No abstract

Due to changes in the media landscape, the vast majority of the public now depends on a mix of media formats for science news. This study analyzes audiences' repertoires of science media consumption, and the effect of these consumption patterns on public understanding of science. We also profile those who rely on a mix of online-only sources and traditional media for science news. Our findings indicate that primarily relying on online-only sources is positively associated with a higher understanding of science, even when pertaining to respondents' level of education and scientific training in the past.

No abstract

One recent and conspicuous change in the U.S. media landscape has been the shift toward more markedly partisan news content. At the same time, data suggest that the media audience has become more polarized across a wide array of controversial and politicized issues. Recruiting from a group of highly polarized opponents of childhood vaccinations, this study employed a 3 (content bias) × 2 (partisan vs. neutral participants) × 2 (information source) experimental design to examine audience perceptions of information bias. The data supported an expected hostile media perception in the case of "fair and balanced" information, but different patterns in the other bias conditions suggest that content variables can sometimes disarm defensive processing. Keywordshostile media effect, partisanship, partisan media, contrast effects, vaccinations Partisans, people with strong opinions and/or high involvement in a contested issue, are prone to perceive news coverage of that issue as biased, and biased in a disagreeable direction. This so-called hostile media effect has been demonstrated in scores of studies of "neutral" news: Partisans of all stripes perceive an unfavorable slant in the same content that disinterested observers see as fair and balanced.When this hostile media perception was first empirically tested more than 25 years ago (Vallone, Ross, & Lepper, 1985), balanced news was arguably the norm. From the thud of the morning newspaper on the front porch to Walter Cronkite's closing words on the CBS 440 Communication Research 39(4) evening news, people had subsisted over many decades on a relatively homogeneous diet of what the news industry called a "fair and objective" representation of events.But the traditional news monolith has undergone profound changes, including a shift away from the posture of objective or balanced journalism toward a markedly partisan press. Democrats describe the most popular cable news channel, Fox News, as a ". . . communications arm of the Republican party" (CBSNews, 2009) while MSNBC is seen as "awash in progressive politics" (Kornacki, 2011). Even traditional mainstream media are less staunchly committed to the ideal of objectivity and observations of "the rise in media polarization" have become commonplace (Harwood, 2009).In addition to changes in content are changes in choice. The proliferation of cable and later online news and information sources has given the media audience a vastly increased selection from which to choose. One reflection of increased news media choice is the general decline of broadcast news viewership while cable and online news continue to gain viewers (PEW, 2010). With the relative ease of a TV remote or computer mouse people can access information from a very broad array of sources (Prior, 2007).Alongside these shifts in content and access are signs that the media audience is becoming increasingly partisan (Abramowitz & Saunders, 2006). Empirical evidence, for example, demonstrates that exposure to opinionated news content promotes greater perceived distance ...

Increased hydraulic fracturing operations (also known as ‗fracking') in the U.S. have introduced a larger portion of the public to new and more extensive risks and benefits: from concerns of impacts on water quality and human health to benefits from increased oil and gas production and local economic development. As most policy affecting fracking occurs at the state-level, it is important to understand how citizens' support for the technology is shaped by their states' industrial, environmental, and socioeconomic experiences. Using a nationally representative survey, we construct a multilevel model to understand how individuals' support for fracking varies as a function of both individualand state-level characteristics. At the state-level, we find that people residing in states with a higher poverty rate and higher ground water use for public drinking supply are