Evidence of Ideological Polarization in Media Use

We show that the demand for news varies with the perceived affinity of the news organization to the consumer’s political preferences. In an experimental setting, conservatives and Republicans preferred to read news reports attributed to Fox News and to avoid news from CNN and NPR. Democrats and liberals exhibited exactly the opposite syndrome – dividing their attention equally between CNN and NPR, but avoiding Fox News. This pattern of selective exposure based on partisan affinity held not only for news coverage of controversial issues, but also for relatively “soft ” subjects such as crime and travel. The tendency to select news based on anticipated agreement was also strengthened among more politically engaged partisans. Overall, our results suggest that the emergence of Fox News has contributed to the polarization of the news audience. 1 The division of America into predictably “red ” and “blue ” states and the gradual decline in the number of genuine “battlegrounds ” (Abramowitz & Saunders, 2005) where either party has a genuine chance of victory suggests that American politics today is mor