Populist Hyperpartisans?: The Interaction Between Partisan Media Exposure and Populism in the 2020 US Presidential Election

ABSTRACT

Aspects of our political world brought to the forefront in recent years include the impact of declining media trust and a surge of populist politicians around the globe. Highlighting those aspects, this study utilizes representative data from the American National Election Studies (ANES) collected during the 2020 US Presidential Election. We examine the relationship between use of different media (mainstream liberal, mainstream conservative, and hyper-conservative) and media trust as well as the moderating role of populist beliefs. Results found that hyper-conservative media use and anti-elitist populist beliefs are negatively associated with media trust while liberal media use is positively associated with media trust; mainstream conservative media use is unrelated to media trust when controlling for other media types and populist beliefs. This lack of a main effect for conservative media is clarified by examining the interaction with anti-elitist populism, which shows increased use of conservative media for individuals with low levels of populist beliefs is associated with increased media trust while the opposite is true for those high in populist beliefs.

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

¹ The Sean Hannity radio show was included under hyper-partisan as Ad Fontes (2023) notes it is more opinion-based than the Hannity television show.

² While the alpha is slightly below the traditional cutpoint of .7, we chose to keep the three items to ensure wider concept validity for our scale. We also re-ran all results using just the two questions that had been validated in prior scholarship, and the pattern of significance is identical.

³ We also ran models using more extensive media controls accounting for entertainment programing, social media use, and others. The pattern of results was identical to what is presented here and can be seen in the online supplement.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Myiah J. Hutchens

Myiah J. Hutchens (Ph.D., The Ohio State University) is Chair and Associate Professor in the Department of Public Relations within the College of Journalism and Communications at the University of Florida. Her research interests include political communication and political discussion.

Brittany Shaughnessy

Brittany Shaughnessy (MA, Virginia Tech) is a PhD student in the College of Journalism and Communications at the University of Florida. Her research interests include political communication, rural resentment, and political discussion.

Eliana DuBosar

Eliana DuBosar (MA, University of Florida) is a PhD candidate in the College of Journalism and Communications at the University of Florida. Her research interests include political communication and selective exposure.