How the news media activate public expression and influence national agendas
We demonstrate that exposure to the news media causes Americans to take public stands on specific issues, join national policy conversations, and express themselves publicly—all key components of democratic politics—more often than they would otherwise. After recruiting 48 mostly small media outlets...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | en_US |
| Published: |
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
2018
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/119647 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9409-6765 |
| _version_ | 1811071968108085248 |
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| author | King, Gary Schneer, Benjamin White, Ariel R. |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Political Science |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Political Science King, Gary Schneer, Benjamin White, Ariel R. |
| author_sort | King, Gary |
| collection | MIT |
| description | We demonstrate that exposure to the news media causes Americans to take public stands on specific issues, join national policy conversations, and express themselves publicly—all key components of democratic politics—more often than they would otherwise. After recruiting 48 mostly small media outlets, we chose groups of these outlets to write and publish articles on subjects we approved, on dates we randomly assigned. We estimated the causal effect on proximal measures, such as website pageviews and Twitter discussion of the articles’ specific subjects, and distal ones, such as national Twitter conversation in broad policy areas. Our intervention increased discussion in each broad policy area by ~62.7% (relative to a day’s volume), accounting for 13,166 additional posts over the treatment week, with similar effects across population subgroups. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T08:58:48Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/119647 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | en_US |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T08:58:48Z |
| publishDate | 2018 |
| publisher | American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1196472022-09-26T09:36:54Z How the news media activate public expression and influence national agendas King, Gary Schneer, Benjamin White, Ariel R. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Political Science White, A. White, Ariel R. We demonstrate that exposure to the news media causes Americans to take public stands on specific issues, join national policy conversations, and express themselves publicly—all key components of democratic politics—more often than they would otherwise. After recruiting 48 mostly small media outlets, we chose groups of these outlets to write and publish articles on subjects we approved, on dates we randomly assigned. We estimated the causal effect on proximal measures, such as website pageviews and Twitter discussion of the articles’ specific subjects, and distal ones, such as national Twitter conversation in broad policy areas. Our intervention increased discussion in each broad policy area by ~62.7% (relative to a day’s volume), accounting for 13,166 additional posts over the treatment week, with similar effects across population subgroups. 2018-12-13T21:35:22Z 2018-12-13T21:35:22Z 2017-11 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 0036-8075 1095-9203 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/119647 King, Gary, Benjamin Schneer, and Ariel White. “How the News Media Activate Public Expression and Influence National Agendas.” Science 358, no. 6364 (November 9, 2017): 776–780. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9409-6765 en_US http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.aao1100 Science Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use. application/pdf American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Prof. White via Jen Greenleaf |
| spellingShingle | King, Gary Schneer, Benjamin White, Ariel R. How the news media activate public expression and influence national agendas |
| title | How the news media activate public expression and influence national agendas |
| title_full | How the news media activate public expression and influence national agendas |
| title_fullStr | How the news media activate public expression and influence national agendas |
| title_full_unstemmed | How the news media activate public expression and influence national agendas |
| title_short | How the news media activate public expression and influence national agendas |
| title_sort | how the news media activate public expression and influence national agendas |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/119647 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9409-6765 |
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