Reinvigorating Interest in Local News: An Exit Poll Experiment

• In Event: Choosing Your News

Abstract

Scholars, journalists, and civic organizations all worry about the demise of the local news industry. Without vigorous media coverage of local politics, observers fear that citizens will be unable to hold elected officials accountable for their actions, undermining the democratic process. Accordingly, numerous efforts are under way to save local news, most of which focus on finding new revenue sources or cutting costs.

But increasing consumer demand could also help sustain the market for local news and give news organizations an incentive to continue to cover local politics and government. We draw on the literatures on priming and social pressure to argue that reminding people about the civic value of local news may lead them to be more likely to consume it. More specifically, we expect that reminding people that keeping up with local politics is an important part of being an informed citizen and that local governments make many decisions that affect their lives will lead them to consume more local news.

The results of an experiment embedded in an exit poll of 1,069 Arlington County, Virginia, voters during the 2018 midterms support our hypotheses. Voters who filled out a survey that primed the importance of being an informed citizen were 3.7 percentage points more likely than voters in the control group to provide their email address for the purpose of signing up for a daily digest of local news headlines. Voters reminded about the important actions of local governments were 1.3 percentage point more likely than those in the control to give us their email address. Although local news outlets will never regain the market share they possessed in the 20th century, these findings suggest that consumer demand for local public affairs information can be increased by priming attitudes associated with the importance of local government and politics.

Authors

• Danny Hayes, George Washington University

• Jennifer L. Lawless, University of Virginia