Professor McDaniel's Research Finds Fox News Affects Racial Polarization

FAIR (FAIRNESS AND ACCURACY IN REPORTING) -- Jason McDaniel, SF State assistant professor, and Sean McElwee, Demos research associate, conducted research to judge how Fox News coverage affects racial polarization. “Based on an analysis of the American National Election Studies 2012 dataset, we find that white respondents who regularly watch Fox News are more likely to express attitudes of symbolic racism and racial resentment. This is especially true of those Fox News viewers who live in the South. “ .... Though people of color are far more likely to live under an unrepresentative city council and have far less influence over policy, many racist whites wrongly think that government disproportionately benefits non-whites through social programs. Our analysis suggests that regular Fox News viewers are more likely to hold such opinions, even after controlling for other factors such as individual race, age, income, education, partisanship, ideology, religiosity and geography.”