Table of Links Abstract and 1 Introduction 2. Data 3. Measuring Media Slant and 3.1. Text pre-processing and featurization 3.2. Classifying transcripts by TV source 3.3. Text similarity between newspapers and TV stations and 3.4. Topic model 4. Econometric Framework 4.1. Instrumental variables specification 4.2. Instrument first stage and validity 5. Results 5.1. Main results 5.2. Robustness checks 6. Mechanisms and Heterogeneity 6.1. Local vs. national or international news content 6.2. Cable news media slant polarizes local newspapers 7. Conclusion and References Online Appendices A. Data Appendix A.1. Newspaper articles A.2. Alternative county matching of newspapers and A.3. Filtering of the article snippets A.4. Included prime-time TV shows and A.5. Summary statistics B. Methods Appendix, B.1. Text pre-processing and B.2. Bigrams most predictive for FNC or CNN/MSNBC B.3. Human validation of NLP model B.4. Distribution of Fox News similarity in newspapers and B.5. Example articles by Fox News similarity B.6. Topics from the newspaper-based LDA model C. Results Appendix C.1. First stage results and C.2. Instrument exogeneity C.3. Placebo: Content similarity in 1995/96 C.4. OLS results C.5. Reduced form results C.6. Sub-samples: Newspaper headquarters and other counties and C.7. Robustness: Alternative county matching C.8. Robustness: Historical circulation weights and C.9. Robustness: Relative circulation weights C.10. Robustness: Absolute and relative FNC viewership and C.11. Robustness: Dropping observations and clustering C.12. Mechanisms: Language features and topics C.13. Mechanisms: Descriptive Evidence on Demand Side C.14. Mechanisms: Slant contagion and polarization C.5. Reduced form results Figure C.4 visualizes the reduced form relationship between the FNC channel position (relative to the averaged MSNBC and CNN position) and local newspaper content similarity to FNC. In the left panel (a), the outcome and the instrument are residualized on state fixed effects. The right panel (b) additionally includes demographic controls, channel controls (share of households with access to each of the three channels), and generic newspaper language features (vocabulary size, average word length, average sentence length, and average article length). There is a clear downward relationship, suggesting that easier access to FNC is associated with more FNC-like content in the local county newspapers. Table C.5 presents reduced-form results in tabular format. This paper is available on arxiv under CC 4.0 license. Authors:
(1) Philine Widmer, ETH Zürich and philine.widmer@gess.ethz.ch;
(2) Sergio Galletta, ETH Zürich and sergio.galletta@gess.ethz.ch;
(3) Elliott Ash, ETH Zürich and ashe@ethz.ch. Table of Links Abstract and 1 Introduction 2. Data Abstract and 1 Introduction 2. Data 3. Measuring Media Slant and 3.1. Text pre-processing and featurization 3. Measuring Media Slant and 3.1. Text pre-processing and featurization 3.2. Classifying transcripts by TV source 3.2. Classifying transcripts by TV source 3.3. Text similarity between newspapers and TV stations and 3.4. Topic model 3.3. Text similarity between newspapers and TV stations and 3.4. Topic model 4. Econometric Framework 4.1. Instrumental variables specification 4.1. Instrumental variables specification 4.2. Instrument first stage and validity 4.2. Instrument first stage and validity 5. Results 5.1. Main results 5.1. Main results 5.2. Robustness checks 5.2. Robustness checks 6. Mechanisms and Heterogeneity 6.1. Local vs. national or international news content 6.1. Local vs. national or international news content 6.2. Cable news media slant polarizes local newspapers 6.2. Cable news media slant polarizes local newspapers 7. Conclusion and References 7. Conclusion and References Online Appendices Online Appendices A. Data Appendix A.1. Newspaper articles A.1. Newspaper articles A.2. Alternative county matching of newspapers and A.3. Filtering of the article snippets A.2. Alternative county matching of newspapers and A.3. Filtering of the article snippets A.4. Included prime-time TV shows and A.5. Summary statistics A.4. Included prime-time TV shows and A.5. Summary statistics B. Methods Appendix, B.1. Text pre-processing and B.2. Bigrams most predictive for FNC or CNN/MSNBC B. Methods Appendix, B.1. Text pre-processing and B.2. Bigrams most predictive for FNC or CNN/MSNBC B.3. Human validation of NLP model B.3. Human validation of NLP model B.4. Distribution of Fox News similarity in newspapers and B.5. Example articles by Fox News similarity B.4. Distribution of Fox News similarity in newspapers and B.5. Example articles by Fox News similarity B.6. Topics from the newspaper-based LDA model B.6. Topics from the newspaper-based LDA model C. Results Appendix C.1. First stage results and C.2. Instrument exogeneity C.1. First stage results and C.2. Instrument exogeneity C.3. Placebo: Content similarity in 1995/96 C.3. Placebo: Content similarity in 1995/96 C.4. OLS results C.4. OLS results C.5. Reduced form results C.5. Reduced form results C.6. Sub-samples: Newspaper headquarters and other counties and C.7. Robustness: Alternative county matching C.6. Sub-samples: Newspaper headquarters and other counties and C.7. Robustness: Alternative county matching C.8. Robustness: Historical circulation weights and C.9. Robustness: Relative circulation weights C.8. Robustness: Historical circulation weights and C.9. Robustness: Relative circulation weights C.10. Robustness: Absolute and relative FNC viewership and C.11. Robustness: Dropping observations and clustering C.10. Robustness: Absolute and relative FNC viewership and C.11. Robustness: Dropping observations and clustering C.12. Mechanisms: Language features and topics C.12. Mechanisms: Language features and topics C.13. Mechanisms: Descriptive Evidence on Demand Side C.13. Mechanisms: Descriptive Evidence on Demand Side C.14. Mechanisms: Slant contagion and polarization C.14. Mechanisms: Slant contagion and polarization C.5. Reduced form results Figure C.4 visualizes the reduced form relationship between the FNC channel position (relative to the averaged MSNBC and CNN position) and local newspaper content similarity to FNC. In the left panel (a), the outcome and the instrument are residualized on state fixed effects. The right panel (b) additionally includes demographic controls, channel controls (share of households with access to each of the three channels), and generic newspaper language features (vocabulary size, average word length, average sentence length, and average article length). There is a clear downward relationship, suggesting that easier access to FNC is associated with more FNC-like content in the local county newspapers. Table C.5 presents reduced-form results in tabular format. This paper is available on arxiv under CC 4.0 license. This paper is available on arxiv under CC 4.0 license. available on arxiv Authors: (1) Philine Widmer, ETH Zürich and philine.widmer@gess.ethz.ch; (2) Sergio Galletta, ETH Zürich and sergio.galletta@gess.ethz.ch; (3) Elliott Ash, ETH Zürich and ashe@ethz.ch. Authors: Authors: (1) Philine Widmer, ETH Zürich and philine.widmer@gess.ethz.ch; (2) Sergio Galletta, ETH Zürich and sergio.galletta@gess.ethz.ch; (3) Elliott Ash, ETH Zürich and ashe@ethz.ch.

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Media Slant: The Relationship Between the FNC Channel Position and Local Newspaper Content

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