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The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is amongst the most polarizing topics today, particularly when comparing predominant U.S. and Arab perspectives. News media are often criticized for being pro-Israel or pro-Palestine, and more so during deadly wars. This study examines all 320 images Al Jazeera Arabic and Fox News put out in their articles covering the May 2021 Gaza War and investigates how Qatar and the U.S.'s proximity to Israel and Palestine factored into the outlets' visual framing choices. Despite both invoking the David and Goliath master narrative, they provided a polarized coverage of the war, with Al Jazeera proliferating narratives of Hamas and pro-Palestine supporters and exclusively foregrounding the suffering of Palestinian civilians, and Fox legitimating Israeli military actions and presenting Hamas as a terrorizing force that disrupts the lives of Israelis as well as wreaks havoc and fuels anti-Jewish sentiments in the U.S. After dissecting the cross-cultural differences in death and dying portrayals, displays of Israelis and Palestinians, and recurrent visual themes, the study concludes with a discussion on the influence of news agencies on media's photographic decisions and the implications of extreme alignment in the proximity-framing nexus on the propagation of mediated clash of civilizations in the digital news sphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on the origin, dissemination, and support of conspiracy theories has skyrocketed. Studies reveal how individual antecedents such as people's personality traits, intrinsic motivations, and broad social-psychological processes explain this phenomenon. Fewer studies, however, explored the role of cable news exposure. This study casts a new light on how exposure to Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC relate to people's levels of general conspiracy mentality fueled by the belief in "secret-plotting orchestrated by powerful others." Results from K-mean cluster algorithms, ordinary least squares (OLS) causal-autoregressive regressions, and cross-lagged panel structural equation model tests show Fox News exposure fosters people's conspiracy mentality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In printed media, not only do newspapers play a key role but also its editors and, perhaps even more so, the owners of these newspapers. Those are the ones who Beecher calls media moguls. Among the handful of newspaper proprietors, Rupert Murdoch is not only the most infamous but also the most notorious. Beecher, who was once an editor for Murdoch, delivers an inside view of the internal affairs of Murdoch’s news empire. This includes not only Murdoch’s activities in the UK and Australia, but also in the USA. In the USA, for example, Fox has become a propaganda apparatus for Trump. Yet, long before Trump moved from being a sleazy TV host into politics and having received the support of Murdoch, Murdoch’s far right influence into politics were felt most sharply in Murdoch’s home country of Australia as well as the UK. Murdoch’s phone hacking, his relentless and tremendous support for UK Tories and Brexit are examples that explain the power triangle between Murdoch’s media, voters, and politics. Murdoch has created something that might best be called the Iron Triangle of Media Capitalism. How this works is explained here. Eric Beecher. 2024. The Men Who Killed the News, Melbourne, Simon & Schuster, ISBN: 9781761428043, $ 16.99 (eBook), pp. 416 (pbk.), pp. 901 (eBook), notes and index.

This study examined how relative hostile media perception (i.e. a perceived credibility gap between pro- and counter-attitudinal partisan media outlets) connects to affective polarization. Drawing on theoretical foundations of the corrective action and the self-effects of communication, we tested whether expressive political participation resulting from relative hostile media perceptions exacerbated affective polarization. Findings from a two-wave national survey indicated that relative hostile media perception predicted affective polarization, and this relationship was mediated by expressive political participation. This study supplements the traditional focus on news exposure with a perspective centered on audience perceptions about how partisan media contribute to affective polarization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) is a controversial technique that has been suggested as a means of temporarily halting global warming. A study conducted on 441 individuals in the US in November 2023 investigated the impact of three video presentations either promoting or opposing research on SAI. Two of the videos were presented by scientific experts either promoting or opposing further research into this technology. The third was politicized, featuring Tucker Carlson on Fox News, and arguing that SAI would endanger Americans. We found that all three of the video presentations had a strong influence on general support for or against research, and that the politicized presentation not only reduced support for research but also reduced trust in science and technology to provide solutions to problems facing humanity. The findings suggest the strong impact of messaging on public opinion about research into SAI as a climate change intervention strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the public discourse about vaccines on Twitter during the COVID-19 pandemic and compares it with the discourses about vaccines before the pandemic. Discourse, users’ profile, content, tone, vaccines, and sources of information were manually coded. We have identified a diversity of discourses related to vaccines. The discourse that has stood out the most during the pandemic is related to pandemic management measures. Nevertheless, both denialist and anti-denialist discourses are reduced compared to the previous period. Besides this, less polarization and more neutral discourse were identified during the pandemic. The two periods are expressly marked by tweets with content related to opinions and personal experiences regarding vaccines. Some of them are characterized, in general, by informality in how the users communicate their ideas. Interestingly, users from the medical-scientific sphere did not participate more in Twitter during the pandemic. There were fewer posts including scientific findings and more tweets about patient resources. On the other hand, the media and journalists were very active in this period by disseminating information and issuing vaccine opinions, reflecting their essential role in health crises. However, the presence of television channels, such as Fox News, can be an indication of conservative ideas on vaccines. Thus, the discourses have expressed different meanings in relation to the issue and disputed their legitimacy in this symbolic and virtual market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In printed media, not only do newspapers play a key role but also its editors and, perhaps even more so, the owners of these newspapers. Those are the ones who Beecher calls media moguls. Among the handful of newspaper proprietors, Rupert Murdoch is not only the most infamous but also the most notorious. Beecher, who was once an editor for Murdoch, delivers an inside view of the internal affairs of Murdoch's news empire. This includes not only Murdoch's activities in the UK and Australia, but also in the USA. In the USA, for example, Fox has become a propaganda apparatus for Trump. Yet, long before Trump moved from being a sleazy TV host into politics and having received the support of Murdoch, Murdoch's far right influence into politics were felt most sharply in Murdoch's home country of Australia as well as the UK. Murdoch's phone hacking, his relentless and tremendous support for UK Tories and Brexit are examples that explain the power triangle between Murdoch's media, voters, and politics. Murdoch has created something that might best be called the Iron Triangle of Media Capitalism. How this works is explained here. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over two-thirds of the U.S. population uses YouTube, and a quarter of U.S. adults regularly receive their news from it. Despite the massive political content available on the platform, to date, no classifier has been proposed to classify the political leaning of YouTube videos. The only exception is a classifier that requires extensive information about each video (rather than just the title) and classifies the videos into just three classes (rather than the widely-used categorization into six classes). To fill this gap, "PoLYTC" (Political Leaning YouTube Classifier) is proposed to classify YouTube videos based on their titles into six political classes. PoLYTC utilizes a large language model, namely BERT, and is fine-tuned on a public dataset of 11.5 million YouTube videos. Experiments reveal that the proposed solution achieves high accuracy (75%) and high F1-score (77%), thereby outperforming the state of the art. To further validate the solution's classification performance, several videos were collected from numerous prominent news agencies' YouTube channels, such as Fox News and The New York Times, which have widely known political leanings. These videos were classified based on their titles, and the results have shown that, in the vast majority of cases, the predicted political leaning matches that of the news agency. PoLYTC can help YouTube users make informed decisions about which videos to watch and can help researchers analyze the political content on YouTube. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is there an economic incentive for celebrities and well-known media firms to commingle falsehoods into news stories? We conducted five experiments, plus a field validation using secondary data. When presented by celebrities and well-known media firms, a commingled partisan falsehood in an otherwise true news story significantly increased viewing and sharing intentions among politically aligned viewers. The effect was weaker but significant when we replaced the celebrity with an unknown speaker and disappeared when both the celebrity and the well-known firm were replaced by unknowns. This effect was explained by confirmation bias and the viewer's belief that the falsehood was true. In contrast, a false news story focusing on the same falsehood increased viewing and sharing intentions only when presented by unknowns, with viewers' belief playing a limited role. The field study found a significantly positive relationship between a commingled partisan falsehood in videos of well-known media firms and actual viewership. We conclude that commingled partisan falsehoods provide a significant viewership increase for celebrities and well-known media firms, creating an economic incentive for lying and posing complex challenges in the fake news era. We discuss the challenges and opportunities in this area for policymakers and media firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation had been investigating the relationship between Russian agents and members of Trump’s presidential campaign since July 2016 out of suspicions that the President-elect worked with Russia to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, which became a major news event in American media. The headlines from news media outlets illustrate the strategic use of language to shape opinions and frames. Conducted with the tools of System Functional Linguistics, in particular, the appraisal and ideation resources, based on the framing theory of Journalism Studies, this research aims to answer the two research questions: (1) What frames did The New York Times and Fox News construct in their coverage of the Mueller investigation? (2) What linguistic strategies did The New York Times and Fox News use respectively to construct their frames? It was found that The New York Times uses fewer evaluative tools than Fox News, but the expression of attitudes draws on the context in which they are presented and evaluation is expressed in a more sophisticated and refined manner. Fox News is more straightforward without hiding its own opinion and biases. This research is important in further understanding of the American media and their linguistic strategies in forming manipulative frames.

This article explores the impact of cable news, specifically Fox News and MSNBC, on viewers' policy views in the United States. The authors analyze the coverage of four policy issues and link it to viewership of these channels. They find that viewers tend to align with the slant of coverage and that this has a significant influence on their policy views, even after accounting for individual ideology and party affiliation. The study contributes to existing research on the political effects of mass media, emphasizing the need to understand the role of media in shaping public opinion. [Extracted from the article]

Local exposure to conservative news causes judges to impose harsher criminal sentences. Our evidence comes from an instrumental variable analysis, where randomness in television channel positioning across localities induces exogenous variation in exposure to the Fox News Channel. These treatment data on news viewership are taken to outcome data on almost seven million criminal sentencing decisions in the United States for the years 2005–17. Higher Fox News viewership increases incarceration length, and the effect is stronger for Black defendants and for drug-related crimes. We can rule out changes in the behaviour of police, prosecutors or potential offenders as significant drivers. Consistent with changes in voter attitudes as the key mechanism, the effect on sentencing harshness is observed for elected (but not appointed) judges. Fox News viewership also increases self-reported beliefs about the importance of drug crime as a social problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The proliferation of information technologies has revolutionized how people around the world consume news. By 2021, an estimated 8.6 billion mobile subscriptions existed worldwide. In the United States, a majority (84%) of Americans access their news digitally. On social media platforms, Facebook is the most used network for obtaining news. The three major news sources in the United States, CNN, Fox News, and MSNC, have a strong presence on Facebook. The current study analyzes public comments posted on Facebook involving the deadly police shootings of four Black men (i.e., Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, Jonathan Price, Rayshard Brooks) to identify reactions at two points in time. Our work centers on public comments to these posts, not the posts themselves. Using a summative qualitative analysis, we analyzed the first 20 Facebook comments from CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC that are listed as most relevant (e.g., highest number of likes, reactions, replies) to the most recently posted news story regarding the incident. This resulted in a sample size of 223 posts. Public comments were categorized as justifying the killing, perceiving the killing as not justified, or expressing neutrality as to whether the killing was justified or not. We found that most comments, regardless of time period, did not engage in victim-blaming. Overall, the majority (N = 139 or 62%) of all comments perceived these deadly police shootings as not justified. Most (54%) posts on Fox News justified this violence, while the majority of posts on CNN or MSNBC felt the police had used excessive violence. There were more negative comments of Black men and victim-blaming after the Trump presidency (in 2020) than in 2016 (before Trump took office), which may be related to the racial rhetoric of the times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the early weeks of the 2020 coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the Fox News Channel advanced a skeptical narrative that downplayed the risks posed by the virus. We find that this narrative had significant consequences: in localities with higher Fox News viewership—exogenous due to random variation in channel positioning—people were less likely to adopt behaviors geared toward social distancing (e.g., staying at home) and consumed fewer goods in preparation (e.g., cleaning products, hand sanitizers, and masks). Using original survey data, we find that the effect of Fox News came not merely from its long-standing distrustful stance toward science, but also due to program-specific content that minimized the COVID-19 threat. Taken together, our results demonstrate the significant impact that misinformation in media coverage can exert on viewers' beliefs and behavior, even in high-stakes situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation had been investigating the relationship between Russian agents and members of Trump's presidential campaign since July 2016 out of suspicions that the President-elect worked with Russia to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, which became a major news event in American media. The headlines from news media outlets illustrate the strategic use of language to shape opinions and frames. Conducted with the tools of System Functional Linguistics, in particular, the appraisal and ideation resources, based on the framing theory of Journalism Studies, this research aims to answer the two research questions: (1) What frames did The New York Times and Fox News construct in their coverage of the Mueller investigation? (2) What linguistic strategies did The New York Times and Fox News use respectively to construct their frames? It was found that The New York Times uses fewer evaluative tools than Fox News, but the expression of attitudes draws on the context in which they are presented and evaluation is expressed in a more sophisticated and refined manner. Fox News is more straightforward without hiding its own opinion and biases. This research is important in further understanding of the American media and their linguistic strategies in forming manipulative frames. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates whether news sentiment plays a role in setting social media sentiment to explore the dynamics of sentiment develop and diffusion within the public agenda. Based on the agenda-setting theory, this study analyzed the public and media sentiments towards the 2016 US election and the candidates using data from Twitter, CNN, and Fox News. Focusing on the Twitter messages created by the supporters of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, over 1.3 million Twitter messages were collected associated with the election, employing hashtags as indicators of support. The Granger causality test between social media and news sentiments revealed that there is a mutual influence between social media and news sentiments; CNN's overall sentiment was influenced by the sentiment of Hillary Clinton's supporters, whereas Trump supporters' sentiment was influenced by Fox News' negative sentiment. The results suggest that public sentiment is formed in response to public agenda and mass media, indicating that sentiment is a critical component in understanding public opinion. Implications for future studies and limitations are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2020 publicized deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor have increased social attention to incidents of police use of force in the USA. The spotlight of these events has created a divisive outlook on police tactics. Further, the current political climate has accentuated opposing viewpoints that highlight either the need for police reform or a steadfast stance on law and order. It is widely disputed whether heightened media reporting can influence individuals. This study uses historical posts from the official X, formerly known as Twitter, handles of CNN and Fox News beginning March 25, 2020, and ending November 3, 2020. A content analysis of this sample was conducted to develop thematic messages from each news provider. Results indicate that both news sources use political ideologies to characterize the same reported events. CNN focused specifically on victimology while Fox News emphasized the lawlessness of citizen demonstrations. CNN coverage centers on public demonstrations and the need for criminal justice reform. Alternatively, FOX News coverage characterizes riots and the call for steadfast law enforcement efforts to maintain public safety. The described characteristics share perspectives from the "warrior" and "guardian" roles of police officers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since September 2020, Fox News spawned an anti-critical race theory (CRT) disinformation campaign, that has reverberated in the whitestream's echo chamber. The disinformation largely appeals to white people who refuse to see racism, unless they feel it is impinging their rights. The campaign against CRT has penetrated the e-tailer site Amazon. com where books identified by Fox News as CRT texts have experienced increasingly hyperbolic and disinformed customer reviews. Encountering these reviews, we questioned how Amazon reviewers used a mundane platform to reify whiteness, while feigning hurt and ignorance. In this article, we present results from a qualitative critical race content analysis of Amazon.com customer reviews of four books identified by Fox News. A dialectical engagement between the tenets of CRT and key concepts of critical whiteness studies guided our analysis to describe how Amazon reviews enforced en/whitened postdigital spaces. Our results indicate that reviewers transmitted emo-social whiteness, discursively keeping white racism implacable yet, off the table. Framing our discussion, we examine current violent movements resulting from the anti-CRT echo chamber and its impact on education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recommendation systems have become ubiquitous, and they actively participate in creating our individual and collective identity. In this paper, the diffusion of climate change information has been studied based on YouTube's recommendation system and the political media landscape. The YouTube channels of CNN, BBC News and Fox News, as the most popular channels, respectively, for Left, Center and Right parties, were explored using web scraping and social network analysis to check what kind of recommended content will pop up if a user looks for climate change videos. Using an agent-based modeling approach, the competition between Left, Center and Right media in pushing their own narrative of climate change in society was simulated. The results suggest YouTube's recommendation algorithm is highly biased since most of the recommended content was from the same channel fitting their own political agenda. The agent-based modeling indicates the size of a network is a decisive factor in further spread of a message as Left media always dominated Center and Right media in pushing their own perspective on climate change regardless of higher weights assigned to Right media. This study shed light on how public perception on climate change can be shaped by recommendation systems and digital companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Individuals seeking news content face a variety of options in the current media landscape, yet scholarly research provides little evidence regarding the conditions under which they might become more or less open to different partisan news outlets. Drawing on the case of Donald Trump's critiques of Fox News, I argue that elite rhetoric plays an important role in this process for members of both parties. I first conduct an original content analysis of Trump's tweets from 2017 to 2020 and find that he increasingly attacked Fox News on this platform. Notably, Trump's increasingly critical rhetoric about Fox correlates significantly with decreases in both Fox's daytime and prime-time ratings. Two survey experiments shed light on how individuals respond to this intraparty conflict, and I find that Trump's rhetoric affects both Republicans and Democrats. Republicans view Fox as less conservative and more critical of Trump when exposed to his critiques of the outlet. However, Republicans do not change their viewing habits until Trump promotes an alternative to Fox like OANN. Democrats respond to Trump's rhetoric by updating their perceptions of Fox's coverage and ideology as well as increasing their willingness to watch the channel, both in isolation and relative to an alternative like OANN. The results suggest that elite rhetoric is instrumental in shaping views of and demand for partisan outlets among members of both parties and can elevate more ideologically extreme sources among followers. Thus, elite rhetoric serves as a meaningful cue for individuals navigating an increasingly fragmented partisan media landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

News source attribution in selective exposure has been examined in many contexts, but rarely in the context of selecting news from distrusted sources. As such, 800 US adults were asked to select one of two headlines attributed to CNN and/or Fox News. Results showed some people selected news from a distrusted source, but only under very specific circumstances. Others avoided the awkward moment of siding with a distrusted source, even when that meant selecting news from a trusted source that was counter-attitudinal to the source's typical slant on global warming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates metaphorical framing in political language. In particular, we describe dominant metaphoric frames which are used by the conservative and liberal media in the US when debating over the different aspects of the socio-political issues. The data for this study have been collected from the online archives of CNN and Fox news that were published on the two topics of medical healthcare system and immigration. We draw upon the ideas from some of the most recent semi-automated metaphor identification approaches to identify metaphors in texts. The findings of this study indicate that the US conservatives use a wider range of metaphorical frames to discuss the political issues. Some metaphorical frames are often used by both parties, while some others mark the divisive partisan rhetoric. Besides, the findings show that there are some metaphoric frames that are exclusively used to talk about a particular aspect of a topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Appearances of elected officials on cable news have become a regular feature of American politics. Do candidates going on cable news see a subsequent bump in fundraising? We evaluate all television appearances for every major party candidate running for the House from 2009–2020 on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News. We match these with FEC records of every individual campaign contribution made during the same period. We find evidence that candidates who appear on cable news do see a spike in fundraising on the day of the appearance. We find incumbents raise more money from in-state donors while nonincumbents see a bump from out-of-state donors. Also, this money comes more from appearances in primetime slots, not daytime appearances. Given that candidates see a bump in fundraising for TV appearances, it remains likely that this facet of American politics will persist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some might expect the promise of ending a global pandemic via vaccination to interrupt conventional partisan media effect processes. We test that possibility by bringing together sentiment-scored COVID vaccine stories (N > 17,000) from cable and mainstream news outlets, N > 180,000 Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) reports, and six original surveys (N = 6,499), in order to investigate (1) whether partisan news outlets covered COVID vaccination in different ways, and (2) if differences in coverage increased vaccine hesitancy. We find that Fox News' (FXNWS) coverage was significantly more negative than that of other cable and mainstream sources, and is associated with increased negative public vaccine sentiment. In the aggregate, adverse event reports tended to increase following periods of heightened negativity on FXNWS. At the micro-level, self-reported FXNWS exposure is associated with increased vaccine refusal. Collectively, the results provide new insights into the public health consequences of vaccine politicization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article compares populist media styles on US cable news and in online video. It juxtaposes the conservative cable giant Fox News with the progressive YouTube-based network the Young Turks (TYT). TYT stands as one of YouTube's longest running and most successful "news and politics" channels on the platform. This progressive digital network has long embraced a populist anchoring style that resembles Fox News and the style of its conservative YouTube competitors. This study establishes the stylistic affinity between TYT and Fox News and then explains how it is driven by a similar commercial-economic logic that prizes "loyal" viewership and "intense" engagement above all else. Shifting from political economy to media activism, this article also chronicles TYT's role in creating the Justice Democrats, the progressive PAC that recruited Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other "Squad" members. This article seeks to complicate the commonly held association between populism and political conservatism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a rapidly developing crisis such as the COVID‐19 pandemic, people are often faced with contradictory or changing information and must determine what sources to trust. Across five time points (N = 5902) we examine how trust in various sources predicts COVID‐19 health behaviors. Trust in experts and national news predicted more engagement with most health behaviors from April 2020 to March 2022 and trust in Fox news, which often positioned itself as counter to the mainstream on COVID‐19, predicted less engagement. However, we also examined a particular public health behavior (masking) before and after the CDC announcement recommending masks on 3 April 2020 (which reversed earlier expert advice discouraging masks for the general public). Prior to the announcement, trust in experts predicted less mask‐wearing while trust in Fox News predicted more. These relationships disappeared in the next 4 days following the announcement and reversed in the 2 years that follow, and emerged for vaccination in the later time points. We also examine how the media trusted by Democrats and Republicans predicts trust in experts and in turn health behaviors. Broadly we consider how the increasingly fragmented epistemic environment has implications for polarization on matters of public health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyse possible discrimination regarding gender and race in the tonality of media coverage of four US newscasts. In particular, we estimate the tonality of news reports from ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX News and distinguish between four distinct combinations of race and gender of public officials. Our results indicate that media reporting on black men (and possibly on black women) is biased in comparison to coverage on white men. Moreover, the coverage of FOX News tends to be more negative on non-white people in general, whereas, for ABC, NBC and CBS, the average reporting on non-white female individuals is more negative than on white males and also more negative than on female whites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using two experimental studies, we examine how the selection and consumption of cable news influences news consumers' cognitive processing, attitudes, and policy preferences. As expected, participants overwhelmingly self-selected into an ideologically aligned cable news network. Then, ideologically congruent messaging from Fox News and MSNBC was likely to prompt higher levels of agreement and lower levels of disagreement for those with mid- and high levels of trust in their selected cable news network. Our findings indicate a reinforcing spiral effect among both MSNBC and Fox News consumers who have high levels of trust in the cable news network they select. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Donald Trump's 2016 presidential election underscored the role of "Truth" and how it functions in an epistemological relationship with conservative identity. Drawing upon Cheryl Harris's notion of "whiteness as property," this article forwards a theoretical framework of "Truth as White property" whereby Truth functions as an extension of whiteness and as a possession of whiteness. Using Fox News' treatment of the 1619 Project as a case study, the author argues that White ownership of Truth relies on the rhetorical strategies of discrediting, dismissing, and redirecting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research examines CNN and Fox News coverage of the 2017 "Unite the Right" rallies held in Charlottesville, VA. The study uses critical race theory to examine how Fox News's Hannity and CNN's AC 360 talk about race and racism in American society in the context of a polarizing, racially-charged event. Results from the textual analysis suggest that both programs structured their coverage around President Donald Trump's reaction to the rally. Hannity's content was primarily structured around themes of defense and blame — it defended Trump and Republicans and cast blame upon Democrats, liberal activists, Black people, and mainstream media. AC 360 constructed Trump as a racist and "unfit" to be president, but also presented a conflicted discourse about racism in American society. Specifically, some of the show's guests suggested that American society had largely moved past extreme forms of racism. Other guests, however, implied that some Americans have exaggerated the extent to which American society has moved beyond racism. Both shows offered up at least some support for the idea that America has become a "post-racist" society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"24/7 Politics: Cable Television and the Fragmenting of America from Watergate to Fox News" by Kathryn Cramer Brownell explores the impact of cable television on democratic participation in the United States. The book argues that politicians prioritized their own power over the public interest when crafting cable policies, leading to a sensationalized infotainment culture and political fragmentation. The rise of Fox News is highlighted as a consequence of cable deregulation. While the book provides a detailed account of the political motives behind cable regulation, it marginalizes the cultural politics that contributed to political polarization. [Extracted from the article]

This study explores the connections between partisan news exposure, affective political polarization, perceived threats from migrants, and immigrant deservingness. Data from a 2018 U.S. national survey indicate that exposure to immigration news on Fox News is associated with higher levels of polarization among Republicans and Democrats, while exposure to such content on CNN is not. Additionally, greater polarization correlates with Republicans perceiving more threats from migrants, while Democrats perceive fewer. Finally, Republicans with higher levels of polarization are more likely than polarized Democrats to believe that migrants should have specific qualifications to be considered deserving. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To compare COVID-19 stigmatization at two pandemic time points (1) August 2020—during lockdowns and prior to vaccine rollout, and (2) May 2021—during vaccine rollout, when approximately half of U.S. adults were vaccinated. Methods: Comparison of COVID19-related stigmatization and associated factors in two national internet surveys conducted in August 2020 (N = 517) and May 2021 (N = 812). Factors associated with endorsing stigmatization were identified using regression analysis. The main outcomes included endorsement of stigmatization and behavioral restrictions towards persons with COVID-19 and towards persons of Chinese descent. A previously developed "stigmatizing attitudes and behavioral restrictions" scale was adapted to measure the intersection of negative attitudes toward COVID-19 disease and negative attitudes toward persons of Chinese descent. Results: COVID-19 related stigmatization declined significantly from August 2020 to May 2021. Many factors were associated with stigmatizing in both surveys: full time employment, Black race, Hispanic ethnicity, worry about contracting COVID-19, probable depression, and Fox News and social media as sources of information (all positively associated), and self-assessed knowledge about COVID-19, contact with Chinese individuals, and publicly funded news as sources (all negatively associated). Positive attitudes toward vaccination were associated with stigmatization. Conclusions: COVID-19 related stigmatization reduced substantially over these two points in the pandemic, with many continuities in the factors associated with stigmatizing. Despite the reduction in stigmatizing, however, some stigmatizing attitudes for both COVID-19 and Chinese individuals remained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020, there has been a significant uptick in anti-Asian sentiment in the United States. Many believe these racist attitudes are cultivated by polarizing political messages and news coverage of the pandemic. Based on a 2021 online survey conducted among 913 White Americans, this study examines possible associations between exposure to pandemic-related news, anti-Asian stigmatization, and the perceived deservingness of Asian immigrants. The findings indicate that the consumption of pandemic-related news on Fox News and social media is associated with higher levels of anti-Asian stigmatization, while exposure to such news on traditional media outlets is not. As expected, respondents with higher levels of anti-Asian stigmatization perceive Asian immigrants as less deserving to come to the United States. Among the five criteria of a newly developed immigrant deservingness scale, especially identity, attitude, and need are associated with anti-Asian stigmatization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior research indicates news sources affect hostile media perceptions, but the role of valenced framing and discrete emotions in perceived media bias remains under-explored. Based on the framing theory and hostile media effect, the study uses an experiment with 2 (CNN vs. Fox News) × 2 (Positive framing vs. Negative framing) design to examine the mediating role of discrete emotions (e.g. hope, anger, and sadness), as well as the moderating effects of racial prejudice. In contrast to prior scholarship, news sources in the study did not influence perceived media bias. However, the results show that hope, anger, and sadness all mediate the relationship between valenced framing and hostile media effect. Such effect was moderated by individuals' racial prejudice. Implications of these findings for combating anti-Asian racism and future hostile media effect research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fox News Channel is a mass media that has ideological ties to the United States Republican Party. Fox & Friends is claimed to be the highest rating cable news program in the US since 2001. In 2019, Fox & Friends reported Christchurch Shooting. The Christchurch incident is the deadliest mass shooting in New Zealand history. FNC constructed reality potentially influenced the public's understanding of Christchurch shooting. This research examines and explores FNC constructed reality by analyzing how the perpetrators, motives, and impacts are framed. Based on research findings, FNC constructed reality denied the Christchurch shooting as an act of terror. It also tried to influence public understanding that the perpetrator has no ideological connection with Donald Trump. When compared with the Utrecht shooting, FNC chose to use word terror in describing the event, even before the Dutch government gave an official statement regarding the incident. FNC constructed reality shows bias and favoritism towards perpetrators of a certain race, which contradicts the company's slogan that claims to produce fair and balanced coverages. Thus, to carry out the journalistic functions in a democratic country, FNC must educate the public about the realities, instead of spreading biased and discriminatory reporting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transgender, non-binary, and gender-diverse (TGD) people face prejudice, which is associated with psychological distress. Guided by critical theory, in the present study we sought to identify arguments used to delegitimize TGD identities online and evaluate their contribution to TGD oppression in an American context. We conducted a thematic analysis of 495 transphobic comments on TGD-related articles obtained from Fox News, Buzzfeed, and The Hill websites. A commenter exhibited anti-TGD prejudice if they used language expressing negative affect (e.g., aversion) toward TGD people. Thematic analysis revealed 11 prejudicial themes: gender essentialism, psychological instability, put-downs, TGD as a social phenomenon, TGD as a social burden, other divergent themes, TGD as unscientific, transition as mutilation, equating TGD with other concepts, childhood transition as abuse, and TGD people are dangerous. We identify implications for the mental health of TGD people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research on the newsjunkie trait—intrinsic need for orientation (INFO)—has not yet examined specific kinds of information newsjunkies consume or whether the newsjunkie characteristic predicts outcomes like political knowledge. Study 1 surveyed U.S. adults' (N = 2,059) INFO, hard news consumption, soft news consumption, use of partisan outlets FOX News, and MSNBC, and use of less-partisan outlets like BBC and NBC. The newsjunkie trait was one of the strongest predictors of hard news consumption (like news about foreign affairs and the economy), after controlling for numerous factors, and it did not predict soft news consumption (news about entertainment, sports, etc.). The newsjunkie trait was positively associated with the use of both partisan and less-partisan outlets. Study 2 examined U.S. adults' (N = 1,054) INFO and political knowledge while holding constant most of the variables controlled for in Study 1. Despite some evidence from Study 1 that newsjunkies are sophisticated news consumers, INFO did not positively predict political knowledge; the strongest positive predictor of political knowledge was consuming political news, and the only other significant news use correlate was the use of FOX News, which was negatively associated with political knowledge. Implications for research on the intrinsic need for orientation, news use, and political outcomes are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Iran’s Nuclear Program (INP) has attracted many eyes and thoughts. While much ink has been spilled on its evolution and its impact on the international security and the middle-eastern politics, it seems there has been a theoretical void in the explanation of this multi-dimensional crisis. Such an unfortunate poverty is no more obvious than in the framing INP by the media. In fact, the impacts of media on conflicts and crisis in general, and on INP in particular, has been recently devalued. Thus, a voyage of the connections of the media framing and INP has been so far intact. The present study is an attempt to give a historical narrative on how the media have framed the trajectory of INP. We will accomplish this mission by locating the impacts of media on INP within an examination of the larger historical context. In this framework, the proposed work will undertake tracing the history of the ebbs and flows within the media—i.e., CNN and Fox News— coverage of INP, explaining how media covered INP. On this reading, the present work is a historiography. It provides a theoretical plot to narrate a story, a story of the history of INP through the lens of media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]