Red Media, Blue Media, and Purple Media: News Repertoires in the Colorful Media Landscape

Abstract

This study extends past research on news repertoires by examining how individuals combine news exposure across an array of media platforms and content. Results from a national survey reveal 6 distinct news repertoires. While some respondents have clear ideologically driven repertoires, others have repertoires that are best described as medium-centric. A closer look at socio-demographic factors and participation levels among the 6 news repertoires are also explored. Results shed light on the democratic implications of the high-choice media landscape and research on news exposure and effects.

Acknowledgments

The author thanks the Wisconsin-Michigan research team that contributed to the 2008 Cooperative Campaign Analysis Project. The team was lead by Barry Burden, Erika Franklin Fowler, Ken Goldstein, Hernando Rojas, and Dhavan Shah, with Shah serving as the principal investigator.

Funding

Data used in the study was made possible by support from the following sources: the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Scholars in Health Policy Research Program at the University of Michigan, and the Hamel Faculty Fellowship, the Walter J. & Clara Charlotte Damm Fund of the Journal Foundation, the Graduate School, and the Department of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the supporting sources or participating faculty.

Notes

Notes

¹ The CCAP brings together researchers from various universities to collaborate in the design of a custom survey. Simon Jackman (Stanford) and Lynn Vavreck (ULCA) coordinated the 2008 CCAP. For more information see, http://research.yougov.com/services/ccap/

² For more information about sampling procedures and techniques, see Vaveck & Rivers (2008). The sampling weights are specifically used to account for the possibility that respondents who complete an online-based survey may differ from the general population. That being said, Gerber, Huber, Doherty, and Dowling (2011) found the weighted levels of political interest reported in the 2008 CCAP data to be similar to those found in the weighted 2008 ANES time-series survey. While an Internet-based survey of registered voters does come with certain sampling limitations, the extensive battery of media use measures that the CCAP data affords far outweighs the sample constraints.

³ All analyses presented in this study were also run with the sampling weights turned off. The same patterns of news repertoire results are found. The only exception is differences in the logistic regression analysis, where age, race, and gender play different roles without the weights. This makes sense as the sampling weights are specifically tied to demographic characteristics. Unweighted proportion of survey respondents in the six news clusters: Avoiders 17.6%; online only 13.8%; TV + print 26.7%; liberal + online 12.4%; conservative only 17.6%; Omnivores 12.8%.

⁴ While dropping these items limits the veracity of infotainment measures retained in the analysis, in order to perform a cluster analysis on the components overlap needed to be kept to a minimum.

⁵ The data produces a strong Kaiser-Meyer Olkin statistic of .80, and a significant Bartlett's Test of Sphericity, indicating suitability for the component analysis.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Stephanie Edgerly

Stephanie Edgerly (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison) is an assistant professor in the Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications at Northwestern University. Her research interests include audience behavior, the blurring of news and entertainment media, and the sharing of news over social media Web sites.