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Media Slant is Contagious

Author

Listed:
  • Philine Widmer

    (PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement)

  • Clémentine Abed Meraim

    (ETH Zurich)

  • Sergio Galletta

    (ETH Zurich)

  • Elliott Ash

    (ETH Zurich)

Abstract

This paper examines the diffusion of media slant. We document the influence of Fox News Channel (FNC) on the partisan slant of local newspapers in the U.S. over the years 1995-2008. We measure the political slant of local newspapers by scaling the news article texts to Republicans' and Democrats' speeches in Congress. Using channel positioning as an instrument for viewership, we find that higher FNC viewership causes local newspapers to adopt more right-wing slant. The effect emerges gradually, only several years after FNC's introduction, mirroring the channel's growing influence on voting behavior. A main driver of the shift in newspaper slant appears to be a change in local political preferences.

Suggested Citation

  • Philine Widmer & Clémentine Abed Meraim & Sergio Galletta & Elliott Ash, 2025. "Media Slant is Contagious," Working Papers halshs-04960158, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-04960158
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-04960158v1
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    File URL: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-04960158v1/document
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    Other versions of this item:

    • Philine Widmer & Cl'ementine Abed Meraim & Sergio Galletta & Elliott Ash, 2022. "Media Slant is Contagious," Papers 2202.07269, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2025.

    References listed on IDEAS

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    2. Elliott Ash & Sergio Galletta & Tommaso Giommoni, 2025. "A Machine Learning Approach to Analyze and Support Anticorruption Policy," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 17(2), pages 162-193, May.

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