TY - JOUR
T1 - Mass Media as a Source of Public Responsiveness
AU - Neuner, Fabian G.
AU - Soroka, Stuart N.
AU - Wlezien, Christopher
N1 - Funding Information:
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Fabian Neuner and Stuart Soroka received support for this research through the Philip Converse and Warren Miller Fellowship Fund in American Political Behavior, awarded by the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan.
Funding Information:
We wish to thank the reviewers and the International Journal of Press/Politics editor for helpful feedback. Previous versions of this paper were delivered at the 2015 Toronto Political Behaviour Workshop, the 2015 American Political Science Association (APSA) Annual Meeting, the 2016 Midwest Political Science Association (MPSA) Annual Meeting, and the 2017 Southwestern Political Science Association (SWPSA) and Southern Political Science Association (SPSA) Annual Meetings. We thank discussants and audience members at those conferences. We received helpful feedback from participants at talks and workshops at the University of Antwerp; Australian National University; Campus den Haag, Leiden University; University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA); Centro de Investigaci?n y Docencia Econ?micas (CIDE; Mexico City); University of Copenhagen; Hebrew University; Humboldt University; University of Leuven; University of Michigan; University of Sydney; University of Texas at Austin; and Texas A&M University. In addition, we wish to thank the following individuals who provided useful feedback along the way: Bethany Albertson, Amber Boydstun, Keith Dowding, Johanna Dunaway, Patrick English, Peter Enns, David Fortunato, Kirby Goidel, Lauren Guggenheim, Armen Hakhverdian, Brian Hamel, Marc Hooghe, Simon Jackman, John Jackson, Bryan Jones, Orit Kedar, Matthew Kerby, Ann-Kristin K?lln, Heike Kl?ver, Tse-Min Lin, Christine Lipsmeier, Sofie Marien, Lilach Nir, Diana O?Brien, Alex Pacek, Anne Rasmussen, Jochen Rehmert, Jeroen Romeijn, Tamir Sheafer, Christopher Skovron, Talia Stroud, Raanan Sulitzeanu-Kenan, Dimiter Toshkov, Nicholas Valentino, Stephen van Hauwaert, Stefaan Walgrave, Bernhard We?els, and Guy Whitten. The paper also relies on Lexicoder software development by Mark Daku and Lori Young, and a good deal of database work from Daniel Hiaeshutter-Rice. The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Fabian Neuner and Stuart Soroka received support for this research through the Philip Converse and Warren Miller Fellowship Fund in American Political Behavior, awarded by the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan.
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2019.
PY - 2019/7/1
Y1 - 2019/7/1
N2 - A sizable literature finds evidence of public responsiveness to policy change, across a range of salient policy domains and countries. We have a very limited sense for what drives this aggregate-level responsiveness, however. One possibility is that individuals learn at least part of what they need to know from mass media. Work tends to emphasize failures in both media coverage and citizens, but little research explores the prevalence of relevant, accurate information in media content, or citizens’ abilities to identify and respond to that information. Using the case of defense spending in the United States, we examine both, through an automated content analysis of thirty-five years of reporting, validated by a coding exercise fielded to survey respondents. Results prompt analyses of the American National Election Study (ANES), tracing both individual-level perceptions of and preferences for defense spending change over time. These results, supplemented by aggregate analyses of the General Social Survey (GSS), illustrate how media might facilitate—but also confuse—public responsiveness.
AB - A sizable literature finds evidence of public responsiveness to policy change, across a range of salient policy domains and countries. We have a very limited sense for what drives this aggregate-level responsiveness, however. One possibility is that individuals learn at least part of what they need to know from mass media. Work tends to emphasize failures in both media coverage and citizens, but little research explores the prevalence of relevant, accurate information in media content, or citizens’ abilities to identify and respond to that information. Using the case of defense spending in the United States, we examine both, through an automated content analysis of thirty-five years of reporting, validated by a coding exercise fielded to survey respondents. Results prompt analyses of the American National Election Study (ANES), tracing both individual-level perceptions of and preferences for defense spending change over time. These results, supplemented by aggregate analyses of the General Social Survey (GSS), illustrate how media might facilitate—but also confuse—public responsiveness.
KW - mass media
KW - negative feedback
KW - public opinion
KW - public policy
KW - thermostatic responsiveness
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U2 - 10.1177/1940161219832416
DO - 10.1177/1940161219832416
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85063062070
SN - 1940-1612
VL - 24
SP - 269
EP - 292
JO - International Journal of Press/Politics
JF - International Journal of Press/Politics
IS - 3
ER -