Political Sorting in U.S. Entertainment Media Selection
Monday, November 30, 2020 (3:45 PM – 5:00 PM)
Stuart Soroka
Michael W. Traugott Collegiate Professor of Communication and Media & Political Science, ISR
University of Michigan
This presentation examines the viewership of U.S. television entertainment programs over the past two decades. We find increasing differentiation in the shows watched in primarily Democratic versus primarily Republican markets. Notably, these years coincide with partisan sorting in news consumption and an increasingly fractured U.S. television landscape. These findings are discussed in light of recent work on the importance of entertainment to political attitudes, and on the relationship between technological change and political polarization.
