Nieman Foundation at Harvard
About one in four Democrats and Republicans turn exclusively to news sources with like-minded audiences, a new report has found.
The analysis released today points to one reason for the divide. About a quarter of Republicans (24%) and Democrats (25%) “consistently” turned to what Pew describes as “partisan news media bubbles.”
The research is based on three surveys and Pew defines Republicans who exclusively used sources with right-leaning audiences and Democrats who exclusively used sources with left-leaning audiences in two or more of those surveys as “consistently” turning to media bubbles. Fox News and talk radio were among the sources with a right-leaning audience. Outlets with left-leaning audiences included CNN, MSNBC, and The Washington Post. Network TV news — like ABC, CBS, or NBC — were ID’d as sources with a mixed audience.The researchers found that the Republicans who stuck to their partisan bubbles tended to be much older than those that relied on outlets with left-leaning audiences or a mix of publications. About 80% of the Republicans who stuck to their partisan bubbles were older than 50, including 44% older than 65.
Democrats who get their political news only from outlets with left-leaning audiences were more likely to be white and have college degrees. Democrats who consistently turned to outlets with mixed or right-leaning audiences were more likely to be Black (29%) or Hispanic (21%).
You can read the full report — “How Americans Navigated the News in 2020: A Tumultuous Year in Review” — at the Pew Research Center.
