The Persuasive Effect of Fox News: Non-Compliance with Social Distancing During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Simonov, Andrey; Sacher, Szymon; Dubé, Jean-Pierre; Biswas, Shirsho

doi:10.2139/ssrn.3604214

Cited by 95 publications

(130 citation statements)

References 66 publications

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“…Painter and Qiu (2020) examine partisan heterogeneity in response to state-level, stay-at-home orders. Bursztyn et al (2020) and Simonov et al (2020) find that individuals social distance less if quasi-randomly exposed to less concerned news, suggesting a possible driver for our result. 2 Our work contributes to a broader literature on what drives responses to pandemics (e.g., Blendon et al 2008;Vaughan and Tinker 2009;Fineberg 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 59%

Polarization and Public Health: Partisan Differences in Social Distancing during the Coronavirus Pandemic

Allcott¹,

Boxell²,

Conway³

et al. 2020

288

160

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We study partisan differences in Americans' response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Political leaders and media outlets on the right and left have sent divergent messages about the severity of the crisis, which could impact the extent to which Republicans and Democrats engage in social distancing and other efforts to reduce disease transmission. We develop a simple model of a pandemic response with heterogeneous agents that clarifies the causes and consequences of heterogeneous responses. We use location data from a large sample of smartphones to show that areas with more Republicans engage in less social distancing, controlling for other factors including public policies, population density, and local COVID cases and deaths. We then present new survey evidence of significant gaps at the individual level between Republicans and Democrats in self-reported social distancing, beliefs about personal COVID risk, and beliefs about the future severity of the pandemic.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 59%

Polarization and Public Health: Partisan Differences in Social Distancing during the Coronavirus Pandemic

Allcott¹,

Boxell²,

Conway³

et al. 2020

288

160

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…28 Comprehensive viewership data is not available at more granular levels after 2015. It is possible to approximate ZIP-level (and thus county-level) viewership in 2015 or earlier, as in Simonov et al (2020). This approximation involves aggregating "headends," or cable systems, to ZIP codes, a procedure that requires discarding all but the largest headend in each ZIP code; (Simonov et al 2020 find that 47% of ZIP codes have more than one headend, though the largest headend accounts for at least half of subscribers in the vast majority.…”

Section: Overview Of Data Sourcesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is possible to approximate ZIP-level (and thus county-level) viewership in 2015 or earlier, as in Simonov et al (2020). This approximation involves aggregating "headends," or cable systems, to ZIP codes, a procedure that requires discarding all but the largest headend in each ZIP code; (Simonov et al 2020 find that 47% of ZIP codes have more than one headend, though the largest headend accounts for at least half of subscribers in the vast majority. Aside from this measurement error and the possibility that the change in United States, excluding the two DMAs in Alaska (Anchorage and Fairbanks) and the single DMA in Hawaii (Honolulu).…”

Section: Overview Of Data Sourcesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recent studies (Simonov et al, 2020;Ash et al, 2020;Ananyev et al, 2020) use the channel numbers instrument developed by Martin and Yurukoglu (2017) to establish a causal effect of exposure to Fox News on mobility. We complement these findings through our analysis of COVID-19 cases and deaths (in addition to stay-at-home behavior, the primary outcome studied in these papers) and our use of 2020 rather than 2015 viewership data (albeit at a coarser geographical level).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Misinformation During a Pandemic

et al. 2020

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Media outlets often present diverging, even conflicting, perspectives on reality-not only informing, but potentially misinforming audiences. We study the extent to which misinformation broadcast on mass media at the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic influenced health outcomes. We first document large differences in content between the two most popular cable news shows in the US, both on the same network, and in the adoption of preventative behaviors among viewers of these shows. Through both a selection-on-observables strategy and an instrumental variable approach, we find that areas with greater exposure to the show downplaying the threat of COVID-19 experienced a greater number of cases and deaths. We assess magnitudes through an epidemiological model highlighting the role of externalities and provide evidence that contemporaneous information exposure is a key underlying mechanism.

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“…The U.S. response to the COVID-19 outbreak, to some extent, has been divided along partisan lines (Simonov et al 2020). In Panel VI, we therefore assess if there are differential responses in stay-at-home behaviors based on ideology, as measured by the share of Trump voters in the county.…”

Section: Heterogeneity In the Effects Of The Supreme Court Repealmentioning

confidence: 99%

Are the Effects of Adoption and Termination of Shelter-in-Place Orders Symmetric? Evidence from a Natural Experiment

Dave¹,

Friedson²,

Matsuzawa³

et al. 2020

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Both the White House and state governors have explicitly linked thresholds of reduced COVID-19 case growth to the lifting of statewide shelter-in-place orders (SIPOs). This "hardwired" policy endogeneity creates empirical challenges in credibly isolating the causal effect of lifting a statewide SIPO on COVID-19-related health. To break this simultaneity problem, the current study exploits a unique natural experiment generated by a Wisconsin Supreme Court decision. On May 13, 2020, the Wisconsin Supreme Court abolished the state's "Safer at Home" order, ruling that the Wisconsin Department of Health Services unconstitutionally usurped legislative authority to review COVID-19 regulations. We capitalize on this sudden, dramatic, and largely unanticipated termination of a statewide SIPO to estimate its effect on social distancing and COVID-19 case growth. Using a synthetic control design, we find no evidence that the repeal of the state SIPO impacted social distancing, COVID-19 cases, or COVID-19-related mortality during the fortnight following enactment. Estimated effects were economically small and nowhere near statistically different from zero. We conclude that the impact of shelter-in-place orders is likely not symmetric across enactment and lifting of the orders.

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The Persuasive Effect of Fox News: Non-Compliance with Social Distancing During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Cited by 95 publications

References 66 publications

Polarization and Public Health: Partisan Differences in Social Distancing during the Coronavirus Pandemic

Polarization and Public Health: Partisan Differences in Social Distancing during the Coronavirus Pandemic

Misinformation During a Pandemic

Are the Effects of Adoption and Termination of Shelter-in-Place Orders Symmetric? Evidence from a Natural Experiment

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