For one, this study only takes us through election 2000 (and Fox News only came into being in late 1996). I think it would be much more informative to look at the effects of Fox News on voters in the 2002 and 2004 elections. That is when the government’s wartime propaganda machine (what else would you call it?) was much more clearly in sync with the programming on Fox News (and, in many cases other news networks). I found this web page (http://www.classroomtools.com/propworks.htm) summarizing some results from a couple of very interesting PIPA polls that were conducted before the 2004 election… a few of their findings regarding American’s (mis)perceptions are well worth mentioning here:

1) 48% incorrectly believed that evidence of links between Iraq and al Qaeda have been found,
2) 22% that weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq,
3) 25% that world public opinion favored the US going to war with Iraq,
4) overall 60% had at least one of these three misperceptions,
5) the frequency of Americans’ misperceptions varies significantly depending on their source of news,
6) those who primarily watch Fox News are significantly more likely to have misperceptions, while those who primarily listen to NPR or watch PBS are significantly less likely,
7) among those with none of the misperceptions listed above, only 23% support the war, among those with one of these misperceptions, 53% support the war, rising to 78% for those who have two of the misperceptions, and to 86% for those with all 3 misperceptions.
…
9) perceptions of what the experts are saying are also highly correlated with intentions to vote for the President in the upcoming election.

What more proof do you need? When large numbers of voting Americans are deliberately led to believe in such utter falsehoods… I think it is safe to say that the Bush Administration’s propaganda worked. Furthermore, these polls results go a long way to also proving that Fox News is NOT the only major media outlet that gives regular voice to propaganda put forth by right-wing entities.

One final point. We know that the cable news network with the highest ratings and biggest profits, under GWB, was Fox News. This has created more incentive for other networks to follow their business model of cheering on the war effort and never criticizing or questioning the — now, largely discredited — government line. The point is that think tank and government propaganda, channeled through “news network” programming, is not only speaking to the viewing audience, it is speaking to the entire media marketplace. Part of the right wing media’s success over the past 3 years was to prove that “news” programming that cheerleads for war and ignores inconvenient facts, which often belie the standard government “story-line,” is a viable business model.

Roger, I noticed you often cite public opinion polls as if the public had strong influence on policy. As you correctly identify the lack of a linear path from information to policy, there is a lack of a linear path from public opinion to policy. The think-tanks DO have an effect on policy. Not by shifting public opinion, but by providing access to elite decision-makers and giving them “cover” to avoid action. There is a growing body of work on “the social construction of non-problemicity” that you should be aware of. A good place to start may be the work of Aaron McCright and Riley Dunlap(see for instance; McCright and Dunlap. 2003. Defeating Kyoto: The Conservative Movement’s Impact on U.S. Climate Change Policy. Social Problems, v50, n3, pp348-373)

The answer is a lot more complicated than they descibe (you might read just the abstract of this paper: http://abs.sagepub.com/cgi/content/refs/47/5/541 )

but their basic answer (if I remember correctly, I don’t have the book in front of my this minute) in looking at the data is that the vast amounts of $$ being spent on political campaigns is being spent very unwisely, as it doesn’t seem to have much influence on voting patterns.

Mullen et al., 1986, Newscasters’ facial expressions and voting behavoir of viewers: Can a smile elect a President?, J. of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 291-295 p.

Gladwell links that study to this:

Wells and Petty, 1980, The effects of overt head movement on persuasion, Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 1(3), 219-230 p.

1) Has there been any consideration of “delaying” action? I’d say the public is about ten years behind the science. If this is due to think tanks, it’s still effective.

2) I see here FOX did not even increase voter turnout. But your previous studies on public perceptions did show an increase in partisanship. If this is true, then it does still have a significant effect from the Republican perspective. Whereas Democrats see politics as reaching the most voters, the success of the Republican strategy is in focusing like a laser on rallying the base and increasing partisanship. When forty percent of the country identifies themselves as conservatives and twenty-thirty percent as liberal, polarizing the country is seen as an advantage since Democrats would have to peel off more of the middle. As we have seen the past decade or so, appealing to the faithful can move mountains.

Also, along these same lines, I find it hard to believe the media has *no* effect. Certainly during the Clinton presidency, the right wing was able to manufacture scandal after scandal and magnify it through the echoe chamber.

I see the same thing happening with the war. You could say, well, all the fawning media didn’t keep people from turning on the war, or you could say, why’d it take so long?

Is all this money spent on campaign commercials and think tanks and PR for not?

http://emlab.berkeley.edu/users/sdellavi/wp/foxvote05-08-15.pdf