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This article compares populist media styles on US cable news and in online video. It juxtaposes the conservative cable giant Fox News with the progressive YouTube-based network the Young Turks (TYT). TYT stands as one of YouTube's longest running and most successful "news and politics" channels on the platform. This progressive digital network has long embraced a populist anchoring style that resembles Fox News and the style of its conservative YouTube competitors. This study establishes the stylistic affinity between TYT and Fox News and then explains how it is driven by a similar commercial-economic logic that prizes "loyal" viewership and "intense" engagement above all else. Shifting from political economy to media activism, this article also chronicles TYT's role in creating the Justice Democrats, the progressive PAC that recruited Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other "Squad" members. This article seeks to complicate the commonly held association between populism and political conservatism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Appearances of elected officials on cable news have become a regular feature of American politics. Do candidates going on cable news see a subsequent bump in fundraising? We evaluate all television appearances for every major party candidate running for the House from 2009–2020 on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News. We match these with FEC records of every individual campaign contribution made during the same period. We find evidence that candidates who appear on cable news do see a spike in fundraising on the day of the appearance. We find incumbents raise more money from in-state donors while nonincumbents see a bump from out-of-state donors. Also, this money comes more from appearances in primetime slots, not daytime appearances. Given that candidates see a bump in fundraising for TV appearances, it remains likely that this facet of American politics will persist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using two experimental studies, we examine how the selection and consumption of cable news influences news consumers' cognitive processing, attitudes, and policy preferences. As expected, participants overwhelmingly self-selected into an ideologically aligned cable news network. Then, ideologically congruent messaging from Fox News and MSNBC was likely to prompt higher levels of agreement and lower levels of disagreement for those with mid- and high levels of trust in their selected cable news network. Our findings indicate a reinforcing spiral effect among both MSNBC and Fox News consumers who have high levels of trust in the cable news network they select. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines how different forms of media use predict attitudes toward the development of facial recognition technology (FRT) and applications of it by law enforcement to identify criminal suspects, identify potential terrorists, and monitor public protests. The theoretical framework builds on theories of cultivation and genre-specific viewing to develop hypotheses and research questions. The analyses draw on original data from two nationally representative surveys of the U.S. public conducted in 2020, amid a series of controversies and protests about policing and racial justice. The results demonstrate that overall television viewing and crime media viewing predicted support for multiple uses of FRT, while Fox News viewing predicted support for using FRT to monitor protests. The findings advance our understanding of public opinion toward the technology and its implications for policing, protests, and social justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Secondary analysis of panel data found, after controlling for prior belief and many covariates, that 2011 Fox News viewing was negatively related to belief in global warming in 2016 and 2019, while MSNBC, broadcast news, and political comedy viewing in 2016 and CNN in 2019 had positive relationships. Partisan belief gaps in 2016 widened with CNN viewing and narrowed with viewing broadcast news, Fox News (especially with higher knowledge) and MSNBC (especially with lower knowledge), while political comedy viewing was associated both with wider (with lower knowledge) and narrower gaps (with higher knowledge). Implications for practice and theory are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes a corpus of segments from the Tucker Carlson Tonight program concerning "big tech" (focusing specifically on Google) and contextualizes this analysis within the political history of American media and technology regulation. Conservatives have long lamented the so-called liberal bias in media, but have also traditionally supported business deregulation and an antitrust approach narrowly concerned with consumer welfare. The textual analysis of Fox segments first shows that recurring complaints about the bias of Google's employees and executives is connected with its market dominance, and they frequently position corporations rather than government as the central threat to freedom. The solutions discussed, correspondingly, often favor greater structural intervention in the market to mitigate concentration's deleterious political consequences. I show how the critique on Carlson's show and recent attention to the issue from the executive branch represent a new manifestation of the theory of ideological evolution that Jack Balkin has called "ideological drift," in which a political idea (in this case, the "Brandeisian" approach to antitrust law) changes valence in different material circumstances and thus finds new proponents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Providing corrective information can reduce factual misperceptions among the public but it tends to have little effect on people's underlying attitudes. Our study examines how the impact of misinformation corrections is moderated by media choice. In our experiment, participants are asked to read a news article published by Fox News or MSNBC, each highlighting the positive economic impact of legal immigration in the United States. While the news content is held constant, our treatment manipulates whether participants are allowed to freely choose a media outlet or are randomly assigned. Our results demonstrate the importance of people's ability to choose: While factual misperceptions are easily corrected regardless of how people gained access to information, subsequent opinion change is conditional on people's prior willingness to seek out alternative sources. As such, encouraging people to broaden their media diet may be more effective to combat misinformation than disseminating fact-checks alone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The following paper explores the establishment of credibility by two forms of alternative media: (1) a traditional alternative media site, and (2) an alternative media program embedded within a mainstream channel. We engaged in a qualitative content analysis of the program Declassified produced by Epoch Times and circulated via YouTube, and the program Hannity broadcast by Fox News. In particular, we focused on the claims made by the hosts, and the sources that they provided in their reports. We found that the host of the former worked to overcome an alternative journalism credibility gap by engaging in mainstream news mimicry, while the host of the latter largely relied on the credibility that came from being embedded in a mainstream channel. Overall, these findings hold important implications for the construction of credibility through alternative media channels that are increasingly influencing mainstream political discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2012, a survey research was publicized suggesting that Fox News viewers were not only less informed than consumers of other news media but also less informed than people abstaining from news media entirely. Many have taken this to be unequivocally true and the study remains popular among political discussants to this day. However, virtually all of the investigations used to advance the argument focus on current events type knowledge and neglect important controls that could influence both political knowledge and Fox News consumption. Furthermore, no research to date has investigated any effects stemming from consuming the network's online content (i.e., from foxnews.com). This article aims to contribute these gaps. Using the 2016 American National Election Survey (ANES), I investigate whether consuming content from foxnews.com is associated with decreased political knowledge. I find no differences in knowledge concerning how the U.S. political system works (what I call process-related knowledge) but do find a significant, negative relationship between visiting foxnews.com and facts about society writ large (what I call society-oriented knowledge). These effects persist even when controlling for party, ideology, and conservative-group affinity and in the preponderance of matching procedures employed to reduce concerns of self-selection. Implications and avenues of future research are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how Fox News’ top-rated programs attempted to reshape the ‘collective memory’ of the Great Depression during the Great Recession. In their retelling of the Depression’s history, Fox News hosts proclaimed their kinship with the Depression generation and strove to present themselves as its modern standard bearers. Fox News’ rhetorical strategy involved shifting modes of analysis when treating past and present crises. On one hand, the principles of the Stimulus Act were presented as antithetical to the ‘producer ethic’ and values of the Depression generation. On the other hand, this same generation’s reliance on New Deal policies were de-politicized and turned into a technical question about the efficacy of Keynesian policy solutions. This article offers a multi-modal, textual analysis to reveal how Fox’s top shows executed this double-move to imply the recipients of stimulus aid in the Obama era are fundamentally different from ‘the Greatest Generation’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines when partisan media effects occur during presidential campaigns. I argue that partisan media are most likely to influence candidate impressions early in the election cycle, when voters have less crystallized impressions of the candidates and are less motivated to defend their party’s nominee. Using multiple methods and two large-scale surveys spanning 2008, I show that Fox News affected favorability toward Barack Obama during the first five months of the election year, but those effects largely disappeared over the last five months. The results varied by political knowledge, however, as Fox News affected low-knowledge viewers throughout the entire year, but only affected high-knowledge viewers early in the election cycle. These results provide important new evidence on how partisan media affect viewers and when those effects occur during a presidential election. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article looks at the challenge posed to the liberal field of journalism by Tea Party populism and Fox News’ attempt to claim the cultural capital of journalism. The Tea Party have defied expectations of a political and rhetorical normalization, declaring liberalism and the New York Times as iredeemable enemies of the populist people. The Times’ coverage of the Tea Party, analyzed in this article, assumes an importance beyond merely covering a political story as it articulates the present state of the field and its understanding of the political. What this author finds is a normative liberal universalist interpretation of the Tea Party movement between the pessimissm of Lippmann or the redemptive humanism of Dewey. The populists are either treated as irrational pseudo-political actors or the credibility of the field is bestowed upon them as the redemptive embodiment of democracy. Neither approach is able to explain populism’s immutable antagonism at an ontological level or the persistence of the Tea Party’s fetishized notion of an America reconciled in private property. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the agenda setting of candidates’ attributes and its relationship with polarized candidate evaluation among TV news viewers. Content analyses of candidates’ affective attributes during the 2012 presidential election indicate partisan imbalance from CNN’s Anderson Cooper and Fox’s Special Report. NBC Nightly News was relatively balanced. Watching a particular program was positively associated with attribute agenda setting by each program. Also, agenda setting by the Fox program was positively related to viewers’ polarized candidate evaluations, whereas agenda setting by the NBC program was negatively associated. Implications of the partisan TV news context for agenda-setting theory are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much research has looked at individual Fox News programs as a means to ascertain how the network operates in a variety of contexts, but nearly no attention has been paid to the role of individual program hosts. The host plays an important role in branding news programs and thus directly affects a network’s self-presentation and credibility. This host-based, meso-level study examines how the three Fox News prime time hosts employed differing approaches toward furthering the network’s themes opposing health care reform in August 2009. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study traces the evolution of U.S. news media frames of participants in the 2011 Egyptian Revolution, part of the Arab Spring. Critical discourse analysis reveals that CNN.com and FoxNews.com employ frames previously applied to Muslims and the Middle East—U.S. friend/enemy and rational/irrational—to explain the anti-government protesters, president Hosni Mubarak and Mubarak’s government, and the Muslim Brotherhood to U.S. audiences. Media frames of certain groups fluctuate during the revolution and between CNN and Fox News, but, overall, these frames predominantly reflect U.S. political ideology that favors people seeking democracy over authoritarian rule and remains wary of Islam. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conceptualizing journalism as a paradigm, we analyze 193 journalistic texts responding to Juan Williams’ 2010 dismissal from NPR for comments made on Fox News. We found three dominant themes. First, journalists appeared unsure of Williams’ role within the journalistic paradigm, indicative of the role confusion that characterizes contemporary journalism. Second, journalists invoked the objectivity norm despite its incongruity with the case, evidence of a paradigm grasping for certainties at a time of industry upheaval. Finally, journalists used Williams as a proxy to engage the public in a dialogue on the responsibilities of the commentator. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

People tend to predict their preferred political candidate will win an election. The resulting “surprised losers” are examined as playing a role in the established gap between electoral winners and losers on such important outcomes as trust in government and satisfaction with the electoral process and democracy. Exposure to Fox News programming can increase wishful thinking among Republican candidate supporters, but among surprised losers, it does not increase negative attitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this article, the author researches the coverage of the U.S. and Russian presidential campaigns of 2012 in terms of media endarkenment, a process of media influence that ultimately shrinks the potential for a vibrant public sphere where informed citizens debate crucial issues. Using the works of Herman and Chomsky as well as McQuail, the study reveals the methodology of a process of media influence (intended or unintended) by which both the intellectual level of the viewers and the number of informed citizens decrease. A textual analysis of election coverage by national TV channels of both countries uncovers some of the different forms that media endarkenment takes, including the construction of a false reality, intimidation, and simplification. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The explanatory principles of understanding and consistency are used to detail the past, present, and future of individual-level political communication media effects research. It is argued that the field of political communication is at a crossroads, with preferences for a dominant explanatory principle shifting from understanding back to consistency. In addition to understanding and consistency, it is argued that political communication researchers need to begin introducing additional explanatory principles (e.g., hedonism) to the field for the generation of new lines of inquiry. A call for embracing a diversity of explanatory principles is offered, and the utility of such an approach is explored within the context of the 2012 U.S. presidential election. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article focuses on 4chan’s /b/ board, a—if not the—pillar of online trolling activity. In addition to chronicling the history of the site, as well as the emergence of the nebulous collective known as Anonymous, the article considers the ways in which early media representations of and subsequent reactions to trolling behaviors on /b/ helped create and sustain an increasingly influential subculture. Echoing Stanley Cohen’s (1972) analysis of moral panics, the article goes on to postulate that trolls and mainstream media outlets, specifically Fox News, are locked in a cybernetic feedback loop predicted upon spectacle; each camp amplifies and builds upon the other’s reactions, thus entering into an unintended but highly synergistic congress. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this article, we examine both the content and effects of opinion shows during the 2008 presidential election. First, a content analysis shows that opinion shows devote most of their attention to attacking the opposition candidate, rather than praising the like-minded candidate. Second, analyses of panel data show that exposure to opinion shows made viewers less (more) favorable toward the opposition (like-minded) candidate. Finally, we use overtime analyses to show that coverage of the opposition candidate affects attitudes toward both candidates, whereas coverage of the like-minded candidate has negligible effects on attitudes toward either candidate. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study drew on the literature in motivated reasoning and 2009 Pew survey data to examine the roles of partisanship, education, news exposure, and their interactions in the misperception that health care reform would create "death panels." Radio news exposure encouraged the misperception only among Republicans, while newspaper exposure discouraged it, especially among non-Republicans. But rather than polarize perceptions along partisan lines as predicted, Fox News exposure contributed to misperception mainstreaming. Finally, this study identified a complex role for education in both inhibiting misperceptions (as a main effect) and promoting them (as an interaction with Fox News exposure). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence of a national “Tea Party” movement in the United States stimulated much media commentary regarding the movement’s origins, goals, participants, and even temperament. Unlike political movements of the recent past, the Tea Party stands starkly to the right. This study examines nightly cable news coverage of this movement by using key frames associated with the “protest paradigm”—the tendency for media to marginalize movements by drawing attention away from core concerns raised by such movements. We ask whether the protest paradigm can be applied to a right-wing movement and whether such application varies by the ideological leaning of a given source. That is, do cable news channels use frames in ways consistent with their respective ideological hues? We draw on a representative sample of stories regarding the national movement from the most viewed nightly news programs on Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN, with the Associated Press as a reference point. Results show significant differences across sources in issue and marginalization frame use. Although utilization of marginalization frames is popular among ideological channels, traditional news sources are not immune from using these devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the concept and mission of the Tea Party group in the U.S. It examines the function and programs of the group and its qualifications to fit to the definition of a social movement. It also mentions how the party's big-money political action committees and free-market foundation have given it a national reach, and made Fox News and other conservative media outlets amplified activists' voice.

Much recent debate in political communication has centered on the influence of ideologically oriented media outlets. Some argue that the current media environment is creating partisan echo chambers, while others contend that today’s political media afford citizens increased contact with a diverse range of opinion. The current study seeks to clarify relationships between political ideology, conservative cable TV news viewing (i.e., FOX News), and liberal cable TV news viewing (i.e., MSNBC), arguing that ideology serves as a suppressor of the relationship between the two seemingly disparate forms of cable TV news consumption. Analyses of primary 2009-2010 statewide survey data (N = 305) reveal the relationship between FOX News and MSNBC consumption to be positive and this association increases substantially once the role of ideology as suppressor is addressed. A secondary analysis of 2010 PEW data (N = 3,006) reveals a strong replication of the primary analysis results. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines how the telephone-hacking scandal involving Rupert Murdoch's media group in Great Britain reflects some of the strengths and weaknesses of the Canadian media industry. It is noted that the controversy reminds of the influence of Murdoch's media on journalism. Also mentioned how the scandal indicates the continued political relevance of the so--called legacy media in the digital era.

This study examines climate change coverage on the three major cable news channels and assesses the relationship between viewership of these channels and beliefs about global warming. Evidence from a content analysis of climate change coverage on Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC during 2007 and 2008 demonstrates that Fox takes a more dismissive tone toward climate change than CNN and MSNBC. Fox also interviews a greater ratio of climate change doubters to believers. An analysis of 2008 survey data from a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults finds a negative association between Fox News viewership and acceptance of global warming, even after controlling for numerous potential confounding factors. Conversely, viewing CNN and MSNBC is associated with greater acceptance of global warming. Further analyses reveal that the relationship between cable news viewership (both Fox and CNN/MSNBC) and global warming acceptance is stronger among Republicans than among Democrats. That is, the views of Republicans are strongly linked with the news outlet they watch, regardless of how well that outlet aligns with their political predispositions. In contrast, Democrats don’t vary much in their beliefs as a function of cable news use. This asymmetry suggests that some Republicans, who as a group tend to be predisposed toward global warming skepticism, are less skeptical when exposed to information on the reality and urgency of climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In early 2008, what started as a small report in an online conservative outlet on the Xbox 360 videogame Mass Effect was picked up by a number of news outlets and blogs. In particular, Fox News’s ‘Live Desk with Martha MacCallum’ produced a segment on the game, claiming it was fully interactive digital pornography. One of the show’s guests, pop psychologist Cooper Lawrence, argued that the game’s sexual content was harmful, but did so with no firsthand knowledge of the game, incensing fans of the game. Those fans proceeded to respond in various ways, particularly on the internet. The present research examines three distinct areas of these fan responses — forum discussions, YouTube videos, and the ‘review bombing’ of Cooper Lawrence’s books on Amazon.com. The various ways in which fans expressed their anger at, displeasure with, and opinions on the story and how the game was treated in the media present a chance not only to look into the mindset of these fans toward the various institutions involved in but also paint a picture of fan and gamer cultures in general. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this study, the authors test for the presence of bias during Fox News and CNN’s coverage of the 2004 national party conventions. The content analysis demonstrates that Fox News’s coverage was more favorable to the Republican Party than it was to the Democratic Party, while CNN’s coverage was more impartial. The authors also use panel data from the National Annenberg Election Survey to show how opinion change toward the 2004 presidential candidates was associated with exposure to cable television coverage of the national party conventions. These findings highlight the evolving role of the cable news media in presidential campaigns and elections. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In its drive to make a profit and avoid copyright challenges, YouTube, the largest online video platform, is becoming a more hospitable place for news organizations that are targeting the medium's young audience with an attractive fare of raw video and light content. But this changing YouTube environment appears to be less welcoming to the politically motivated online operations that found a voice there in the 2008 presidential election. This article explores the developments and tracks the audience changes to the largest YouTube news and politics sites from just before the election through early 2010. Corporate media were found to be more successful in building large sustained audiences, while online-only operations with a political bent have lost audience share since the election and appear to be confined to a niche. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A comparative content analysis of CNN, Fox News Channel, and MSNBC examined the extent to which the cable news networks utilize their news crawls or "tickers" for promotional purposes. Situated in e economic, branding, and promotional theory, the study revealed that two out of three cable networks utilized their news tickers for some overt self-promotion, but used them infrequently as synergistic promotional tools for their parent companies, indicating journalistic integrity within this news space for the present time. The study also provides baseline information on the nature of cable news tickers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of international and global news to date has focused on the operation of foreign news values, the unequal flows and emergent contra-flows of transnational news as well as the phenomenology of 24/7 live broadcasts. Today these debates are often played out under opposing 'global dominance' and 'global public sphere' positions. Each in its own way is concerned about communications democracy - whether its discerned curtailment by processes of geo-political economy or temporal-spatial extension by increased global cultural flows. In this article we contend that there is a 'democratic lacuna' at the heart of these debates. This silence concerns how exactly leading world news channels - principally CNNI and BBC World but also international competitors such as Sky and Fox News - communicatively present the voices, views and values of contending interests and identities from around the world. Elaborating a new conception of 'communicative frames' based on contemporary positions of social and political theory and applying this to a large corpus of news output, we begin to evaluate generalizing theoretical claims, both critical and celebratory, about the contribution of global 24/7 news to processes of global dominance or an emergent global public sphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although claims of media bias are abundant, systematic and scientific investigations of potential biases are rare. The present study was an attempt to determine whether a perception of bias would be found in the headlines of lead or major stories taken from the Web sites of two major American news organizations, CNN and FOX News, during the final two months of the 2004 presidential campaign. Significant perceptions of bias were found. Overall, headlines taken from CNN were rated as significantly more liberal than those taken from FOX News. Headlines taken from FOX News were rated as slightly on the liberal side of neutral. With CNN's headlines slightly to the left of FOX News', instructing participants that the headlines came from a particular source did not influence the results. Although the study by no means provides the definitive answer to whether major news organizations have biases, it indicates that perceptions of bias exist. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This aricle analyzes data from the Pew Research Center’s 1998 to 2004 Biennial Media Consumption Surveys to identify demographic and behavioral factors that predict Americans’ exposure to cable and broadcast nightly news. While many predictors are significant across sources, much of the evidence indicates the audiences are unique. The network news audience is becoming increasingly older, and the Fox News and CNN audiences are becoming increasingly polarized. Compared to the CNN audience, Fox News watchers are less likely to follow stories that are critical of the Bush administration but more likely to follow entertainment-based news stories. The findings also suggest that Fox News watchers enjoy news that shares their personal views, while the CNN and network news audiences prefer news that has more in-depth interviews with public officials. Finally, evidence suggests that the Fox News watchers were more likely than nonwatchers to underestimate rather than overestimate, the number of American casualties in Iraq. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]