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In a polarized nation, how a lot does the media affect folks’s political opinions? A brand new examine co-authored by MIT students finds the reply relies on folks’s media preferences — and, crucially, how these preferences are measured.
The researchers mixed a big on-line survey experiment with web-tracking information that recorded all the information websites individuals visited within the month earlier than the examine. They discovered that the media preferences people reported within the survey usually mirrored their real-world information consumption, however necessary variations stood out.
First, there was substantial variation within the precise information consumption habits of individuals who reported an identical media preferences, suggesting that survey-based measures might not absolutely seize the variance in people’ experiences. Additionally, folks with divergent media preferences within the survey usually visited comparable on-line information retailers. These findings problem frequent assumptions in regards to the polarized nature of Americans’ media habits and lift questions on using survey information when learning the consequences of political media.
“There’s good motive to assume that the data folks report in surveys is probably not an ideal illustration of their precise media habits,” says Chloe Wittenberg PhD ’23, a postdoc within the MIT Department of Political Science and co-author of a brand new paper detailing the outcomes.
The open-access paper, “Media Measurement Matters: Estimating the Persuasive Effects of Partisan Media with Survey and Behavioral Data,” seems within the Journal of Politics. The authors are Wittenberg; Matthew A. Baum, a professor on the Harvard Kennedy School; Adam Berinsky, MIT’s Mitsui Professor of Political Science and director of the MIT Political Experiments Research Lab; Justin de Benedictis-Kessner, an assistant professor of public coverage on the Harvard Kennedy School; and Teppei Yamamoto, a professor of political science and director of MIT’s Political Methodology Lab.
Stated and revealed preferences
The examine was motivated by a break up inside some tutorial analysis. Some students consider present polarization produces extremely partisan media consumption; others assume partisan media sources affect residents to undertake extra polarized views. But few have measured each self-selection of media and its persuasive results on the similar time — utilizing each survey and behavioral information.
To conduct the experiment, the researchers contracted with the media analytics firm comScore to recruit a various pattern of American adults in 2018. ComScore then mixed survey responses from over 3,300 of those individuals with detailed details about their web-browsing historical past within the month previous to the examine.
“In this examine, we adopted a novel experimental design referred to as the Preference-Incorporating Choice and Assignment design — or the PICA design — which we invented and derived a proper statistical framework for in an earlier work,” Yamamoto says. “The PICA design was an ideal match for the examine, given its aims.”
In the primary a part of the experiment, individuals had been requested to report their media preferences, together with the amount and sort of stories they prefer to learn. In the second half, individuals had been assigned to considered one of two teams. The first group may choose which kind of media — Fox News, MSNBC, or an leisure possibility — they needed to learn, whereas the second group was required to view articles from considered one of these three sources. This method enabled the researchers to evaluate each how people’ acknowledged preferences within the survey in comparison with their on-line information consumption, and the way persuasive partisan media will be to totally different units of shoppers.
Overall, the examine revealed variations within the persuasiveness of partisan media throughout information audiences. When analyzing the amount of stories that individuals consumed, the authors discovered that individuals who usually visited fewer information websites, relative to leisure websites, tended to be extra readily persuaded by partisan media.
However, after they regarded on the political slant of individuals’ information consumption, the authors noticed a small however putting deviation between their survey and behavioral measures of media preferences. At one finish, the outcomes primarily based on survey information recommended that members of the general public could also be receptive to data from ideologically opposed sources. In distinction, the outcomes primarily based on web-browsing information confirmed that individuals with extra excessive media diets are persuaded primarily by retailers with which they already agree.
“Together, these outcomes counsel that inferences about media polarization might rely closely on how people’ media preferences are measured,” the authors state within the paper.
“Our outcomes affirm the worth of harnessing real-world information to check political media,” provides de Benedictis-Kessner. “Precise measurement of individuals’s habits in on-line information environments is troublesome, however it is very important confront these measurement challenges as a result of totally different conclusions that may come up in regards to the risks of political polarization.”
Extending the analysis
As the students acknowledge, there are essentially some questions left open by their work. For one, the present examine targeted on offering media content material associated to training coverage, together with points resembling faculty alternative and constitution colleges. While training is a distinguished difficulty for a lot of residents, it’s an space that tends to not show as a lot polarization as another matters in American life. It is feasible that research involving different political points may reveal totally different dynamics.
“An attention-grabbing extension for this work can be to have a look at totally different difficulty areas, a few of which may be extra polarized than training,” Wittenberg says.
She provides: “I hope the sector can transfer towards testing a broader array of measures to see how they cohere, and I feel there’s going to be a number of attention-grabbing and actionable insights. Our objective is to not say, ‘Here is an ideal measure it is best to exit and use.’ It’s to nudge folks to consider how they’re measuring these preferences.”
Support for the analysis was supplied by the National Science Foundation.
