Working Paper: NBER ID: w27237
Authors: Andrey Simonov; Szymon K. Sacher; Jean-Pierre H. Dub; Shirsho Biswas
Abstract: We test for and measure the effects of cable news in the US on regional differences in compliance with recommendations by health experts to practice social distancing during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. We use a quasi-experimental design to estimate the causal effect of Fox News viewership on stay-at-home behavior by using only the incremental local viewership due to the quasi-random assignment of channel positions in a local cable line-up. We find that a 10% increase in Fox News cable viewership (approximately 0:13 higher viewer rating points) leads to a 1.3 percentage point reduction in the propensity to stay at home. We find a persuasion rate of Fox News on non-compliance with stay-at-home behavior during the crisis of about 5:7% - 28:4% across our various social distancing metrics.
Keywords: COVID-19; social distancing; Fox News; persuasion; media influence
JEL Codes: D72; I12; I18; L82
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| national emergency declaration (H84) | Fox News viewership (Y10) |
| Democratic vote shares (D79) | social distancing compliance (R48) |
| Fox News viewership (Y10) | propensity to stay at home (D13) |
| channel position (Y90) | Fox News viewership (Y10) |
| channel position (Y90) | propensity to stay at home (D13) |
| Fox News viewership (Y10) | social distancing compliance (R48) |