Persuasive Effect of Fox News: Non-Compliance with Social Distancing During the Covid-19 Pandemic

[blondebanshee]

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. The average partial effect of Fox News viewership in a zipcode implies that 1 percentage point increase in cable viewership reduces the propensity to stay at home by 8.9 percentage points compared to the pre-pandemic average. We find a persuasion rate of Fox News on non-compliance with stay-at-home behavior during the crisis of about 33.5%-50% across our various social distancing metrics.
[link:https://www.nber.org/papers/w27237|

[Buckeye_Democrat]

1. Thank you!

My sister's husband regularly watches Fox News, and he actually thinks the pandemic "is over now".

My sister is an EXTREME evangelical Christian, but she's behaving far more informed and rational about the pandemic than him. She wears a mask in public, keeps her distance from others, etc.

In typical times, her husband seems far more normal than her.

The main difference in regard to the virus is that she doesn't like Fox News, or really anything other than keeping her nose in a Bible or watching religious TV.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

2. fux spews is poison and we are seeing the effects

Particularly now, during the multiple crises we are mired in.
I wish there was a way to stop them for the sake of the Nation. “The Nation” being a symbol for every individual one of us.

[spinbaby]

3. So many people I know seem to think this is over

Just today I received invitations to a family reunion and to a party—both in June—with no plan for any kind of social distancing.

[tanyev]

4. I think the media companies should let Fox and OAN handle all the upcoming Trump rallies.