Commentary

Opinion Done Wrong: Researchers Find Fox News Hurts Stay-At-Home Compliance

1. Jay Goldstein from Independent, May 27, 2020 at 11:03 a.m.

   Good article Joe, now I will sit back and watch the "whataboutism" responses. 

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Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc, May 27, 2020 at 1:30 p.m.
Joe, a question. Did the study claim that a 1% increase in average minute viewership of Fox News ---which would be a very small number of eyeballs----caused an 8.9% propensity to not stay at home---or was this a referrence to an absolute 1% of the population joining  Fox for "news" coverage per minute---which would represent a huge increase---more than doubling its viewership.If the former is the case, I find it difficult to accept that such an impact could be generated. If it's the latter--an absolute 1% of the population added to the normal viewing level, that makes more sense.
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Joe Mandese from MediaPost Inc., May 27, 2020 at 1:46 p.m.
@Ed Papazian: You can review the methodology and findings yourself and weigh in on its veracity if you want. It's downloadable from the article or via this link:

https://s3.amazonaws.com/media.mediapost.com/uploads/FoxNewsPaper.pdf
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Jack Wakshlag from Media Strategy, Research & Analytics, May 27, 2020 at 4:23 p.m.
Warning. Correlation is not causation. 
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Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc, May 27, 2020 at 6:57 p.m.
Jack, take a look at the actual writeup---it's tedious but very revealing. I think that you will be surprised---especially about the audience assumptions and what data was used.
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Mike Donatello from N/A, May 28, 2020 at 1:39 p.m.
I just skimmed the paper. The idea that increased Fox News consumption leads directly to reduced propensity to remain at home is a bit simplistic. Did I miss the inclusion of components in the model to test whether both viewership and “social distancing compliance" are outcomes of latent factors such as distrust of government, belief that other news outlets are more likely to feature pro-government or politically objectionable narratives, etc.? (I don’t believe so.) Attitudes like those could account for both viewership and isolation behavior as well as a positive relationship between viewing and a behavioral outcome, whether the latter is modeled as concurrent or lagged. Although the authors caution that “our data do not permit us to test the exact mechanism through which Fox News viewership persuades individuals against complying with social distancing” (p. 25), the several alternative mechanisms proffered don’t include the one I mentioned.

 

Using aggregate data to explain an individual-level process is troublesome, and failing to include potentially important mediators makes the task more difficult. In this case, the claim that viewership drives behavior is a wobbly one.
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