ISOJ 2011

1. Love it or leave it?
The Relationship between
Polarization and Credibility of
Traditional and Partisan Media
Kang Hui Baek, Mark Coddington, Maegan Stephens, Larissa Williams,
Thomas J. Johnson, Jennifer Brundidge
The University of Texas @ Austin

2. BACKGROUND
Selective Exposure
&
Polarization
Selective Exposure
&
Credibility

3. Credibility & Polarization?
H1: Individuals who perceive partisan
news sources (MSNBC and FOX) as
credible will be more polarized in their
political attitudes, even after controlling
for political and demographic attitudes.

4. Credibility & Polarization?
RQ1: Does perceived credibility of balanced sources (New York
Times, Wall Street Journal, CNN, and broadcast television news) link
to increased or decreased levels of political polarization after
controlling for political and demographic attitudes?
RQ2: Do polarized political attitudes link to increased or decreased
perceived credibility of partisan sources (MSNBC and FOX) after
controlling for political and demographic attitudes, as well as with
time spent with media?
RQ3: Do polarized political attitudes link to increased or decreased
perceived credibility of balanced sources (New York Times, Wall
Street Journal, CNN, and broadcast television news) after
controlling for political and demographic attitudes ,as well as with
time spent with media?

5. METHOD
• NAES 2008 Data (n=16,305)
• Believability (New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Fox
News, CNN, MSNBC and broadcast television news)
• Polarization (Stroud, 2010)

6. Control variables
• Demographics: age, gender, education, race,
and income
• Political orientation: political ideology,
partisanship, political interest, political
knowledge
• Time spent with sources: political discussion,
broadcast or cable, talk radio, newspaper,
online

7. Independent variable
• Believability: “How would you rate the
believability of (the New York Times, Wall
Street Journal, Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, and
broadcast television news)?
-believe all or most of what the organization
says
-believe almost nothing of what they say

8. Dependent variable
• Polarization
-the absolute value of the difference between
favorability scores of McCain and Obama
(Stroud, 2010)
-Higher scores indicated higher levels of
polarization (0=very unfavorable; 10=very
favorable)

9. Results (1 of 3)
H1: not supported. The less respondents
believed information from MSNBC (β=-.47,
p<.01), the more likely they were to have
polarized views.

10. Results (2 of 3)
RQ1: The less respondents believed
information from the New York Times (β=-
.39, p<.05), CNN (β=-.55, p<.01), and
broadcast television news (β=-.39, p<.05),
the more likely they were to have polarized
views.

11. Results (3 of 3)
• RQ2: Polarization was negatively related to the
perceived credibility of MSNBC (β=.-05, p<.01)
and not significantly related to Fox News.
• RQ3: The less polarized respondents’ views,
the more likely they were to believe sources
from the New York Times (β=.-06, p<.05) and
CNN (β=.-06, p<.01).

12. DISCUSSION
• Why do the credibility perception of the liberal
news source corresponded to polarization levels
but the conservative news source does not?
• Conservatives find the media biased
• Liberals may also be turning to conservative sources
• Why do those who rate balanced sources as
credible have decreased polarization scores?
• Balance less appealing to those seeking same viewpoint
• Liberals seeking out a variety of sources
• Perceived partisan judgments about NYT, CNN, and broadcast.

13. LIMITATIONS
• Context Specific
• No Causal Claims
• Partisan/Balanced
Distinction
FUTURE RESEARCH
• Explore Other
Contexts
• Liberal/Conservative
Sources
• Liberal/Conservative
indexes