Tuning In, Not Turning Out: Evaluating the Impact of Ethnic Television on Political Participation

Abstract

Despite the importance of ethnic television within immigrant communities, its effects on political participation are unclear. On the one hand, ethnic media can mobilize and inform voters. On the other hand, it can serve as a source of diversion and reduce the desire to participate. To evaluate these competing possibilities, we implement a geographic regression discontinuity (GRD) approach involving Federal Communication Commission reception boundaries for Spanish‐language television stations in two states. Additionally, we replicate and unpack our GRD analyses using three nationally representative samples of Latinos. Across multiple studies, we find that access to Spanish‐language television is associated with decreases in turnout, ethnic civic participation, and political knowledge. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings on the ethnic politics, political communication, and social capital literatures.

Spanish Language Media Consumption and Latino Civic Engagement

“…The majority of research exploring the implications of SLM suggest that it positively influences multiple forms of Latino mobilization (Barreto et al 2009;Barreto, Merolla, and Soto 2011;Abrajano and Panagopoulos 2011;Félix, González, and Ramírez 2008;Panagopoulos and Green 2011;Ramírez 2013;Zepeda-Millán 2017). However, in their recent study of the relationship between SLM access and Latino voter participation Velez and Newman (2019) find a negative relationship. The study examines compelling evidence from regional data in North Carolina and Florida, as well as from national surveys, and shows that Latinos in the coverage area of Spanish language television stations were significantly less likely to turn out to vote in 2008 and 2012 compared to those outside the coverage areas in both the North Carolina case and the U.S. more broadly.…”

Moved to Vote: The Long-Run Effects of Neighborhoods on Political Participation

“…For voting outcome y i , we estimate the following linear equation to recover this reduced form 9 We obtained the voter file from L2, a commercial data vendor that works with major political parties in the U.S. L2 obtained a snapshot of the voter file on July 1, 2019 directly from the Illinois Secretary of State office. Voting data from L2 has been used in prior research in political science (Velez and Newman, 2019;Yoder, 2019;Enamorado et al, 2019) 10 Since Illinois does not record the party of a voter, L2 provides a modeled field based on voting in partisan primaries. Specifically, they use the most recent even year primary in which a voter cast a partisan ballot.…”

“…Appendix -13 public housing children to the Illinois voter file provided by L2, Inc. Voting data from L2 has been used in prior research (Velez and Newman, 2019;Yoder, 2019;Enamorado et al, 2019).…”

Moved to Vote: The Long-Run Effects of Neighborhoods on Political Participation

“…2. Linking public housing residents to the 2019 IL voterfile: We link the sample of 5,933 Appendix -13 public housing children to the Illinois voter file provided by L2, Inc. Voting data from L2 has been used in prior research (Velez and Newman, 2019;Yoder, 2019;Enamorado et al, 2019).…”

“…We obtained the voter file from L2, a commercial data vendor that works with major political parties in the U.S. L2 obtained a snapshot of the voter file on July 1, 2019 directly from the Illinois Secretary of State office. Voting data from L2 has been used in prior research in political science(Velez and Newman, 2019;Yoder, 2019;Enamorado et al, 2019) 10 Since Illinois does not record the party of a voter, L2 provides a modeled field based on voting in partisan primaries. Specifically, they use the most recent even year primary in which a voter cast a partisan ballot.…”