The Long-lasting Effects of Newspaper Op-Eds on Public Opinion

Bibliographic Data

ID12802495
AuthorsAlexander Coppock (0000-0002-5733-2386, corresponding author), Emily E Ekins, D Kirby
Year2018
Volume13
Issue1
Pages59-87
Publication date2018-03-29
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueQuarterly Journal of Political Science (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1554-0626 • E-ISSN: 1554-0634
PublisherNow Publishers (PUBLISHER • NL)
DOI10.1561/100.00016112
OpenAlexW2794951717
LanguageEN
Citations received54
References cited31

Do newspaper opinion pieces change the minds of those who read them? We conduct two randomized panel survey experiments on elite and mass convenience samples to estimate the effects of five op-eds on policy attitudes. We find very large average treatment effects on target issues, equivalent to shifts of approximately 0.5 scale points on a 7-point scale, that persist for at least one month. We find very small and insignificant average treatment effects on non-target issues, suggesting that our subjects read, understood, and were persuaded by the arguments presented in these op-eds. We find limited evidence of treatment effect heterogeneity by party identification: Democrats, Republicans, and independents all appear to move in the predicted direction by similar magnitudes. We conduct this study on both a sample of Amazon Mechanical Turk workers and a sample of elites. Despite large differences in demographics and initial political beliefs, we find that op-eds were persuasive to both the mass public and elites, but marginally more persuasive among the mass public. Our findings add to the growing body of evidence of the everyday nature of persuasion

Advertising · Business · Media studies · Newspaper · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Public opinion · Sociology · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Law · Media Influence and Politics · Social Media and Politics

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