Political polarization in (Americans') media consumption - how to separate credibility from "trustworthiness" based on political bias?
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2020 Pew Research Center - New research on U.S. media polarization during the election
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While Democrats and Democrat-leaning media users consume and trust news from many sources (trust 22 more than distrust), Republicans and Republican-leaning media users trust Fox News way more than other sources, while mostly remain skeptical about U.S. media (distrust 20 more than trust).
- Plenty of other research also draw the same conclusion that Republicans perceive more bias/inaccuracy from traditional news outlets (TV, radio, newspaper) than Democrats
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Maybe it's safe to exclude the "extreme" media on both ends of the bias spectrum
- Though it stands out as controversial, Fox News' average audience are less "conservative"/ right-leaning than four other news outlets in this research: the Daily Caller, Breitbart News, the Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh radio shows
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- "To a large degree, bias and accuracy appear to be in the eye of the beholder, greatly influenced by whether one agrees with the ideological leaning of the news source."; Bias and inaccuracy ratings "are correlated at better than .90 (with a value of 1.0 representing a perfect linear relationship and a value of 0 indicating no relationship)."
- This research offers a good framework of bias/inaccuracy dimensions, even though most news organizations fall into top right or bottom left corners.
