Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T05:52:30.517Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Persuading the Enemy: Estimating the Persuasive Effects of Partisan Media with the Preference-Incorporating Choice and Assignment Design

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 July 2019

JUSTIN DE BENEDICTIS-KESSNER Open the ORCID record for JUSTIN DE BENEDICTIS-KESSNER [Opens in a new window] ,
MATTHEW A. BAUM Open the ORCID record for MATTHEW A. BAUM [Opens in a new window] ,
ADAM J. BERINSKY Open the ORCID record for ADAM J. BERINSKY [Opens in a new window]  and
TEPPEI YAMAMOTO Open the ORCID record for TEPPEI YAMAMOTO [Opens in a new window]
JUSTIN DE BENEDICTIS-KESSNER*
Affiliation:
Boston University
MATTHEW A. BAUM*
Affiliation:
Harvard University
ADAM J. BERINSKY*
Affiliation:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
TEPPEI YAMAMOTO*
Affiliation:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
*
*Justin de Benedictis-Kessner, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Boston University, [email protected].
†Matthew A. Baum, Kalb Professor, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government, [email protected].
‡Adam J. Berinsky, Mitsui Professor, Department of Political Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, [email protected].
**Teppei Yamamoto, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Does media choice cause polarization, or merely reflect it? We investigate a critical aspect of this puzzle: How partisan media contribute to attitude polarization among different groups of media consumers. We implement a new experimental design, called the Preference-Incorporating Choice and Assignment (PICA) design, that incorporates both free choice and forced exposure. We estimate jointly the degree of polarization caused by selective exposure and the persuasive effect of partisan media. Our design also enables us to conduct sensitivity analyses accounting for discrepancies between stated preferences and actual choice, a potential source of bias ignored in previous studies using similar designs. We find that partisan media can polarize both its regular consumers and inadvertent audiences who would otherwise not consume it, but ideologically opposing media potentially also can ameliorate the existing polarization between consumers. Taken together, these results deepen our understanding of when and how media polarize individuals.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 113 , Issue 4 , November 2019 , pp. 902 - 916
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

For comments, suggestions, and advice, we thank Kevin Arceneaux, David Broockman, Andres Cambronero, Matthew Gentzkow, Dan Hopkins, Dean Knox, Matthew Levendusky, Robert Pressel, Markus Prior, Jesse Shapiro, and Natalie Stroud. For excellent research assistance, we thank Grace Chao and Henry Feinstein. Financial support was provided by the National Science Foundation (SES-1528487) and the Political Experiments Research Lab (PERL) at MIT. Berinsky’s contribution was supported in part by a Joan Shorenstein Fellowship. Replication files are available at the American Political Science Review Dataverse: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/MM2VWC.

References

REFERENCES

Arceneaux, Kevin, and Johnson, Martin. 2013. Changing Minds or Changing Channels: Partisan News in an Age of Choice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arceneaux, Kevin, Johnson, Martin, and Murphy, Chad. 2012. “Polarized Political Communication, Oppositional Media Hostility, and Selective Exposure.” The Journal of Politics 74 (1): 174–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baum, Matthew, and Groeling, Tim J.. 2008. “New Media and the Polarization of American Political Discourse.” Political Communication 25 (4): 345–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baum, Matthew, and Groeling, Tim J.. 2010. War Stories: The Causes and Consequences of Public Views of War. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Bennett, W. Lance, and Iyengar, Shanto. 2008. “A New Era of Minimal Effects?” Journal of Communication 58 (4): 707–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berelson, Bernard R., Lazarsfeld, F. Paul., and McPhee, William N.. 1954. Voting: A Study of Opinion Formation in a Presidential Campaign. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Bolsen, Toby, Druckman, James N., and Cook, Fay Lomax. 2014. “The Influence of Partisan Motivated Reasoning on Public Opinion.” Political Behavior 36 (2): 235–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brundidge, Jennifer. 2010. “Encountering ‘Difference’ in the Contemporary Public Sphere: The Contribution of the Internet to the Heterogeneity of Political Discussion Networks.” Journal of Communication 60 (4): 680–700.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bullock, John. 2011. “Elite Influence on Public Opinion in an Informed Electorate.” American Political Science Review 105 (3): 496–515.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Campbell, Angus, Converse, Philip E., Miller, Warren, and Stokes, Donald. 1960. The American Voter. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Coe, Kevin, Tewksbury, David, J. Bond, Bradley, L. Drogos, Kristin, W. Porter, Robert, Yahn, Ashley, et al. 2008. “Hostile News: Partisan Use and Perceptions of Cable News Programming.” Journal of Communication 58 (2): 201–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dilliplane, Susanna. 2014. “Activation, Conversion, or Reinforcement? The Impact of Partisan News Exposure on Vote Choice.” American Journal of Political Science 58 (1): 79–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ellithorpe, Morgan E., Holbert, Lance, and Palmer-Wackerly, Angela L.. 2013. “Procrastination and the Shifting Political Media Environment: An Experimental Study of Media Choice Affecting a Democratic Outcome.” Communication Studies 64 (5): 561–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feldman, Lauren. 2011a. “The Opinion Factor: The Effects of Opinionated News on Information Processing and Attitude Change.” Political Communication 28 (2): 161–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feldman, Lauren. 2011b. “Partisan Differences in Opinionated News Perceptions: A Test of the Hostile Media Effect.” Political Behavior 33 (3): 407–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamilton, James T. 2005. “The Market and the Media.” In The Press, eds. Overholser, Geneva and Jamieson, Kathleen H.. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 351–71.Google Scholar
Gaines, Brian, and Kuklinski, James. 2011. “Experimental Estimation of Heterogeneous Treatment Effects Related to Self-Selection.” American Journal of Political Science 55 (3): 724–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gentzkow, Matthew, and Shapiro, Jesse. 2011. “Ideological Segregation Online and Offline.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 126 (4): 1799–839.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Groeling, Tim. 2013. “Media Bias by the Numbers: Challenges and Opportunities in the Empirical Study of Partisan News.” Annual Review of Political Science 16: 129–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guess, Andrew, and Coppock, Alexander. 2018. “Does Counter-Attitudinal Information Cause Backlash? Results from Three Large Survey Experiments.” British Journal of Political Science 1–19. Published online 5 November 2018.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iyengar, Shanto, and Hahn, Kyu S.. 2009. “Red Media, Blue Media: Evidence of Ideological Selectivity in Media Use.” Journal of Communication 59 (1): 19–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iyengar, Shanto, Hahn, Kyu S., Krosnick, Jon A., and Walker, John. 2008. “Selective Exposure to Campaign Communication: The Role of Anticipated Agreement and Issue Public Membership.” The Journal of Politics 70 (1): 186–200.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kim, Young Mie. 2009. “Issue Publics in the New Information Environment: Selectivity, Domain Specificity, and Extremity.” Communication Research 36 (2): 254–84.Google Scholar
Knobloch-Westerwick, Silvia, and Meng, Jingbo. 2009. “Looking the Other Way: Selective Exposure to Attitude-Consistent and Counterattitudinal Political Information.” Communication Research 36 (3): 426–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knobloch-Westerwick, Silvia, and Kleinman, Steven B.. 2012. “Preelection Selective Exposure: Confirmation Bias versus Informational Utility.” Communication Research 39 (2): 170–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knox, Dean, Yamamoto, Teppei, Baum, Matthew A., and Berinsky, Adam. 2019. “Design, Identification, and Sensitivity Analysis for Patient Preference Trials.” Journal of the American Statistical Association 1–27. Published online 30 April 2019.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kunda, Ziva. 1990. “The Case for Motivated Reasoning.” Psychological Bulletin 108 (3): 480–98.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ladd, Jonathan M. 2012. Why Americans Hate the Media and How it Matters. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Lazarsfeld, Paul Felix, Berelson, Bernard, and Gaudet, Hazel. 1948. The People’s Choice: How the Voter Makes up His Mind in a Presidential Campaign . New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Leeper, Thomas J. 2014. “The Informational Basis for Mass Polarization.” Public Opinion Quarterly 78 (1): 27–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leeper, Thomas J. 2017. “How Does Treatment Self-Selection Affect Inferences About Political Communication?” Journal of Experimental Political Science 4 (1): 21–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leeper, Thomas J., and Slothuus, Rune. 2014. “Political Parties, Motivated Reasoning, and Public Opinion Formation.” Political Psychology 35 (1): 129–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levendusky, Matthew S. 2013a. How Partisan Media Polarize America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levendusky, Matthew S. 2013b. “Why Do Partisan Media Polarize Viewers?” American Journal of Political Science 57 (3): 611–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Messing, Solomon, and Westwood, Sean J.. 2014. “Selective Exposure in the Age of Social Media: Endorsements Trump Partisan Source Affiliation When Selecting News Online.” Communication Research 41 (8): 1042–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mummolo, Jonathan. 2016. “News from the Other Side: How Topic Relevance Limits the Prevalence of Partisan Selective Exposure.” The Journal of Politics 78 (3): 763–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nielsen. 2010. “Nielsen Provides Topline U.S. Web Data for March 2010.” Accessed April 27, 2010. http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2010/nielsen-provides-topline-u-s-web-data-for-march-2010.html.Google Scholar
Negroponte, Nicholas. 1995. “Being Digital—A Book (P)review.” Wired. Retrieved April 14, 2017. https://www.wired.com/1995/02/negroponte-27.Google Scholar
Nyhan, Brendan, and Reifler, Jason. 2010. “When Corrections Fail: The Persistence of Political Misperceptions.” Political Behavior 32 (2): 303–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pariser, Eli. 2012. Filter Bubble: Wie wir im Internet entmündigt werden. Munich: Hanser.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prior, Markus. 2007. Post-Broadcast Democracy: How Media Choice Increases Inequality in Political Involvement and Polarizes Elections. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prior, Markus. 2013. “Media and Political Polarization.” Annual Review of Political Science 16: 101–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sood, Guarav, and Lelkes, Yphtach. 2018. “Don’t Expose Yourself: Discretionary Exposure to Political Information.” In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics. https://oxfordre.com/politics/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.001.0001/acrefore-9780190228637-e-39.Google Scholar
Stroud, Natalie J. 2011. Niche News: The Politics of News Choice. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sunstein, Cass. 2001. Republic.com. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Taber, Charles S., and Lodge, Milton. 2006. “Motivated Skepticism in the Evaluation of Political Beliefs.” American Journal of Political Science 50 (3): 755–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Torgerson, David J., and Sibbald, Bonnie. 1998. “Understanding Controlled Trials: What Is a Patient Preference Trial?” British Medical Journal 316 (7128): 360.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wood, Thomas, and Porter, Ethan. 2019. “The Elusive Backfire Effect: Mass Attitudes’ Steadfast Factual Adherence.” Political Behavior 41 (1): 135–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zaller, John. 1992. The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zell, Ethan, and Bernstein, Michael J.. 2014. “You May Think You’re Right Young Adults Are More Liberal Than They Realize.” Social Psychological and Personality Science 5 (3): 326–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: Link

de Benedictis-Kessner et al. Dataset

Dataset

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/MM2VWC
Link
Supplementary material: PDF

de Benedictis-Kessner et al. supplementary material

Online Appendices A-E

Download de Benedictis-Kessner et al. supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 675.9 KB
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.