Political Ideology and Media Consumption
Abstract
Politics is a far reaching phenomenon that, in essence, controls everything that we do in our daily lives without us even realizing it most of the time, and it is constantly evolving and changing to fit the narrative of the age. In this modern world, we see an increase in political radicalization, especially in the United States. Politics has become more of a social experience than a set of beliefs, with some going so far as to incorporate it into their personal identity and seek and find the ideas that best fit them. This research analyzes the effect that a person’s political ideology has on the amount and type of political media that they consume. For this study, ideology is defined as how a person identifies themselves as a liberal, moderate, or conservative; the amount of media is understood as how often a person tunes into a program or logs into a social media website to find out information regarding politics, and the type of media is defined as either television or social media as a whole. For this study, I am using variables from the American National Election Study of 2012. This is a report created from surveying respondents before and after every presidential election cycle to provide clarity as to why Americans vote the way that they do. Data includes many different facets of people’s ideologies and beliefs, including their opinions on the different kinds of media and the amount of media that they choose to consume.
Political Ideology and Media Consumption
Politics is a far reaching phenomenon that, in essence, controls everything that we do in our daily lives without us even realizing it most of the time, and it is constantly evolving and changing to fit the narrative of the age. In this modern world, we see an increase in political radicalization, especially in the United States. Politics has become more of a social experience than a set of beliefs, with some going so far as to incorporate it into their personal identity and seek and find the ideas that best fit them. This research analyzes the effect that a person’s political ideology has on the amount and type of political media that they consume. For this study, ideology is defined as how a person identifies themselves as a liberal, moderate, or conservative; the amount of media is understood as how often a person tunes into a program or logs into a social media website to find out information regarding politics, and the type of media is defined as either television or social media as a whole. For this study, I am using variables from the American National Election Study of 2012. This is a report created from surveying respondents before and after every presidential election cycle to provide clarity as to why Americans vote the way that they do. Data includes many different facets of people’s ideologies and beliefs, including their opinions on the different kinds of media and the amount of media that they choose to consume.