Where you watch news is best predictor of your position on immigration

[osewalrus]

Nothing is ever an exact correspondence, of course, but according to this survey the best predictor of how you feel about immigration is whether you watch Fox News, broadcast network news, or CNN. This correlation is even stronger than political affiliation (although obviously more Republicans watch Fox News, not all of them do. And not everyone who watches Fox News is a Republican. Some are people stuck in bars or airports.

What is perhaps surprising is that CNN watchers are most sympathetic to immigrants, rather than those who primarily watch broadcast network news.  The poll does not seem to have included MSNBC watchers, which may be more a reflection of MSNBC's rating not providing a statistically valid sample.

Yes, I'm snarky this morning.

Comments

[vettecat]

So do people watch the news which with they already agree on the issues, or watch the news whose tone they prefer and then become influenced by their portrayal of the issues?

It seems more and more that people are living in separate versions of reality... not sure how these can be reconciled.

[osewalrus]

1. An excellent question and one the study most explicitly declines to answer. It notes the question and says "didn't look at that, just looked at correlations, not causes.'

2. I have some recommendations on solving the overall problem in an upcoming blog post on platform regulation.

[vettecat]

Always interested to hear your thoughts.

[osewalrus]

I think it's a self-reenforcing loop. Yes, people who feel a particular way watch Fox in preference to other news. But Fox reenforces the lean by actively casting doubt on the veracity of other news sources. So people who wonder on to Fox are likely to become more partisan and less likely to seek a mix of sources.

[vettecat]

Of everything that's going on, I think the widespread questioning of the very existence of objective truth scares me the most.