Loss of local newspapers is making America more politically polarized

[Judi Lynn]

Less local newspapers are making the populace more uninformed.
MIKE COLAGROSSI
08 February, 2019

. . .

An encroaching erosion of local community has been a subtle force in the past century. Local politics has been hit the hardest. That feeling of polarized politics at every turn might just be because of the loss of local newspapers and community bound journalists. A recent study published in the Journal of Communication, has found that there is a direct correlation between the two.

As there becomes fewer or occluded opportunities to learn about your local politicians – aside from the regularly scheduled hit-piece delivered to your door by the opposition… citizens are increasingly relying on their tribal party lines when voting for local representatives. Cable news and sprawling internet partisan news sources are transferring their national views and biases on voters, who in turn apply that to their localities.

The researchers drew this information by exploring voting data from 66 communities in which the local newspapers had closed, as opposed to 77 regions where local newspapers were still in operation.

Uninformed national politics influencing local representation
The researchers found that party affiliation is a "cheap source of information available to voters." When these cues are seen during low-information down-ballot races, voters are more likely just to vote for the party affiliation rather than on the merits of the candidate. It's been found that adding party labels to the ballot has made down-ballot local outcomes align with national contests.

More:
https://bigthink.com/politics-current-affairs/loss-of-local-newspapers-is-making-america-more-politically-polarized?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1

[pandr32]

1. I agree with this.

It is a problem that Fox (so-called) News is carried across the country and bundled into even the most basic cable packages that go into communities.