Though I doubt that the results of this recent PEW media study will surprise any Daily Kos readers, it is being widely reported. Here's ABC's AP report:
Survey Shows Media Differences Due to Politics
Conservatives and liberals not only have different political views, they diverge sharply on what news sources they rely upon and trust, a survey has found. Liberals favor CNN, MSNBC, National Public Radio and The New York Times, but none of those sources more dramatically than another. Conservatives have an overwhelming favorite: Fox News Channel, according to a study of media habits released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center. Conservatives are more likely to distrust news sources that don't reflect their point of view, the study said.
Conservatives tend to have more friends who share their political views, and are more likely to read material on Facebook that reinforces their opinions. Liberals are more likely to "defriend" someone on Facebook or end a real friendship because of political differences, Pew said. "One of the things that was striking was the degree of the differences and the consistency across all the different information environments," said Amy Mitchell, Pew's director of journalism research.
Pew conducted its survey in March and April with 2,901 web respondents, recruited from a nationally representative sample. Pew used a series of question to gauge a participant's political leanings and asked respondents their views on 36 different media sources, from the Times to Buzzfeed. Asked about their main source for news on government and politics, 47 percent of the respondents who were judged most conservative cited Fox News. No other organization was close: 11 percent of this group chose local radio.
Here's the Pew description of the research:
Political Polarization & Media Habits
When it comes to getting news about politics and government, liberals and conservatives inhabit different worlds. There is little overlap in the news sources they turn to and trust. And whether discussing politics online or with friends, they are more likely than others to interact with like-minded individuals, according to a new Pew Research Center study.
The project – part of a year-long effort to shed light on political polarization in America – looks at the ways people get information about government and politics in three different settings: the news media, social media and the way people talk about politics with friends and family. In all three areas, the study finds that those with the most consistent ideological views on the left and right have information streams that are distinct from those of individuals with more mixed political views – and very distinct from each other.
Link to download full report.
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Found it interesting that they included Daily Kos, in the survey as a site with a "niche audience."
Appendix B: The News Sources
The final list of 36 sources asked about in wave 1 of the American Trends panel Web questionnaire consisted of the following: all three major broadcast television stations (ABC News, CBS News and NBC News), the three major cable television news networks (CNN, Fox News and MSNBC), local television news, four of the largest circulated newspapers (the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal and USA TODAY), the two major public broadcast networks (NPR and PBS), international media organizations (BBC, the Guardian and Al Jazeera America), news aggregator websites (Google News, Yahoo News and BuzzFeed), news magazines (the Economist, Mother Jones and the New Yorker), economic news sources (Bloomberg [along with the Economist and the Wall Street Journal]), four political news radio programs with the largest audience bases (the Ed Schultz Show, the Glenn Beck Program, the Rush Limbaugh Show and the Sean Hannity Show), infotainment television shows (the Daily Show and the Colbert Report), and primarily digital sources, some with large audiences that rival some traditional media outlets’ web presence (the Drudge Report and the Huffington Post) and others with more niche audiences (the Blaze, Breitbart, DailyKos, Politico, Slate and ThinkProgress).
Haven't had a chance to read it in detail, but was actually pleased to see that they went beyond a standard analysis of traditional media sources.