Media Measurement Matters: Estimating the Persuasive Effects of Partisan Media with Survey and Behavioral Data

To what extent do partisan media influence political attitudes and behavior in the United States? Although recent methodological advancements have improved scholars’ ability to identify the persuasiveness of partisan media, past studies typically rely on self-reported measures of media preferences, which may deviate from real-world news consumption. Integrating individual-level web-browsing data with a large-scale survey, we contrast survey-based indicators of stated preferences with behavioral measures of revealed preferences, based on the relative volume and slant of news individuals consume. Overall, we find that these measurement strategies generate differing conclusions regarding heterogeneity in partisan media’s persuasive impact. Whereas the stated preference measures raise the possibility of persuasion by counter-attitudinal sources, the revealed preference measures offer a more nuanced portrait of media effects. Specifically, among respondents who regularly consume ideologically slanted content, partisan media exposure appears to result in limited attitude change, with any observed treatment effects driven primarily by pro-attitudinal outlets.