Netherscourge
Banned
White people like white people channels that make white people look flawless and blame non-white people for the world's problems.
-Fox News
-Fox News
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Vox: A stunning new study shows that Fox News is more powerful than we ever imagined
- Thread starter Poetic.Injustice
- Start date
manzoman96
Member
Not surprised, all old people watch it and believe everything it says.
Barajas_201
Member
Isn't Fox News on leased public channels? Why not have a Democrat president take away that concession? Pretty sure I read somewhere that the US government gave them that in exchange of doing accurate news programming, which obviously it's no longer the case with Fox News.
King Tubby
Member
What kind of Democrat watches Fox News on a regular basis?
Yes, surely the economists from one of the best departments in the world have never understood causality, and somehow managed to get multiple papers published in the AER and teach years of grad-level Econometrics courses.
But nope, they've never heard of the distinction between correlation and causality.
Some of you guys, smh
The kind that really want social benefits for themselves and people who look like them, but not for other people.
ChuckHoneywood
Banned
But I swear I read at least a couple threads where MSNBC (and Maddow) were the ratings champ.
What happened?
What happened?
kunonabi
Member
Probably a result of the left using everything else has its own propaganda tool. Its a shame it had to come to this because fox news really is gross and scarily effective at brainwashing people.
"The Left" did not cause an Australian billionaire to create a propaganda machine.
Fancyarcher
Member
Yes and no. Fox news can reach more people maybe, but their ratings will never increase thanks to online. 2.35m viewers would have been considered pathetic back in 04 for example.
entremet
Member
That's the hope with it. The demographic bomb will happen in 20 years and Cable News will be dead.
teruterubozu
Member
That's what they said about talk radio.
What left? There is no left in America, there is a centre right party and a far right party. What are you talking about? You think CNN is the left? Jesus the US is fucked up.
Emperor_Uriel
Member
See, this is one of the major issues I have with my own party. Even in a thread about how insanely influential our "opponent" is, Democrats are still fishing for ways to attack other Democrats.
We're becoming way too judgmental, crucifying our own before the other side even lifts a finger.
IamDodongo
Member
Friends don't let friends watch Fox News
teruterubozu
Member
I think it's the larger issue of extreme polarization in politics. It seeps into everything.
ChuckHoneywood
Banned
Another part of it is that there really aren't any conservatives here to argue/debate with.
dead souls
Member
Not stunning at all. This has been obviously true for years. It has completely ruined my dad.
That's why I call Fox news, Breitbart, Rush, etc the Hate Industry. It is a vast profitable industry with more political influence than any other industry, including big oil and pharma.
This isn't about "attacking other Democrats". It's about acknowledging that some Democrats still are the same "Dixiecrat" types (Lets make sure that we get social benefits...but not for those people.) that have been in the party to one degree or another since FDR.
Without acknowledging this group, you won't be able to work around them when they try and warp policy.
Schattenjäger
Gabriel Knight
Still boils down to being a business.. getting ratings.. and getting ad dollars
Fox found its niche and never looked back .. people also have to separate straight up news reporting and opinion based programs .. the straight up news (think Shepherd Smith) is pretty outstanding compared to others
It will be interesting to see what happens when Breitbart goes into television and also what O'Reilly does .. supposedly will start another broadcast with one of the lesser known conservative channels .. I imagine they will eat into Fox'a base
Fox found its niche and never looked back .. people also have to separate straight up news reporting and opinion based programs .. the straight up news (think Shepherd Smith) is pretty outstanding compared to others
It will be interesting to see what happens when Breitbart goes into television and also what O'Reilly does .. supposedly will start another broadcast with one of the lesser known conservative channels .. I imagine they will eat into Fox'a base
the-pi-guy
Member
Fear sells!
There's a few right wing magazines at a Walmart nearby, and they usually have bright red, flashy covers with sensationalist headlines.
Designed to catch your attention and lure you in, and then they get you with propaganda.
There's a few right wing magazines at a Walmart nearby, and they usually have bright red, flashy covers with sensationalist headlines.
Designed to catch your attention and lure you in, and then they get you with propaganda.
Bolivar687
Banned
Maddow has put up some very impressive numbers where she beats out The Five at the 9pm time slot and overall MSNBC has put on a very competitive lineup.
CNN is fake news.
If you think this is bad, look at the extremely fragmented rhetoric of the right.
You guys have either never watched Fox News, or you watch it all the time and have already been indoctrinated.
It's completely obvious what Fox News is and why it's different from other news networks.
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That huge spike after 2007. I wonder what happened around that time. 🤔
Elegant Weapon
Member
Really think about the world we live in, the most watched "news" station in the country is overt white supremacist propaganda
Chmpocalypse
Blizzard
Jesus, that's a horrifying story.
Chmpocalypse
Blizzard
Lol, no. Unless you're not paying any attention, of course. For one thing, fox straight up lies and makes shit up. The same cannot be said of the other networks.
It doesn't surprise me that you would say this, though.
Jangowuzhere
Banned
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
The methodology is causal. Your correlation story is "areas that are more conservative watch FOX", but this is not compatible with the study's conclusions. They begin by modeling FOX news popularity on district demographics and with state fixed effects (i.e. modeling how areas that are more conservative watch FOX). They take the residuals (variations in the popularity of FOX not explained by their initial model, in other words the components of popularity NOT attributable to political conservatism) and show a first-stage effect of channel placement. In other words, at the time the study was using data, people were more likely to watch channels with lower numbers, everything else considered. Because channel numberings change, they can even observe how FOX gets less popular in a given area when its channel number is bumped higher, and vice versa. They then rely on the association between channel placement and political outcomes (which cannot be endogneous -- i.e. with backwards causality -- because by definition you've already removed all of the predictor connected to the backwards causality in the instrument stage). This is called instrumental variables, and it is the primary way economists and social scientists establish causality with observational data.
This is also not the first study of this effect. The paper extensively cites the famous DellaVigna and Kaplan study, which looked at how FOX News rolled out to begin with. Basically, getting a channel set up in an area is dependent on a bunch of non-political factors, normally having to do with the availability of a local station to affiliate, media market approvals, etc. So DellaVigna and Kaplan exploit variations in the timing of when FOX News was set up in a given place to show that the entry of FOX News into some markets earlier than others caused those markets to become more conservative than markets otherwise similar without FOX News.
I haven't had a full chance to digest Martin and Yurukoglu or their substantive conclusions, but from briefly reading the methodological section, this is causally identified work using exactly the methods we would want it to to ensure that the claim made is supported causally.
You are aware that causality does exist, right? The expression "correlation is not causality" means that it's possible for either true endogeneity, omitted variable bias, or backwards causality to disrupt a causal story being told from observational data, not that it is not possible to make causal claims. The entire basis of this paper is to establish a causal claim, and I am very confident you are not methodologically equipped to evaluate it, certainly without even looking at the paper.
You might think that, which is why the study, as the OP notes, very specifically looks at the presence of slant in the cable networks over time using a widely recognized and validated methodology for doing so (which, incidentally, is a literature primarily occupied with conservatives trying to prove the Liberal Media is out to get them, so exactly the opposite belief you'd expect to turn up evidence that FOX News has a slant). What do you think they concluded?
Then your not paying attention.
You can literally watch fox's talking points throughout the day on a given subject then listen to republicans echo the exact same talking points. It's almost as if there is a list serv that gets sent out every day with a break down of talking points by subject.
yup :/
Netherscourge
Banned
A black man in a white house happened.
MercuryLS3
Junior Member
I came back to add more support to the paper, and I see you've done a fantastic job at it already. Thank you.
Yeah, pretty sure he was being sarcastic.
Quick, easily digestible fear-based and emotional appeals are far more influential than factual, thoughtful news reporting. Not just in the US but in many countries. If MSNBC were as unscrupulous as Fox and went whole hog in the other direction, they'd probably see similar results.
andythinkpad
Member
I was thinking Frieza.
Lord_Byron28
Member
To be frank, no Fox news is not more powerful than we thought. It's been obvious and scary how powerful they were during Obama's presidency.
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