Conservatives Retreat into Fox's Media Bubble

Posted by Amanda Terkel, Think Progress at 3:31 PM on April 28, 2008.

A new analysis by University of Georgia associate professor Barry Hollander finds that between 1998 and 2006, Americans became increasingly polarized in their news-gathering habits. After examining five national Pew Center for the People and the Press during that time period, Hollander concluded that the public now lives in “a huge echo chamber of attitudes and ideas.”

The Atlanta Journal Constitution’s Political Insider reports:

In 1998, 27 percent of Republicans and 25 percent of Democrats tuned in regularly to Atlanta-based CNN. Eight years later, the number of Democrats had risen to 29 percent.

But the number of Republicans who tuned in to CNN had shrunk to 19 percent. Gosh, where do you think they went?

Over the same period, Fox News’ share of Republican viewers jumped from 14 to 36 percent.

Hollander also notes that conservatives “dramatically dropped news sources that they perceive as being biased against their position.” Evidently, this included C-SPAN, which also saw a dramatic drop in conservative viewers.

These findings are similar to a Norman Lear Center/Zogby International poll from November 2007, which found that 22 percent of conservatives say they “never” enjoy entertainment that reflects values other than their own, as opposed to just 7 percent of liberals. Fox News was also the “most politically divisive TV channel,” with 70 percent of conservatives and just 3 percent of liberals watching it daily.

But too much Fox News may be bad news for conservatives. An April 2007 Pew Research Study survey found that viewers of the conservative Fox News channel had the lowest knowledge of national and international affairs.