:

That's kind of the point I thought others would pick up on: folks that are consistently conservative count those conservative commentators as legitimate news sources and, most importantly, they are practically the only "news sources" they trust. I mean having half of all consistent conservatives getting their news primarily from Fox News--a news source that, what?, half a dozen studies have shown actually makes people less knowledgeable about current events--is a dangerous thing. There well and truly is an alternate reality that conservatives are living in.

That unfortunately is the problem with a free speech republic system. It worries me that the conservative press always goes after the "experts" (because scientific method) and when they start to lose they just try to bring doubt (99% of experts agree but we need 100% etc.).

These are tried and true methods of manipulation practiced in fascist and dictatorships. I use to work and live in Russia and I saw it there - which explains a lot of the public perception of Putin and why he can say the crazy things he does.

Disclosure: I'm seen as far left / even socialist [but I consider myself "right" ]

It's noteworthy that the conservatives in the Pew poll are distinguished not just by holding trust in a few news sources, but in *distrusting* the vast majority of others. Consistent Liberals will consult just about any news source, according to the poll, including Fox. They tend to consume more than just the "most liberal" outlets. That's emphatically not true for conservatives, and I think it speaks to the power of the propaganda techniques that have been adopted on the Right, as a way to increase the perception of a difference between "us" and "them".

It's not just an artificial reality; it's one that was *created* deliberately for them to consume. The fact is that most of the Consistent Conservatives - the hardcore - are basing their beliefs on propaganda platforms whose deliberate guidance and presentation of ideas puts any understanding of the influence of the feared "Nanny State" to shame. It's Political Correctness taken to it's extreme.

In a weak attempt to preserve the Ferguson thread from bald conservative derailment, I'll use this platform to say that I'm still not sure it's fair to compare liberal leaning news sources like MSNBC with the propaganda arm of the far right GOP.

Fox News is as much news as mtv is music or TLC is learning.

Seth wrote:

In a weak attempt to preserve the Ferguson thread from bald conservative derailment, I'll use this platform to say that I'm still not sure it's fair to compare liberal leaning news sources like MSNBC with the propaganda arm of the far right GOP.

Fox News is as much news as mtv is music or TLC is learning.

The irony to me is that I stopped watching MSNBC (what little I watched) over 5 years ago because I found it to be annoyingly and repetitively liberal. But never for a moment did I think it was exactly like Fox News. The false equivalency is strong in that comparison.

Seth wrote:

In a weak attempt to preserve the Ferguson thread from bald conservative derailment, I'll use this platform to say that I'm still not sure it's fair to compare liberal leaning news sources like MSNBC with the propaganda arm of the far right GOP.

Fox News is as much news as mtv is music or TLC is learning.

If it were the case then MSNBC would be actively shaping Democratic positions and policies like Fox News does for the GOP.

Lest anyone claim that Fox News doesn't have that power, I'll direct them to the Republican 2012 Presidential Autopsy where the GOP admits that it's not fully in control of what its values and positions are and that conservative media and pundits are the ones who are actually defining what it means to be a Republican (and that that's ultimately a bad thing for the GOP).

Peggy Noonan recently wrote about how our Party has stifled debate and how groupthink has taken over. She quoted Joe Scarborough saying, “Everybody’s afraid to talk.” She then related that in 1994 the Republican Party “was alive with ideas: John Kasich on the budget, Jack Kemp on taxes, John Engler on welfare reform, Tommy Thompson on crime control. This was the bubble and fizz of a movement at its height.” Third-party groups that promote purity are hurting our electoral prospects. As Noonan quoted Scarborough again, “The national conversation is more constricted, with radio stars, websites and magazines functioning as unofficial arbiters and limiters of domestic and foreign policy debate.”

So is the GOP basically a Gamergate that defends its scoundrels?

Seth wrote:

So is the GOP basically a Gamergate that defends its scoundrels?

I'll say this. The GOP is an incredibly disciplined political party. It's positions on issues are clear and concise. And those positions are rigorously policed and enforced. It's very rare that you see a Republican politician break rank and say something that goes against the establishment.

In recent years, though, the combination of flourishing conservative media and the much more extreme Tea Party has triggered a nasty sort of ideological purity feedback loop within the party. Republican politicians now try to out conservative each other with conservative media cheering them on and encouraging them to become even more ideologically pure.

The issue, of course, is that the conservative media doesn't govern. Its ideas don't have to work. They don't even have to make sense. Its ideas just have to get clicks, eyeballs, and listens. That's because conservative media exists solely to make money off of its audience.

The problem, then, is that conservative media has become the tail that wags the GOP dog. That's bad for the GOP and bad for America.

And all of that doesn't even include the harm that conservative media does by literally distorting the perception of reality for millions of American.

OG_slinger wrote:

The issue, of course, is that the conservative media doesn't govern. Its ideas don't have to work. They don't even have to make sense. Its ideas just have to get clicks, eyeballs, and listens. That's because conservative media exists solely to make money off of its audience.

The problem, then, is that conservative media has become the tail that wags the GOP dog. That's bad for the GOP and bad for America.

And all of that doesn't even include the harm that conservative media does by literally distorting the perception of reality for millions of American.

It's almost like conservative politics is the business that actually used to make something, and conservative media is the hedge fund that buys them out, takes them for all their worth, walks off with the money, and leaves the actual business to die.

OG_slinger wrote:
Seth wrote:

In a weak attempt to preserve the Ferguson thread from bald conservative derailment, I'll use this platform to say that I'm still not sure it's fair to compare liberal leaning news sources like MSNBC with the propaganda arm of the far right GOP.

Fox News is as much news as mtv is music or TLC is learning.

If it were the case then MSNBC would be actively shaping Democratic positions and policies like Fox News does for the GOP.

Lest anyone claim that Fox News doesn't have that power, I'll direct them to the Republican 2012 Presidential Autopsy where the GOP admits that it's not fully in control of what its values and positions are and that conservative media and pundits are the ones who are actually defining what it means to be a Republican (and that that's ultimately a bad thing for the GOP).

Peggy Noonan recently wrote about how our Party has stifled debate and how groupthink has taken over. She quoted Joe Scarborough saying, “Everybody’s afraid to talk.” She then related that in 1994 the Republican Party “was alive with ideas: John Kasich on the budget, Jack Kemp on taxes, John Engler on welfare reform, Tommy Thompson on crime control. This was the bubble and fizz of a movement at its height.” Third-party groups that promote purity are hurting our electoral prospects. As Noonan quoted Scarborough again, “The national conversation is more constricted, with radio stars, websites and magazines functioning as unofficial arbiters and limiters of domestic and foreign policy debate.”

Pretty sure Peggy just described America.

From the derail in the Ferguson thread:

KEA_Lightning wrote:

[MSNBC, NPR, and CNN are] still liberal media outlets, whereas Fox is the only conservative outlet to the respondents.

I condensed the quote to specifically respond to this specific claim.

As I noted in the Ferguson thread, MSNBC is partisan primarily due to its prevalence of opinion/editorial programming which is heavily slanted to the left. And while the ~40% factual accuracy of MSNBC's staff/pundits is better than Fox's ~60%, those are both abysmally inexcusable rates of inaccuracy.

However, I'm going to need to see some citations and evidence from non-partison sources (Pew is a good one to start with) that prove CNN and NPR report news with a liberal slant.

Especially NPR, which by all research I've been able to do manages to keep itself the most neutral of the major news media sources in the US. CNN on the other hand may as well rename itself as SENN: the Sensationalist and Entertainment News Network.