Interesting piece on 538 making the case that partisan cable news is not directly responsible for hyper-partisanship in the country, partly based on the math of tv viewership: There were 122 million voters in 2018, but only a small portion of those watch the top rated cable news shows on Fox or MSNBC (about 3 million each). Many more still watch broadcast news (about 5 million each) while vast majority do not watch any tv news. Similar data suggests most voters not getting bombarded by partisan or fake online news.
This seems to gloss over the number of distinct viewers each day on both Fox Or MSNBC, which is likely more than 3 million each. I suspect more Americans watch at least 1 hour of either FOX or MSNBC than watch 30 mins of CBS, ABC OR NBC news. Even so, I wouldn’t be surprised if the number of voters who watch any tv news (broadly defined) on a regular basis was significantly less than a quarter the total number of voters. More interesting to me was the point that regular viewers of hyperpartisan news may have a disproportionate impact on the larger political discourse. Both because they are more loudly involved in the political process, but also, crucially, because of their profound influence in their informal (mostly face to face) social networks. More Americans are probably influenced by a friend or relative who regularly watches Hannity or Madow than by watching cable news themselves. “Media Bubbles Aren’t The Biggest Reason We’re Partisans | FiveThirtyEight” https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/media-bubbles-arent-the-biggest-reason-were-partisans/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/CAKGtkYJoPAiitHMJpHo2-jtVNX7pb7g0gWOFS6a0vVde1QkQQQ%40mail.gmail.com.
