Who casts your ballot?
Agenda-setting is not a contemporary phenomenon. Dickenson’s review of media influence studies conducted in the 1940s revealed that news sources to not choose viewers’ candidates for them but rather nudge them towards which issues were most important in said presidential race. To delve into this curious relationship further, take the hypothetical example centered on the presidential candidates of Harry Truman versus Governor Thomas E. Dewey. If I were far more partial towards Truman, but my favorite news sources reported that he, unlike Gov. Dewey, was performing very poorly on the issue of defense which was deemed to be a major issue—and thus weighing heaviest on my mind—would this be sufficiently significant to shift my vote?
This query invites a discussion of single-issue voters, the psychology and strategy of whom I find fascinating. Is it advantageous to hyperfocus on a topic that, although might pertain greatest to your personal experiences, may be shrouding other, more pervasive and important issues to address?
Returning from this tangent, Dickenson’s mention of the weakening of media influence towards the end of presidential general elections because “most voters already have strong views toward the two major candidates…” With the Trump campaign receiving an unsolicited billion dollars of media coverage, it is no wonder he pulled far ahead of his 16 Republican rivals in 2016.
But again, the question of which way does the relationship flow remains: did the news generate Trump’s popularity or merely follow it? Dickenson notes that research supports the theory that the media helped center him on the political stage given Trump was heavily covered prior to him demonstrating candidate strengths.
Another question to consider: what if there were two similarly media-magnetic candidates? How does the media’s strategy change in covering each inflammatory or charismatic personality?
Dylan Matthews’ Vox article had some jarring facts about the influential power of Fox News, particularly in comparison to the weaker effects of consuming leftist news media, such as MSNBC and CNN. The American Economic Review study found that “watching Fox News directly causes a substantial rightward shift in viewers’ attitudes, which translates into a significantly greater willingness to vote for Republican candidates.” Although I am tempted to embrace this fact wholeheartedly given by left-leaning biases, I have to stop myself and ask: could this be an overstated effect? What other confounding variables may have been involved in the participants’ rightward shift?
Another fascinating finding Matthews notes is that MSNBC is less powerful at persuading viewers on the right to move leftwards compared to Fox’s ability to shift Democrats rightwards. I am curious to learn where they drew their participants from; were those who were persuaded to move rightward living in predominantly Republican towns or cities? Could their political shift have been influenced by the desire to conform or a recent conversation with a conservative neighbor or a negative conversation with a leftist friend? These results are reminiscent of those in the Iyengar and Kinder study, as Matthews cites a study finding that “Watching three minutes more of Fox News per week in 2008 would have made the typical Democratic or centrist voter 1 percentage point likelier to vote Republican that year.”
The Niskanen Center’s podcast addresses a critical question that has become increasingly complex as news sources proliferate: does the growth of national media indicate the death of local political coverage? Shifting our attention from local to national may lead us to vote based more so upon party affiliations instead of policy issues. The podcast discusses a new book from UPenn’s political scientist, Daniel Hopkins, The Increasingly United States, which emphasizes voters’ focus on the commotion in D.C., pulling our eyes away from the state and local politics that affect our daily lives—a reality that many voters will quickly admit.
Solomon Messing’s Pew Research Center report discusses the voter-turnout impact produced by election forecasts. Importantly, confusion can result. Messing cites David Leonhardt, a NYT columnist, that captures the mental impact of voters viewing these forecasts which places them in a binary, believing that the race is “far less competitive…” Furthermore, these polling numbers encourage far “stronger expectations that the leading candidate will win,” which interacts with another voting tendency Messing explores. Some evidence has shown that those who are more uncertain of an election’s victor vote at higher rates. Consequently, those with greater confidence of who will win may be less inclined to vote.