The Colbert Report
Leave it to the National Bureau of Economic Research to confirm what we've suspected all along: Fox News affects how people vote.
Per a recent post: "The introduction of Fox News had a small but statistically significant effect on the vote share in Presidential elections between 1996 and 2000."
NBER's Les Picker examines "The Fox News Effect: Media Bias and Voting" (NBER Working Paper No. 12169) by Stefano DellaVigna and Ethan Kaplan who examine the correlations between the introduction of Fox News into cable markets and subsequent voting patterns.
Using a voting data for 9,256 towns, they examine whether Republicans gained vote share in Presidential elections between 1996 and 2000. They found that Republicans gained 0.4 to 0.7 percentage points in the towns receiving , and "significant effect of Fox News on Senate vote share and on voter turnout" to the tune of 3-8 % voting Republican as a result of exposure to Fox News. (NB: They interpret those results "in light of a simple model of voter learning about media bias and about politician quality. The Fox News effect could be a temporary learning effect for rational voters, or a permanent effect for voters subject to non-rational persuasion").
According to Picker's write-up (we have not read the full report), "Fox News appears to have induced a generalized ideological shift" that resulted in a "decisive" role in the 2000 presidential election (not unlike hanging chads, Katharine Harris and the Supreme Court).
The authors note that in June 2000, 17.3 percent of the U.S. population reported watching Fox News regularly; it's 2006. Those numbers are no doubt larger today.
Note: Stephen Colbert is not on the Fox News Channel, we just like this graphic.
