The tone of media coverage often reflects the outcome of election campaigns. This is not necessarily because opinion follows media content — it seems just as likely that media reflects the state of public affairs. Either way, there is a considerable body of work that finds a correlation between media coverage and voter preferences, both in the US and elsewhere (e.g., Balmas & Shaffer 2010; Druckman & Parkin 2005; Fournier et al. 2004; Hopmann et al. 2010; Ladd & Lens 2009). More often than not, when voters’ preferences swing towards one party over the other, so too does the tone of media content. This was decidedly not the case in the most recent midterm election. Indeed, preliminary analysis suggests that, as far as the tone of media coverage is concerned, this election was unlike any other in the past 20 years. CONT.
Stuart Soroka (U. of Michigan), LSE USAPP
Net tone across newspapers in 2018
