… In a country as large and diverse as the U.S., how do citizens know whether the economy is doing better or worse? One obvious source of information is the news media. In fact, some political scientists have found that negative news coverage of the economy can shape public opinion, especially in an election year. …
But in a 2017 “Research & Politics” article, Eunji Kim, Soojong Kim and I found that the news media’s ability to influence Americans’ perceptions of the economy may be overstated. Our analysis found that major media outlets’ coverage of the economy is much more likely to lag public perceptions than to lead them. CONT.
Dan Hopkins (Penn), FiveThirtyEight