We show that the demand for news varies with the perceived affinity of the news organization to the consumer’s political preferences. In an experimental setting, conservatives and Republicans preferred to read news reports attributed to Fox News and to avoid news from CNN and NPR. Democrats and liberals exhibited exactly the opposite syndrome—dividing their attention equally between CNN and NPR, but avoiding Fox News. This pattern of selective exposure based on partisan affinity held not only for news coverage of controversial issues but also for relatively “soft” subjects such as crime and travel. The tendency to select news based on anticipated agreement was also strengthened among more politically engaged partisans. Overall, these results suggest that the further proliferation of new media and enhanced media choices may contribute to the further polarization of the news audience.

When defined in terms of social identity and affect toward copartisans and opposing partisans, the polarization of the American electorate has dramatically increased. We document the scope and consequences of affective polarization of partisans using implicit, explicit, and behavioral indicators. Our evidence demonstrates that hostile feelings for the opposing party are ingrained or automatic in voters' minds, and that affective polarization based on party is just as strong as polarization based on race. We further show that party cues exert powerful effects on nonpolitical judgments and behaviors. Partisans discriminate against opposing partisans, doing so to a degree that exceeds discrimination based on race. We note that the willingness of partisans to display open animus for opposing partisans can be attributed to the absence of norms governing the expression of negative sentiment and that increased partisan affect provides an incentive for elites to engage in confrontation rather than cooperation.

While previously polarization was primarily seen only in issue-based terms, a new type of division has emerged in the mass public in recent years: Ordinary Americans increasingly dislike and distrust those from the other party. Democrats and Republicans both say that the other party's members are hypocritical, selfish, and closed-minded, and they are unwilling to socialize across party lines. This phenomenon of animosity between the parties is known as affective polarization. We trace its origins to the power of partisanship as a social identity, and explain the factors that intensify partisan animus. We also explore the consequences of affective polarization, highlighting how partisan affect influences attitudes and behaviors well outside the political sphere. Finally, we discuss strategies that might mitigate partisan discord and conclude with suggestions for future work.

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Stories about crime provide several necessary ingredients for the successful marketing of news-concrete events with powerful impact on ordinary people, drama and emotion, and, above all, attention-getting visuals.The special attraction of television to crime is reflected in the content of local television news. In a recent study of fifty-six different cities, crime was the most prominently featured subject in the local news (Klite, Bardwell, and Salzman 1997). In some cities, crime accounted for more than 75 percent of all news coverage.We argue that local news coverage of crime follows a standard script that features two distinct elements. First, crime is violent. Armed bank robberies, homicides, "home invasions," car)ackings, and gang-related activities are now staples of local news. The second element of the crime script is the presence of a particular suspect. Episodic reporting requires a regular "cast" of characters the most prominent of which is the suspect. Given the visual nature of the medium, the importance of the suspect to the script means that crime news is often accompanied by racial imagery (Campbell,

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We address the implications of the movement towards entertainment-centred, marketdriven media by comparing what is reported and what the public knows in four countries with different media systems. The different systems are public service (Denmark and Finland), a 'dual' model (United Kingdom) and the market model (United States). The comparison shows that public service television devotes more attention to public affairs and international news, and fosters greater knowledge in these areas, than the market model. Public service television also gives greater prominence to news, encourages higher levels of news consumption, and contributes to a smaller within-nation knowledge gap between the advantaged and disadvantaged. But wider processes in society take precedence over the organisation of the media in determining how much people know about public life.In press: European Journal of Communication 1In most parts of the world, the news media are becoming more market-oriented and entertainment-centred.* This is the consequence of three trends that have gathered pace since the 1980s: the multiplication of privately owned television channels, the weakening of programme requirements on commercial broadcasters ('de-regulation'), and a contraction in the audience size and influence of public broadcasters.Our interest lies in addressing the consequences of the movement towards marketbased media for informed citizenship. The democratic process assumes that individual citizens have the capacity to hold elected officials accountable. In practice, political accountability requires a variety of institutional arrangements including free and frequent elections, the presence of strong political parties, and, of particular importance to this inquiry, a media system that delivers a sufficient supply of meaningful public affairs information to catch the eye of relatively inattentive citizens. Thus, we are interested in tracing the connections between the architecture of media systems, the delivery of news, and citizens' awareness of public affairs. In particular, we test the hypothesis that market-based systems, by delivering more soft than hard news, impede the exercise of informed citizenship. Media Systems in Cross-National PerspectiveThere is considerable cross-national variation in the movement towards the American model. We take advantage of this variation by focusing on four economically advanced liberal democracies that represent three distinct media systems: an unreconstructed public service model in which the programming principles of public service still largely dominate (exemplified by Finland and Denmark), a dual system that combines increasingly deregulated commercial media with strong public service 2 broadcasting organisations (Britain), and the exemplar market model of the United States.This sample enables us to investigate whether variations in media organisation affect the quality of citizenship by giving rise to different kinds of reporting and patterns of public knowledge.

We address the effects of negative campaign advertising on turnout. Using a unique experimental design in which advertising tone is manipulated within the identical audiovisual context, we find that exposure to negative advertisements dropped intentions to vote by 5%. We then replicate this result through an aggregate-level analysis of turnout and campaign tone in the 1992 Senate elections. Finally, we show that the demobilizing effects of negative campaigns are accompanied by a weakened sense of political efficacy. Voters who watch negative advertisements become more cynical about the responsiveness of public officials and the electoral process.