Suchergebnisse

Elite polarization is at an all-time high. Has this division filtered down into the public, and is this trend being exacerbated by expanded media choice in the postbroadcast era? Using National Annenberg Election Surveys (NAES) data from recent election cycles, we analyze the influence of news choice on individual-level perceptions of the ideologies of parties and partisan elites. We examine whether cable news choice shapes respondents' ability to correctly identify Democrats as the more liberal party, and Republicans as more conservative. Using cross-sectional and panel data, we find that partisan news consumers—particularly those watching Fox News—are better able to identify the positions and ideologies of partisan elites. Partisan news may help citizens participate more effectively by helping them identify the ideological orientation of the major parties and candidates.

ObjectivesUnder what circumstances are voters most likely to correctly situate political parties along a left‐right spatial continuum? Answering this question is profoundly important for our understanding of the spatial theory of party competition, which has typically generated empirically verifiable predictions about party‐level platform shifts, but fallen short when it comes to making predictions about voter‐level perceptions.Method. We use a multilevel cross‐national database of hundreds of thousands of voters in recent elections in Western and Eastern European democracies, and hierarchical linear modeling to test our hypotheses. Results. We demonstrate that the prevalence of Internet usage in a country systematically shapes individual voters' objective accuracy in their placements of parties' platforms on the left‐right spectrum. However, these effects accrue differently across certain populations of voters. Conclusion. The party placements of those individuals who self‐report as being ideologically extreme are affected more substantially by Internet prevalence than those of moderate voters.