Partners in Crime: The Relationship Between Fox News and the Republican Party

• In Event: Poster Session: Political Communication

Abstract

Scholarly understandings of Fox News typically relegate the media outlet to an influence on public opinion or a transmission outlet for conservative opinion. Recently, however, high ranking members of the Republican party, including President Donald Trump have increasingly publicly admitted to being regular consumers of Fox News programming. Qualitative work has also illustrated that Republican lawmakers appear to care a great deal about what appears on Fox News. This relationship suggests that, while important, questions about the opinions of Fox viewers and the role of Fox as a transmission outlet for the Republican party only illustrate part of the relationship. Instead, this paper argues that Fox News should also be thought of as what the UCLA school of parties refers to as a policy demander for the Republican Party. Utilizing content analysis methods, this paper examines the degree of agreement between two pairs: Fox News programming statements by Republican politicians and officials; and Fox News programming with Republican party platforms to determine the degree of influence that Fox News can exert on the direction of the party.

Author

• Daniel M Gomez, University of California Santa Barbara