Media Research

What voters do is revealed at the ballot box—These are the facts of political research. But what leads citizens to vote as they do?

Media research needs to be at the forefront of election forecasting. What are people reading? What are they seeing? What do they believe? Whom do they trust?

Media inform poll respondents. Media inform investors in prediction markets. And media inform voters.

Across mainstream media, independent media, and social media, we seek a better understanding of the influences on public opinion and voting behavior.

The media landscape is continually changing. Political researchers and election forecasters need to understand the current media landscape.

Usher (2021) points to challenges facing journalism and traditional news media. Local newspapers are in decline. Large news outlets are controlled by the rich and powerful. There is a need for independent, nonpartisan media and investigative journalism. This is a exceptionally well-documented book about contemporary journalism.

Diakopoulos (2019) shows that much of the news we consume is automated—generated by news aggregators and algorithms. Developments in generative AI and large language models exasperates the problem.

Conger and Mac (2024) trace events around Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, a significant development that affected the 2024 election. Twitter (X) no longer represents a trusted, moderated, global town square. And most recently, the social media site has stopped fact-checking.

Citizens, voters, and political scientists seek open news sources of trustworthy, nonpartisan information. Credible sources like the Associated Press have been joined by information services such as Ground News and NewsGuard.

There is much to be learned about journalism and the media. For views about what to expect in 2025, see the Nieman Lab Predictions for Journalism, 2025.

As citizens, we must demand more from mainstream media, independent media, and social media. The truth matters. Facts matter. And to the extent that publishers and media providers become purveyors of lies, misinformation, and disinformation, they should be discounted.

The Rise and Fall of the Mainstream Media, produced by Then & Now, provides an excellent review of the current media landscape, drawing on the history of journalism in the UK and US.

References on Journalism and the Media #

Congor, Kate and Ryan Mac. 2024. Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter. New York: Penguin Press. [ISBN-13: 978-0593656136] Amazon Associates Paid Links: Hardcover, Paperback, Kindle.

Diakopoulos, Nicholas. 2019. Automating the News: How Algorithms Are Rewriting the Media. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. [ISBN-13: 978-0190120788]. Amazon Associates Paid Links: Hardcover, Kindle.

Usher, Nikki. 2021. News for the Rich, White, and Blue: How Place and Power Distort American Journalism. New York: Columbia University Press. [ISBN-13: 978-0231184670] Amazon Associates Paid Links: Hardcover, Paperback, Kindle.

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