Comments on: Is It Tea Time In America?

By: Martin

Martin — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 05:14:51 +0000

Well, just to press this a bit on the arrow of causality: Consider again the earlier Washington Post article on Glenn Beck’s call to action to donate online to the Chamber of Commerce that crashed the COC servers. The directionality is both ways. There’s self-selection in terms of viewership, but the media has agency too, via figures like Beck and others, who on a daily basis feed the base explicit instructions on how to mobilize. It may seem out of the “mainstream” for American journalism, but that’s Fox’s complaint against the “mainstream media” to begin with — too complacent. It’s Fox’s self-espoused mission in the political sphere, and it’s of course here to stay.

By: Matthew Dickinson

Matthew Dickinson — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 02:06:55 +0000

Thanks for this. Again, the key question is the direction of causality – is Fox influencing the Tea Party, or do Tea Partiers watch Fox because they agree with its perspective on the news. My guess is it’s the latter – Fox isn’t persuading any Tea Partier to adopt a perspective that they don’t already prefer.

By: Martin

Martin — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 17:25:35 +0000

Found the poll. It was the April 2010 NYT/CBS poll — the first one taken of self-described Tea Party supporters. Not as dramatic as I remembered (confirmation bias), but still notable.

Link to the PDF of the poll:
http://s3.amazonaws.com/nytdocs/docs/312/312.pdf

95. Which one of the following television networks do you watch most for information
about politics and current events — ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, FOX News Channel, MSNBC, or don’t
you watch television news?

[General public versus Tea Party]

4/5-12/10 4/5-12/10 TP
ABC, CBS, NBC 26 11
Fox News Channel 23 63

By: Matthew Dickinson

Matthew Dickinson — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 16:36:02 +0000

Martin – Without seeing the data, I don’t want to discount your argument that there may be, in effect, a type of top-down leadership exercised indirectly via Fox News. As you note, I’m skeptical of arguments in general that emphasize strong media effects on public opinion, but as you also probably know I don’t get the cable, so I am only intermittently exposed to Fox, or MSNBC, or the other cable outlets. It wouldn’t surprise me if a large portion of Tea Partiers listened to Fox (it is the most watched cable news), just as a disproportionate number of liberals may prefer MSNBC. Whether that means these outlets can shape viewers’ attitudes, however, is a more difficult argument to make. Let me see if I can track down the data you cite.

By: Martin

Martin — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 16:24:43 +0000

Fascinating. That’s unexpected — I think. How does this compare with other get-out-the-vote organizations? Are they predominantly local too?

I’m having trouble finding it, but there was an earlier Tea Party poll (Quinnipac? WaPo? ABC?) that showed that something overwhelming like 80+% of the respondents got their news from Fox. That suggested to me — and I know you’re skeptical of this, Matt — that there’s still a “mass mobilization” dimension of this movement, even without direct ties or two-way coordination.

How do you assess the importance of mass media here?