Volume 18, Issue 3

The political content on cable TV is symptomatic of the highly polarized era we live in. In this study of Fox and MSNBC, we sampled primetime evening programs on both and analyzed each major story presented. Our approach conceptualized each segment as a narrative and, as such, we coded the political arc of these stories and focused on the villains animating each set piece. On Fox the villains, who are harshly denounced, are disproportionately people of color. In contrast, on MSNBC, the villains are rarely minorities. Likewise, women are disproportionately the villains on Fox, frequently described as unintelligent and out of control. On MSNBC, women are almost never the villain. Despite the abrasiveness of its content, Fox’s business model works as there is a substantial audience for this type of outrage programming.

Since the 2016 election, the relationship between Trump supporters and Fox News has gained considerable attention. Drawing on interviews with more than 200 people and a representative survey conducted in the state of Wisconsin, we dive deeper into the media habits of Trump supporters using a mixed methods analytical approach. While we do not refute the importance of Fox News in the conservative media ecology, we find that characterizing Trump supporters as isolated in Fox News bubbles obscures the fact that many are news omnivores, or people who consume a wide variety of news. In fact, we find that Trump supporters may have more politically heterogeneous consumption habits than Trump non-supporters. We find that 17% of our survey respondents who support Trump in Wisconsin are regularly exposed to ideologically heterogeneous news media. We also find that like other voters, Trump supporters are disenchanted with the divisive nature of contemporary media and politics. Finally, we analyze the media use of young Trump supporters and find an especially high level of news omnivorousness among them.

In Homestyle: House Members in their Districts (1978) Richard Fenno argued that members of Congress utilize different “home styles” when communicating with various segments of their constituency. These tailored, face-to-face interactions help build trust, are essential to the reelection effort, and shape member behavior once in office. In this paper, we reconfigure and extend Fenno’s theory to help explain presidential (in)action in the digital age. By analyzing President Trump’s daily press briefings and social media presence during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, we argue that just as a representative’s home style carries over into governance, the same can be said for a president in what we have called “presidential home styles.” We find that the characteristics that made Trump a successful campaigner in the 2016 election are not conducive to effective governance, especially during a crisis.

Considering that cable news has become a primary source of political information for many Americans, this article examines the role and impact of Fox News in the United States, particularly as it compares to other news outlets. We begin by offering a historical analysis of Fox News’ formation and growth in popularity, including a review of existing scholarship on the network’s impact on news consumers. Prior research as well as an additional nationally-representative dataset reveals that two policy areas are particularly potent among Fox News’ consumers: immigration and climate change. Additionally, scholars have found initial evidence for the role of Fox News in shaping its viewers’ responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. We then consider the cognitive processing utilized by news consumers, explaining how it may differ among individuals who opt to consume Fox News and those who get news from other sources. We conclude by reviewing why three specific areas—immigration, climate change, and COVID-19—resonate so strongly with Fox News consumers.

We examine the extent to which Republican members of the House of Representatives have attempted to delegitimize established media by adopting the fake news label on Twitter since Donald Trump’s election. We find that a significant minority of Republican representatives used the fake news label on Twitter. Ideology, measured through roll-call voting behavior (DW-NOMINATE), was the strongest indicator of likely adoption, with conservative representatives using the label at significantly higher rates than comparative moderates. Quantity of tweets sent was a further significant predictor of use, with active Twitter users more disposed to use the label on the platform. District partisanship (PVI) provided no explanatory value beyond ideology, suggesting limited ‘tactical’ use of the label for electoral gain. We discuss potential reasons for these findings and consider consequences for various actors, including Trump. We respond to a call in the literature for more empirical data concerning the use of the fake news label by actors other than President Trump by assessing the extent to which House Republicans have adopted this behavior.