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Consuming Fox News May Be Harmful to Your Health (in other news, fire is reportedly hot)
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/consuming-fox-news-may-be-harmful-to-your-health
By Josh Marshall
May 26, 2020 2:02 p.m.
A new study produced by business school profs at Columbia and University of Chicago suggests that viewing Fox News is strongly correlated with ignoring social distancing guidance during the first weeks of the COVID19 epidemic and is in fact driving that non-compliance.
The researchers looked at geospatial data derived from anonymized cell phone data and cable channel position by ZIP code around the country. They found that a 1% increase in Fox News viewership in a zip code reduced social distancing by 8.9%.
<snip>
From reviewing the study it’s not entirely clear to me whether the persuasive effect of Fox News is demonstrated as opposed to the correlation. Fox News viewership is a marker for conservatives. Conservatives are less likely to social distance, etc. But that likely amounts to something similar since Fox is the key source of political information not only for Fox viewers but for the conservative information ecosystem generally. And the study does a decent job finding ways to isolate the persuasive element from the correlation. The authors do note, revealingly, that they are not able to fully distinguish between the impact of Fox News commentators versus the administration officials and especially the President whose views are so aggressively repeated and amplified.
In any case, here’s the study.
</snip>
By Josh Marshall
May 26, 2020 2:02 p.m.
A new study produced by business school profs at Columbia and University of Chicago suggests that viewing Fox News is strongly correlated with ignoring social distancing guidance during the first weeks of the COVID19 epidemic and is in fact driving that non-compliance.
The researchers looked at geospatial data derived from anonymized cell phone data and cable channel position by ZIP code around the country. They found that a 1% increase in Fox News viewership in a zip code reduced social distancing by 8.9%.
<snip>
From reviewing the study it’s not entirely clear to me whether the persuasive effect of Fox News is demonstrated as opposed to the correlation. Fox News viewership is a marker for conservatives. Conservatives are less likely to social distance, etc. But that likely amounts to something similar since Fox is the key source of political information not only for Fox viewers but for the conservative information ecosystem generally. And the study does a decent job finding ways to isolate the persuasive element from the correlation. The authors do note, revealingly, that they are not able to fully distinguish between the impact of Fox News commentators versus the administration officials and especially the President whose views are so aggressively repeated and amplified.
In any case, here’s the study.
</snip>
2 replies
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= new reply since forum marked as read
