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The impact of news consumption on anti-immigration attitudes and populist party support in a changing media ecology

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posted on 2020-09-07, 13:12 authored by Vaclav StetkaVaclav Stetka, Sabina MiheljSabina Mihelj, Fanni Toth
Democracies around the world are facing a rising wave of right-wing populism and new nationalism, which often relies on strategic exploitation of anti-immigration sentiments. While media have long been acknowledged as important channels of anti-immigration rhetoric, the evidence of the actual impact of news consumption on attitudes to
migration and support for populist parties is still inconclusive, and largely limited to pre-digital media ecologies. Combining a representative twowave panel survey (N=819), digital tracking of real-time electronic measurement of television, radio and online media exposure, and an analysis of news content, this study explores the effect of news consumption on anti-immigration attitudes and electoral behaviour during the EP2019 election campaign in the Czech Republic. Our analysis reveals that being exposed to news about migration – particularly on websites and on commercial television stations – increases the likelihood of voting for populist parties, while exposure to public service media leads to less negative attitudes towards immigration. At the same time, being exposed to more news sources intensifies, rather than reduces, anti-immigrant attitudes. This result challenges the assumption that a more diverse news media diet could serve as an antidote to selective exposure and “echo chambers”, commonly linked with radicalization of political views.

History

School

  • Social Sciences and Humanities

Department

  • Communication and Media

Published in

Political Communication

Volume

38

Issue

5

Pages

539-560

Publisher

Taylor & Francis (Routledge)

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Rights holder

© The authors

Publisher statement

This is an Open Access Article. It is published by Taylor and Francis under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported Licence (CC BY). Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Acceptance date

2020-08-30

Publication date

2020-10-22

Copyright date

2021

ISSN

1058-4609

eISSN

1091-7675

Language

  • en

Depositor

Dr Vaclav Stetka Deposit date: 4 September 2020

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