Politics As Sport: The Effects Of Partisan Media On Perceptions Of Electoral Integrity

Just as fans of two opposing teams watching the same game reach opposite conclusions about the quality of referees, citizens’ assessments of the legitimacy of their democratic institutions depend to a worrying degree upon the outcome, rather than the procedures, of an election. Citizens who voted for the losing side in an election are much less likely to believe that the process was fair than citizens who voted for the winner. However, little attention has been paid to partisan media’s potential to exacerbate this phenomenon. I hypothesized that like-minded media amplify the effects of winning and losing on perceptions of electoral integrity. In other words, supporters of a winning candidate or party become even more confident in the legitimacy of the process when exposed to media that favors their side, while supporters of a losing candidate or party become even less confident in the legitimacy of the process when exposed to media that favors their side. At the same time, I hypothesizes that cross-cutting media mute the effects of winning and losing, decreasing the magnitude of changes in perceptions of electoral integrity. I tested my predictions using nationally representative panel surveys from the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections as well as the 2014 midterm elections. Whereas past research has produced little evidence that perceptions of legitimacy are affected by winning and losing in U.S. congressional levels, supporters of the winning party clearly increased in perceptions of legitimacy and supporters of the losing party clearly decreased in perceptions of legitimacy in response to the 2014 midterm elections. Nonvoters who nonetheless preferred one presidential candidate or the other likewise increased or decreased in perceptions of legitimacy according to whether their preferred candidate won or lost. Finally, like-minded media exacerbated the negative effects of losing in each of these election cycles, indicating that partisan media increase the size of the gap between winners’ and losers’ perceptions of electoral integrity. The long-term effects of partisan media are to weaken aggregate levels of confidence in the legitimacy of the electoral process itself

Beyond Red vs. Blue: The Political Typology - 2021

Partisan polarization remains the dominant, seemingly unalterable condition of American politics. Republicans and Democrats agree on very little – and when they do, it often is in the shared belief that they have little in common.Yet the gulf that separates Republicans and Democrats sometimes obscures the divisions and diversity of views that exist within both partisan coalitions – and the fact that many Americans do not fit easily into either one.Republicans are divided on some principles long associated with the GOP: an affinity for businesses and corporations, support for low taxes and opposition to abortion. Democrats face substantial internal differences as well – some that are long-standing, such as on the importance of religion in society, others more recent. For example, while Democrats widely share the goal of combating racial inequality in the United States, they differ on whether systemic change is required to achieve that goal.These intraparty disagreements present multiple challenges for both parties: They complicate the already difficult task of governing in a divided nation. In addition, to succeed politically, the parties must maintain the loyalty of highly politically engaged, more ideological voters, while also attracting support among less engaged voters – many of them younger – with weaker partisan ties.Pew Research Center's new political typology provides a road map to today's fractured political landscape. It segments the public into nine distinct groups, based on an analysis of their attitudes and values. The study is primarily based on a survey of 10,221 adults conducted July 8-18, 2021; it also draws from several additional interviews with these respondents conducted since January 2020

Who Should We Blame? Public Opinion and Media Framing of Responsibility for the Housing Market Crash

The public's assessments of the state of the economy, measured and aggregated through surveys of consumer sentiment, are capable of predicting economic growth and potentially contribute to economic outcomes. Research has also demonstrated that voting behavior and public opinion regarding political officials are closely related to citizens' subjective assessments of the economy. However, the influence of news reporting on subjective assessments of the economy has not been thoroughly studied. This thesis utilizes theories of news framing to examine the attribution of responsibility in news stories discussing the economy and the potential effects on consumer sentiment of different frames appearing in coverage of the housing crisis that began in 2006. The thesis presents a content analysis of newspaper articles published between August of 2008 and July of 2010 that discuss the ongoing problems in the housing market. The results describe the frequency with which responsibility for the housing crisis was attributed to different categories of actors, primarily “society,” “government actors,” “financial institutions,” and “ordinary people.” Institutional actors, including representatives of both the government and financial institutions, prove to be the focus of most news frames. The monthly results of the content analysis are then compared to the monthly Index of Consumer Sentiment, producing strong evidence of an inverse relationship between the proportion of frames attributing responsibility to societal factors and consumer sentiment. The researcher suggests that an experimental methodology might be employed in future research to better test the nature of this relationship and outlines how the results of the content analysis might be incorporated into experimental treatments