Johanna Dunaway
Biographic Data
| ID | 198640 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Johanna Dunaway |
| GIVEN NAMES | Johanna |
| FAMILY NAME | Dunaway |
| SIGNATURE | DUNAWAY J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Louisiana State University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3975-5227 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 35 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 586 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 35 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2007 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 13 |
Popularity or Partisanship? Cue Taking on Social Media Among Teens and Adults
The proliferation of social media and rising political polarization have radically changed the landscape of political information transmission. We know little about the effects of these changes in the media landscape on the process of political socialization, despite an expectation that the information adolescents encounter on social media may be particularly relevant to their political development. Canonical research on American political behavi…
Local news, partisanship, and perceptions about election administration
The Psychophysiology of News Avoidance: Does Negative Affect Drive Both Attention and In attention to News
Technological change has produced a high-choice media environment in which selective exposure and news avoidance are increasingly feasible and common. The literature has suggested several correlates of news avoidance, and recent work has particularly emphasized the potential significance of negative affective responses to news. This paper argues for the use of psychophysiological methods to better understand how emotional responses drive news avo…
The New News Barons: Investment Ownership Reduces Newspaper Reporting Capacity
In recent years, local media in the U.S. have faced increasing economic precarity, and many newspapers have been purchased by hedge funds and private equity firms. How do investment owners shape the newspapers they acquire? We document the shift in ownership and its impact on the number and type of journalists that local newsrooms employ. Using over 13,000 digitized media directory pages, we measure the newsrooms of 211 major newspapers from 2005…
Smartphone-size screens constrain cognitive access to video news stories
Smartphones are expanding physical access to news and political information by making access to the internet available to more people, at more times throughout the day, and in more locations than ever before. But how does the portability of smartphones – afforded by their small size – affect cognitive access to news? Specifically, how do smartphone-size screens constrain attentiveness and arousal? We investigate how mobile technology constrains c…
Home Style Opinion: How Local Newspapers Can Slow Polarization
Local newspapers can hold back the rising tide of political division in America by turning away from the partisan battles in Washington and focusing their opinion page on local issues. When a local newspaper in California dropped national politics from its opinion page, the resulting space filled with local writers and issues. We use a pre-registered analysis plan to show that after this quasi-experiment, politically engaged people did not feel a…
Pathways to Deeper News Engagement: Factors Influencing Click Behaviors on News Sites
This study draws on models of motivated news exposure and literature on affordances to examine how devices (i.e., PC or mobile) and paths to exposure (i.e., news homepages, search, or social referrals) relate to people’s behavior on news sites. Using behavioral data from seven local broadcast news sites, we assess how the device used and referral site affect whether people click on links to more news. We experimentally test four components of the…
The psychophysiological correlates of cognitive dissonance
This preregistered study uses a combination of physiological measures to explore both the activation and reduction components of cognitive dissonance theory. More precisely, we use skin conductance to identify dissonance arousal, a short-term affective response to counter-attitudinal stimuli, and then use heart rate variability to measure dissonance reduction, which reflects longer-term patterns of emotional regulation and information processing.…
Seeing Spanish: The Effects of Language-Based Media Choices on Resentment and Belonging
Does seeing Spanish-language news in the media change the racial and political attitudes of Whites and Spanish-speaking Latinos? We examine the effects of Spanish-language media on White and Spanish-speaking Latino attitudes using online survey experiments in English and Spanish, respectively. We expect White Americans to react to Spanish-language media options by developing more hostile attitudes toward Hispanics, and Spanish-speaking Latino aud…
Strategic Candidate Entry and Congressional Elections in the Era of Fox News
Elections are designed to give voters the ability to hold elected officials accountable for their actions. For this to work, voters must be presented with credible alternatives from which to choose. In the United States, as in other weak‐party systems, the decision to challenge an incumbent representative rests with individual, strategic‐minded politicians who carefully weigh the available information. We investigate the role that one source of i…
As Seen on TV? How Gatekeeping Makes the U.S. House Seem More Extreme
Today’s news media environment incentivizes gatekeeping practices that lead to a bias toward content containing partisan conflict and ideological extremity. Using a content analysis of 46,218 cable and broadcast television news transcripts from the 109th through 112th Congresses, we examined the frequency with which members of Congress appeared on cable and broadcast news. When we modelled on-air statements by members of Congress as a function of…
Newspaper Closures Polarize Voting Behavior
Changes to the media environment have increased polarized voting in America through both addition and subtraction. We argue that the decline of local newspapers has contributed to the nationalization of American politics: as local newspapers close, Americans rely more heavily on available national news or partisan heuristics to make political decisions. We assess the impact of newspaper closures on polarized voting, using genetic matching to comp…
News Attention in a Mobile Era
Mobile access to the Internet is changing the way people consume information, yet we know little about the effects of this shift on news consumption. Consuming news is key to democratic citizenship, but is attention to news the same in a mobile environment? We argue that attention to news on mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones is not the same as attention to news for those on computers. Our research uses eye tracking in two lab experim…
Doris A. Graber’s Contributions to Political Communication
Doris A. Graber’s Contributions to Political Communication." Political Communication, 35(3), pp. 506–507
Resurgent Mass Partisanship Revisited: The Role of Media Choice in Clarifying Elite Ideology
Elite polarization is at an all-time high. Has this division filtered down into the public, and is this trend being exacerbated by expanded media choice in the postbroadcast era? Using National Annenberg Election Surveys (NAES) data from recent election cycles, we analyze the influence of news choice on individual-level perceptions of the ideologies of parties and partisan elites. We examine whether cable news choice shapes respondents’ ability t…
U.S. News Coverage of Global Terrorist Incidents
A slew of gruesome executions by terrorist groups in 2014–2015 renewed interest in the public relations strategies of terrorists. As a case in point, the Islamic State group’s escalating brutality reflects their efforts as a relatively nascent extremist group to ensure a high and sustained volume of media coverage, especially among Western outlets. But what characteristics of events actually prompt coverage from major U.S. news media? Using a ric…
Voters' Perceptions of Party Platforms: The Role of Changing Information Contexts
Objectives Under what circumstances are voters most likely to correctly situate political parties along a left‐right spatial continuum? Answering this question is profoundly important for our understanding of the spatial theory of party competition, which has typically generated empirically verifiable predictions about party‐level platform shifts, but fallen short when it comes to making predictions about voter‐level perceptions. Method . We use …
The Many Layers of Local: Proximity and Market Influence on News Coverage of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill
Objective On April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil‐drilling rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, resulting in the death of 11 oil rig workers and a sea floor oil gusher releasing over 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf. The objective in this article is to shed light on the local media environment surrounding the spill, comparing local television news coverage among the five states most directly affected by the disaster. Method In our met…
Party Polarization, Media Choice, and Mass Partisan-Ideological Sorting
What is the relationship between party polarization, media fragmentation, and partisan-ideological sorting? The growth and availability of partisan media—afforded through the expansion of cable, satellite, and Internet penetration—is often linked to the consistency and extremity of individuals’ political attitudes and partisan identities. At the same time, the literature on mass audiences and media choice suggests that the effects of choice and p…
Reinforcing or Breaking Party Systems? Internet Communication Technologies and Party Competition in Comparative Context
Many scholars speculate about the political implications of Internet proliferation. The Internet might, for example, open new channels of communication, which should benefit ideologically extreme and electorally small parties. On the other hand, the Internet might push party systems toward normalization, ultimately reinforcing the extant dominance of incumbent parties. We draw on data from 205 small and extreme parties in 35 countries and focus o…
Objectivity and Information Bias in Campaign News: Objectivity and Information Bias
This article examines whether objective campaign news stories—defined here as those with equitable tone toward 2 competing candidates—are less informative than slanted stories favoring one candidate over the other. Using a large news content dataset composed of campaign news stories from statewide elections in 2004, 2006, and 2008, we measure news story quality 6 different ways. It is modeled as a function of differences in story tone toward oppo…
What Predicts the Game Frame? Media Ownership, Electoral Context, and Campaign News
While scholars have often bemoaned journalists' heavy use of game-framed and "horse-race" coverage of elections, the contexts most likely to produce game-framed news have not yet been well identified. Our data collection across three election cycles (2004, 2006, 2008) and various levels of elective office (candidates for governor and U.S Senate), and across multiple media markets and types of news organizations allows us to examine the extent to …
Skin Tone and Individuals' Perceptions of Commonality and Competition with Other Racial and Ethnic Groups
Early Voting and Campaign News Coverage
The proportion of votes cast before election day has risen steadily over the last two decades. Previous research asked how early voting has impacted voter participation. In this article, we ask how early voting has affected the flow of information to voters through the mass media. By increasing the number of days voters are able to vote, are we also increasing the number of days that candidates and campaigns continuously disseminate campaign-rela…
Traits versus Issues: How Female Candidates Shape Coverage of Senate and Gubernatorial Races
As female candidates may face greater challenges in establishing their “qualifications” for office, coverage of their personal traits may be pernicious, because it tends to de-emphasize substantive qualifications. This study focuses on relative amounts of trait and issue coverage of contests with and without women candidates. We find that races with female candidates yield more coverage of traits than male versus male contests and races with fema…
Markets, Ownership, and the Quality of Campaign News Coverage
The quality of political news coverage has implications for the information voters are left with to make political decisions. This article argues that the quality of the information found in political news is influenced by media ownership and market contexts. Using original data containing news coverage of competitive statewide races in 2004, coverage provided by multiple media outlets is examined as a function of ownership structure and market c…
Spatial Proximity to the U.S.—Mexico Border and Newspaper Coverage of Immigration Issues
This article examines how geographic proximity to the U.S.—Mexico border influences newspaper coverage of immigration issues. The authors investigate two questions: Do media organizations spatially proximate to the border offer more frequent coverage of Latino immigration than media organizations farther removed from the border? Do media organizations spatially proximate to the border offer more frequent coverage of the negative aspects of immigr…
Agenda Setting, Public Opinion, and the Issue of Immigration Reform
Objective. Agenda-setting theory is used to motivate hypotheses about how media coverage of immigration influences public perceptions of its importance. The authors seek to offer a more complete explanation of public opinion on immigration by exploring differences in the effects of immigration news in border and nonborder states. Method. This article employs content analyses of newspaper coverage of immigration and Gallup public opinion data over…
Party Polarization, Media Choice, and Mass Partisan-Ideological Sorting
What is the relationship between party polarization, media fragmentation, and partisan-ideological sorting? The growth and availability of partisan media—afforded through the expansion of cable, satellite, and Internet penetration—is often linked to the consistency and extremity of individuals’ political attitudes and partisan identities. At the same time, the literature on mass audiences and media choice suggests that the effects of choice and p…
Traits versus Issues: How Female Candidates Shape Coverage of Senate and Gubernatorial Races
As female candidates may face greater challenges in establishing their “qualifications” for office, coverage of their personal traits may be pernicious, because it tends to de-emphasize substantive qualifications. This study focuses on relative amounts of trait and issue coverage of contests with and without women candidates. We find that races with female candidates yield more coverage of traits than male versus male contests and races with fema…
It’s All in the Name: Source Cue Ambiguity and the Persuasive Appeal of Campaign Ads
What Predicts the Game Frame? Media Ownership, Electoral Context, and Campaign News
While scholars have often bemoaned journalists' heavy use of game-framed and "horse-race" coverage of elections, the contexts most likely to produce game-framed news have not yet been well identified. Our data collection across three election cycles (2004, 2006, 2008) and various levels of elective office (candidates for governor and U.S Senate), and across multiple media markets and types of news organizations allows us to examine the extent to …
Anglo Voting on Nativist Ballot Initiatives: The Partisan Impact of Spatial Proximity to the U.S.‐Mexico Border
Objective. In this study, we examine how contextual factors influence voting behavior on nativist ballot initiatives using California's Propositions 187 and 227. We argue that spatial proximity to the border is associated with voting behavior on nativist initiatives. Methods. To examine the influence of environmental factors on Anglo voting behavior on nativist ballot initiatives, we utilize California Field Polls, U.S. Census data, and spatially…
Slanted Newspaper Coverage of Immigration: The Importance of Economics and Geography
When compared to studies of media effects, relatively few studies of the media focus on factors that influence the behavior of media organizations. Specifically, there are few empirical studies of the attributes and incentives of news organizations that might lead to slanted coverage of particular policy issues. In this study, we identify factors that lead to negatively slanted coverage of a specific policy issue: immigration. Using content analy…
English‐ and Spanish‐Language Media Coverage of Immigration: A Comparative Analysis
Objective. We apply economic theories of news to explain differences between English‐ and Spanish‐language newspaper coverage of immigration. Methods. Using content analysis and contextual data, we examine newspaper coverage of immigration as a function of economic incentives of news organizations and the language of the newspaper outlet. Results. The results indicate that Spanish‐language news outlets generate a larger volume of coverage and mor…
News Attention in a Mobile Era
Mobile access to the Internet is changing the way people consume information, yet we know little about the effects of this shift on news consumption. Consuming news is key to democratic citizenship, but is attention to news the same in a mobile environment? We argue that attention to news on mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones is not the same as attention to news for those on computers. Our research uses eye tracking in two lab experim…
Early Voting and Campaign News Coverage
The proportion of votes cast before election day has risen steadily over the last two decades. Previous research asked how early voting has impacted voter participation. In this article, we ask how early voting has affected the flow of information to voters through the mass media. By increasing the number of days voters are able to vote, are we also increasing the number of days that candidates and campaigns continuously disseminate campaign-rela…
Institutional Effects on the Information Quality of Campaign News
Recent work highlights the fact that there are clear differences in the quality of the news product offered by different news outlets. What is not clear is why some news outlets consistently produce a more informative and less superficial news product while others do not. Media scholars suggesting an institutional view of the news media have acknowledged the idea that institutions can be multi-layered, and point to the need to understand specific…
Strategic Candidate Entry and Congressional Elections in the Era of Fox News
Elections are designed to give voters the ability to hold elected officials accountable for their actions. For this to work, voters must be presented with credible alternatives from which to choose. In the United States, as in other weak‐party systems, the decision to challenge an incumbent representative rests with individual, strategic‐minded politicians who carefully weigh the available information. We investigate the role that one source of i…
U.S. News Coverage of Global Terrorist Incidents
A slew of gruesome executions by terrorist groups in 2014–2015 renewed interest in the public relations strategies of terrorists. As a case in point, the Islamic State group’s escalating brutality reflects their efforts as a relatively nascent extremist group to ensure a high and sustained volume of media coverage, especially among Western outlets. But what characteristics of events actually prompt coverage from major U.S. news media? Using a ric…
Seeing Spanish: The Effects of Language-Based Media Choices on Resentment and Belonging
Does seeing Spanish-language news in the media change the racial and political attitudes of Whites and Spanish-speaking Latinos? We examine the effects of Spanish-language media on White and Spanish-speaking Latino attitudes using online survey experiments in English and Spanish, respectively. We expect White Americans to react to Spanish-language media options by developing more hostile attitudes toward Hispanics, and Spanish-speaking Latino aud…
Media Ownership and Story Tone in Campaign News
The focus of this article is to understand the determinants of negative, positive, or neutral tone in campaign news coverage. Much of the extant literature suggests, to some extent, the negativity bias often seen in political news stems from profit making objectives. This article asserts that news outlet ownership structures and economic incentives, coupled with political context, influence the likelihood of positive, neutral, or negative tone in…
Rebuilding or Intruding? Media Coverage and Public Opinion on L atino Immigration in Post‐ K atrina L ouisiana
Objectives Few studies fully integrate the interactive effects of political, geographic, and media contexts into studies of public opinion on immigration. We rectify this by utilizing the post‐ K atrina L atino immigrant migration to L ouisiana as an opportunity for study of these relationships. Methods We utilize survey data and content analysis of news coverage to examine the influence of news exposure on attitudes toward immigrants and immigra…
Pathways to Deeper News Engagement: Factors Influencing Click Behaviors on News Sites
This study draws on models of motivated news exposure and literature on affordances to examine how devices (i.e., PC or mobile) and paths to exposure (i.e., news homepages, search, or social referrals) relate to people’s behavior on news sites. Using behavioral data from seven local broadcast news sites, we assess how the device used and referral site affect whether people click on links to more news. We experimentally test four components of the…
Resurgent Mass Partisanship Revisited: The Role of Media Choice in Clarifying Elite Ideology
Elite polarization is at an all-time high. Has this division filtered down into the public, and is this trend being exacerbated by expanded media choice in the postbroadcast era? Using National Annenberg Election Surveys (NAES) data from recent election cycles, we analyze the influence of news choice on individual-level perceptions of the ideologies of parties and partisan elites. We examine whether cable news choice shapes respondents’ ability t…
Voters' Perceptions of Party Platforms: The Role of Changing Information Contexts
Objectives Under what circumstances are voters most likely to correctly situate political parties along a left‐right spatial continuum? Answering this question is profoundly important for our understanding of the spatial theory of party competition, which has typically generated empirically verifiable predictions about party‐level platform shifts, but fallen short when it comes to making predictions about voter‐level perceptions. Method . We use …
Reinforcing or Breaking Party Systems? Internet Communication Technologies and Party Competition in Comparative Context
Many scholars speculate about the political implications of Internet proliferation. The Internet might, for example, open new channels of communication, which should benefit ideologically extreme and electorally small parties. On the other hand, the Internet might push party systems toward normalization, ultimately reinforcing the extant dominance of incumbent parties. We draw on data from 205 small and extreme parties in 35 countries and focus o…
The New News Barons: Investment Ownership Reduces Newspaper Reporting Capacity
In recent years, local media in the U.S. have faced increasing economic precarity, and many newspapers have been purchased by hedge funds and private equity firms. How do investment owners shape the newspapers they acquire? We document the shift in ownership and its impact on the number and type of journalists that local newsrooms employ. Using over 13,000 digitized media directory pages, we measure the newsrooms of 211 major newspapers from 2005…
The Psychophysiology of News Avoidance: Does Negative Affect Drive Both Attention and In attention to News
Technological change has produced a high-choice media environment in which selective exposure and news avoidance are increasingly feasible and common. The literature has suggested several correlates of news avoidance, and recent work has particularly emphasized the potential significance of negative affective responses to news. This paper argues for the use of psychophysiological methods to better understand how emotional responses drive news avo…
The psychophysiological correlates of cognitive dissonance
This preregistered study uses a combination of physiological measures to explore both the activation and reduction components of cognitive dissonance theory. More precisely, we use skin conductance to identify dissonance arousal, a short-term affective response to counter-attitudinal stimuli, and then use heart rate variability to measure dissonance reduction, which reflects longer-term patterns of emotional regulation and information processing.…
Anglo Voting on Nativist Ballot Initiatives: The Partisan Impact of Spatial Proximity to the U.S.‐Mexico Border
Objective. In this study, we examine how contextual factors influence voting behavior on nativist ballot initiatives using California's Propositions 187 and 227. We argue that spatial proximity to the border is associated with voting behavior on nativist initiatives. Methods. To examine the influence of environmental factors on Anglo voting behavior on nativist ballot initiatives, we utilize California Field Polls, U.S. Census data, and spatially…
English‐ and Spanish‐Language Media Coverage of Immigration: A Comparative Analysis
Objective. We apply economic theories of news to explain differences between English‐ and Spanish‐language newspaper coverage of immigration. Methods. Using content analysis and contextual data, we examine newspaper coverage of immigration as a function of economic incentives of news organizations and the language of the newspaper outlet. Results. The results indicate that Spanish‐language news outlets generate a larger volume of coverage and mor…
Markets, Ownership, and the Quality of Campaign News Coverage
The quality of political news coverage has implications for the information voters are left with to make political decisions. This article argues that the quality of the information found in political news is influenced by media ownership and market contexts. Using original data containing news coverage of competitive statewide races in 2004, coverage provided by multiple media outlets is examined as a function of ownership structure and market c…
Spatial Proximity to the U.S.—Mexico Border and Newspaper Coverage of Immigration Issues
This article examines how geographic proximity to the U.S.—Mexico border influences newspaper coverage of immigration issues. The authors investigate two questions: Do media organizations spatially proximate to the border offer more frequent coverage of Latino immigration than media organizations farther removed from the border? Do media organizations spatially proximate to the border offer more frequent coverage of the negative aspects of immigr…
Slanted Newspaper Coverage of Immigration: The Importance of Economics and Geography
When compared to studies of media effects, relatively few studies of the media focus on factors that influence the behavior of media organizations. Specifically, there are few empirical studies of the attributes and incentives of news organizations that might lead to slanted coverage of particular policy issues. In this study, we identify factors that lead to negatively slanted coverage of a specific policy issue: immigration. Using content analy…
Institutional Effects on the Information Quality of Campaign News
Recent work highlights the fact that there are clear differences in the quality of the news product offered by different news outlets. What is not clear is why some news outlets consistently produce a more informative and less superficial news product while others do not. Media scholars suggesting an institutional view of the news media have acknowledged the idea that institutions can be multi-layered, and point to the need to understand specific…
Agenda Setting, Public Opinion, and the Issue of Immigration Reform
Objective. Agenda-setting theory is used to motivate hypotheses about how media coverage of immigration influences public perceptions of its importance. The authors seek to offer a more complete explanation of public opinion on immigration by exploring differences in the effects of immigration news in border and nonborder states. Method. This article employs content analyses of newspaper coverage of immigration and Gallup public opinion data over…
Rebuilding or Intruding? Media Coverage and Public Opinion on L atino Immigration in Post‐ K atrina L ouisiana
Objectives Few studies fully integrate the interactive effects of political, geographic, and media contexts into studies of public opinion on immigration. We rectify this by utilizing the post‐ K atrina L atino immigrant migration to L ouisiana as an opportunity for study of these relationships. Methods We utilize survey data and content analysis of news coverage to examine the influence of news exposure on attitudes toward immigrants and immigra…
It’s All in the Name: Source Cue Ambiguity and the Persuasive Appeal of Campaign Ads
Early Voting and Campaign News Coverage
The proportion of votes cast before election day has risen steadily over the last two decades. Previous research asked how early voting has impacted voter participation. In this article, we ask how early voting has affected the flow of information to voters through the mass media. By increasing the number of days voters are able to vote, are we also increasing the number of days that candidates and campaigns continuously disseminate campaign-rela…
Traits versus Issues: How Female Candidates Shape Coverage of Senate and Gubernatorial Races
As female candidates may face greater challenges in establishing their “qualifications” for office, coverage of their personal traits may be pernicious, because it tends to de-emphasize substantive qualifications. This study focuses on relative amounts of trait and issue coverage of contests with and without women candidates. We find that races with female candidates yield more coverage of traits than male versus male contests and races with fema…
Media Ownership and Story Tone in Campaign News
The focus of this article is to understand the determinants of negative, positive, or neutral tone in campaign news coverage. Much of the extant literature suggests, to some extent, the negativity bias often seen in political news stems from profit making objectives. This article asserts that news outlet ownership structures and economic incentives, coupled with political context, influence the likelihood of positive, neutral, or negative tone in…
Objectivity and Information Bias in Campaign News: Objectivity and Information Bias
This article examines whether objective campaign news stories—defined here as those with equitable tone toward 2 competing candidates—are less informative than slanted stories favoring one candidate over the other. Using a large news content dataset composed of campaign news stories from statewide elections in 2004, 2006, and 2008, we measure news story quality 6 different ways. It is modeled as a function of differences in story tone toward oppo…
What Predicts the Game Frame? Media Ownership, Electoral Context, and Campaign News
While scholars have often bemoaned journalists' heavy use of game-framed and "horse-race" coverage of elections, the contexts most likely to produce game-framed news have not yet been well identified. Our data collection across three election cycles (2004, 2006, 2008) and various levels of elective office (candidates for governor and U.S Senate), and across multiple media markets and types of news organizations allows us to examine the extent to …
Skin Tone and Individuals' Perceptions of Commonality and Competition with Other Racial and Ethnic Groups
Party Polarization, Media Choice, and Mass Partisan-Ideological Sorting
What is the relationship between party polarization, media fragmentation, and partisan-ideological sorting? The growth and availability of partisan media—afforded through the expansion of cable, satellite, and Internet penetration—is often linked to the consistency and extremity of individuals’ political attitudes and partisan identities. At the same time, the literature on mass audiences and media choice suggests that the effects of choice and p…
Reinforcing or Breaking Party Systems? Internet Communication Technologies and Party Competition in Comparative Context
Many scholars speculate about the political implications of Internet proliferation. The Internet might, for example, open new channels of communication, which should benefit ideologically extreme and electorally small parties. On the other hand, the Internet might push party systems toward normalization, ultimately reinforcing the extant dominance of incumbent parties. We draw on data from 205 small and extreme parties in 35 countries and focus o…
U.S. News Coverage of Global Terrorist Incidents
A slew of gruesome executions by terrorist groups in 2014–2015 renewed interest in the public relations strategies of terrorists. As a case in point, the Islamic State group’s escalating brutality reflects their efforts as a relatively nascent extremist group to ensure a high and sustained volume of media coverage, especially among Western outlets. But what characteristics of events actually prompt coverage from major U.S. news media? Using a ric…
Voters' Perceptions of Party Platforms: The Role of Changing Information Contexts
Objectives Under what circumstances are voters most likely to correctly situate political parties along a left‐right spatial continuum? Answering this question is profoundly important for our understanding of the spatial theory of party competition, which has typically generated empirically verifiable predictions about party‐level platform shifts, but fallen short when it comes to making predictions about voter‐level perceptions. Method . We use …
The Many Layers of Local: Proximity and Market Influence on News Coverage of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill
Objective On April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil‐drilling rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, resulting in the death of 11 oil rig workers and a sea floor oil gusher releasing over 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf. The objective in this article is to shed light on the local media environment surrounding the spill, comparing local television news coverage among the five states most directly affected by the disaster. Method In our met…
Newspaper Closures Polarize Voting Behavior
Changes to the media environment have increased polarized voting in America through both addition and subtraction. We argue that the decline of local newspapers has contributed to the nationalization of American politics: as local newspapers close, Americans rely more heavily on available national news or partisan heuristics to make political decisions. We assess the impact of newspaper closures on polarized voting, using genetic matching to comp…
News Attention in a Mobile Era
Mobile access to the Internet is changing the way people consume information, yet we know little about the effects of this shift on news consumption. Consuming news is key to democratic citizenship, but is attention to news the same in a mobile environment? We argue that attention to news on mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones is not the same as attention to news for those on computers. Our research uses eye tracking in two lab experim…
Doris A. Graber’s Contributions to Political Communication
Doris A. Graber’s Contributions to Political Communication." Political Communication, 35(3), pp. 506–507
Resurgent Mass Partisanship Revisited: The Role of Media Choice in Clarifying Elite Ideology
Elite polarization is at an all-time high. Has this division filtered down into the public, and is this trend being exacerbated by expanded media choice in the postbroadcast era? Using National Annenberg Election Surveys (NAES) data from recent election cycles, we analyze the influence of news choice on individual-level perceptions of the ideologies of parties and partisan elites. We examine whether cable news choice shapes respondents’ ability t…
As Seen on TV? How Gatekeeping Makes the U.S. House Seem More Extreme
Today’s news media environment incentivizes gatekeeping practices that lead to a bias toward content containing partisan conflict and ideological extremity. Using a content analysis of 46,218 cable and broadcast television news transcripts from the 109th through 112th Congresses, we examined the frequency with which members of Congress appeared on cable and broadcast news. When we modelled on-air statements by members of Congress as a function of…
Political science (29 works) · Law (25 works) · Media Influence and Politics (22 works) · Politics (21 works) · Sociology (21 works) · Advertising (18 works) · Business (18 works) · Social Media and Politics (18 works) · Psychology (16 works) · Electoral Systems and Political Participation (15 works)