Politicization and Polarization in COVID-19 News Coverage

Hart, P. Sol; Chinn, Sedona; Soroka, Stuart

doi:10.1177/1075547020950735

Cited by 467 publications

(364 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…Democrats assigned more blame to Democrats, Republicans assigned more blame to Republicans, and both groups assigned more blame to government agencies in general. This is consistent with existing research that documents selective attribution alongside sensible patterns like blaming the appropriate level of government (e.g., for disaster responses [Malhotra and Kuo 2008] and fiscal conditions [Rudolph 2003a]), as well as a large, contemporaneous increase in the average pandemic-related news article's degree of focus on politicians and government (Hart et al 2020). These factors complicate our ability to test the Bayesian framework's prediction that a change in the state of the world should cause groups with oppositely-signed performance beliefs to adjust their attributions of responsibility in opposite directions.…”

Section: Democrat Republicansupporting

confidence: 90%

An Outbreak of Selective Attribution: Partisanship and Blame in the COVID-19 Pandemic

Graham¹,

Singh²

2021

Preprint

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Crises and disasters give voters an opportunity to observe the incumbent's response and reward or punish them for successes and failures. Yet even when voters agree on the facts, they tend to attribute responsibility in a group-serving manner, disproportionately crediting their party for positive developments and blaming opponents for negative developments. Using original time series data, we show that partisan disagreement over U.S. President Donald Trump's responsibility for the COVID-19 pandemic quickly emerged alongside the pandemic's onset in March 2020. Three original survey experiments show that the valence of information about the country's performance against the virus contributes causally to such gaps. A Bayesian model of information processing anticipates our findings more closely than do theories of partisan-motivated reasoning. These findings shed new light on the foundations of partisan loyalty, especially among citizens who do not think of themselves as partisans.

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Section: Democrat Republicansupporting

confidence: 90%

An Outbreak of Selective Attribution: Partisanship and Blame in the COVID-19 Pandemic

Graham¹,

Singh²

2021

Preprint

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“…The politically driven rhetoric from leaders quickly managed to polarize the public in its response to COVID–19 ( Allcott et al, 2020 ; Shao and Hao, 2020 ). The media is also highly polarized in reporting, with the right-leaning media even playing a role in facilitating the dissemination of misinformation about the pandemic ( Hart et al, 2020 ; Motta et al, 2020 ). As a result, there is an immense division on American public risk perceptions of and behavioral response to COVID–19, with Republicans being less likely than Democrats to see a high level of threats ( Shao and Hao, 2020 ) and engage in behaviors to slow the disease transmission ( Allcott et al, 2020 ).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding the influence of contextual factors and individual social capital on American public mask wearing in response to COVID–19

2021

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The COVID–19 pandemic poses unprecedented risks to the health and well-being of the entire population in the U.S. To control the pandemic, it is imperative for individuals to take precautionary behaviors (e.g., wearing a mask, keeping social distance, washing hands frequently, etc.). The factors that influence individual behavioral response thus warrants a close examination. Using survey data for respondents from 10 states merged with state-level data, our study represents a pioneering effort to reveal contextual and individual social capital factors that explain public mask wearing in response to COVID–19. Findings of logistic multilevel regression show that the COVID–19 death rate and political control of government at the state level along with one's social capital at the individual level altogether influence whether people decide to wear face masks. These findings contribute to the rapidly growing literature and have policy implications for mitigating the pandemic's devastating impact on the American public.

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“…As COVID-19 continues to spread globally, its perceived threat has become increasingly politically-polarised in the United States ( Hart et al, 2020 ). Democrats are more likely than Republicans to view COVID-19 as a major threat to public and personal health ( Van Green & Tyson, 2020 ), and conservatism appears to be associated with lower levels of perceived personal COVID-19 vulnerability ( Calvillo et al, 2020 ) and increased scepticism ( Latkin et al, 2021 ).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of ideological attitudes in responses to COVID-19 threat and government restrictions in Australia

Clarke

Klas

Dyos

2021

Personality and Individual Differences

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Many government strategies to reduce the spread of Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) involved unprecedented restrictions on personal movement, disrupting social and economic norms. Although generally well-received in Australia, community frustration regarding these restrictions appeared to diverge across political lines. Therefore, we examined the unique effects of the ideological subfactors of Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA; Aggression, Submission and Conventionalism) and Social Dominance Orientation (SDO; Dominance and Anti-egalitarianism) in predicting perceived personal threat of COVID-19, and support for and reactance to government restrictions, in Australian residents across two separate samples (S1 N = 451, S2 N = 838). COVID-19 threat was positively predicted by Submission, and negatively by Conventionalism, and Anti-egalitarianism. Support for restrictions was also positively predicted by Submission, and negatively by Conventionalism, Dominance, and Anti-egalitarianism. Reactance to government restrictions was negatively predicted by Submission, and positively by Conventionalism, Dominance, and Anti-egalitarianism. These findings suggest that right-wing ideological subfactors contribute to the one's perception of COVID-19 threat and government restrictions differentially.

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Politicization and Polarization in COVID-19 News Coverage

Cited by 467 publications

References 40 publications

An Outbreak of Selective Attribution: Partisanship and Blame in the COVID-19 Pandemic

An Outbreak of Selective Attribution: Partisanship and Blame in the COVID-19 Pandemic

Understanding the influence of contextual factors and individual social capital on American public mask wearing in response to COVID–19

The role of ideological attitudes in responses to COVID-19 threat and government restrictions in Australia

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