“Reliable Sources” in Cable News: Analyzing Network Fragmentation in Coverage of Reform Policy

ABSTRACT

News coverage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) and President Obama’s announced Clean Power Plan (CPP) served as data for two case studies. Social network analysis was used to investigate the sources used by cable giants CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC. Both case studies show the extent of sourcing varies across the three news outlets, with CNN using the smallest network, MSNBC using the largest, and Fox falling somewhere in between. Ultimately, the source networks of the three cable outlets were highly fragmented with the exception of high-profile politicians. While the number of sources used in PPACA coverage stayed relatively stable, sourcing of the CPP decreased over time. Results suggest different sourcing patterns and contextually driven agenda-building processes.

KEYWORDS:

• Sourcing
• fragmentation
• cable news
• health care
• climate change
• social network analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The current study is not meant to capture Downs (1972) theory of issue development due to the short time frame.

2 Follow-up analyses show the length of the average story and the overall word count was greater for MSNBC than CNN and Fox. More research is needed to determine how source use relates to the depth and substantive nature of reporting.

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by a grant from the University of Arizona Social and Behavioral Sciences Research Institute, a Minker Grant from the California Polytechnic State University College of Liberal Arts, and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.