| Authors |
Trussler, Soroka |
| Journal |
International Journal of Press/Politics |
| Year |
2014 |
| Type |
Published Paper |
| Abstract |
Commentators regularly lament the proliferation of both negative and/or strategic ("horse race") coverage in political news content. The most frequent account for this trend focuses on news norms and/or the priorities of news journalists. Here, we build on recent work arguing for the importance of demand-side, rather than supply-side, explanations of news content. In short, news may be negative and/or strategy-focused because that is the kind of news that people are interested in. We use a lab study to capture participants' news-selection biases, alongside a survey capturing their stated news preferences. Politically interested participants are more likely to select negative stories. Interest is associated with a greater preference for strategic frames as well. And results suggest that behavioral results do not conform to attitudinal ones. That is, regardless of what participants say, they exhibit a preference for negative news content. |
| Keywords |
Negative news, strategy news, negativity bias, horse race, consumer demand, experimental design, gatekeeping |
| URL |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1940161214524832 |
| Tags |
Experimental / Survey-Based Empirical |
Media and Textual Analysis |
Social Transmission Biases
|