“Fox News Doesn’t Deliver for Us Anymore”: Political Elites and Far-Right Media

• In Event: The Conservative Media Ecosystem

Abstract

Many Republican candidates refused to grant interviews or access to mainstream news outlets in the lead-up to the 2022 midterm elections – preferring to instead speak with far-right outlets (Kurtzleben, 2022). This trend is problematic for numerous reasons, not least of which is that many Republican officials and candidates promote anti-democratic views such as refusing to accept the outcome of the 2020 presidential election (Gardner, 2022). These media appearances are also indicative of political identity ownership (Kreiss et al., 2020) through which Republicans send extreme in-group signals to audiences of these outlets. Our study therefore examines which Republican elected officials granted interviews to far-right outlets during the Trump presidency and the topics they discussed.

In a previous study, we found that Republican members of Congress (MoC) increasingly granted interviews to far-right outlets (FRO) during the Trump presidency, which was correlated with increases in Trump’s tweets praising and promoting these FRO (Archer et al., 2022). To better understand who seemingly followed Trump’s lead in granting interviews to FRO during his presidency, this study asks two overarching research questions: Which MoC granted interviews to FRO during the Trump presidency? What is the nature and topic of these interviews?

We first identify exclusive appearances of Republican MoC on three FRO: Breitbart, One American News Network (OANN), and Newsmax. Then, we describe the MoC who grant interviews to FRO, including the districts they represent, their tenure in office, their ideology scores, whether they are members of the Freedom Caucus, and whether they certified the 2020 presidential election. As a baseline for media coverage, we also compare any interviews granted to Fox News.

We next examine the topics covered in these interviews using mixed methods. We analyze the interviews for the general topic and identify the subject of the interviews using natural language processing of YouTube video transcripts and article text. Drawing on the premise of “rhetorical share” (McGregor & Mourão, 2016), we use computational methods to identify who is speaking versus who is the subject. For example, are Republican MoC talking about out-party elected officials they view as ideologically extreme, such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, or other members of their own party (e.g., Padgett et al., 2019)? Together, this analysis of what the MoC are talking about helps inform whether they are signaling political identity ownership, to appeal to the audiences of the FRO (Kreiss et al., 2020).

This study furthers our understanding of which elected officials are lending legitimacy to FRO, which often spread extremist mis- and disinformation and do not abide by journalistic norms. As such, we provide a foundational understanding of the state of political communication through the Trump presidency, which paved the way for press-state relations in the run-up to the 2022 midterms and beyond.

References
Archer, A. M. N., Schmitt, C., McGregor, S. C., & Jang, H. (2022, September 16). Presidential Authority and the Legitimation of Far-Right News. Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Montreal QC, Canada.
Gardner, A. (2022, October 19). A majority of GOP nominees deny or question the 2020 election results. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/06/elections-deniers-midterm-elections-2022/
Kreiss, D., Lawrence, R. G., & McGregor, S. C. (2020). Political Identity Ownership: Symbolic Contests to Represent Members of the Public. Social Media + Society, 6(2), 2056305120926495. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305120926495
Kurtzleben, D. (2022, August 5). Many Republicans on the campaign trail are shunning mainstream press. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2022/08/05/1116036125/many-republicans-on-the-campaign-trail-are-shunning-mainstream-press
McGregor, S. C., & Mourão, R. R. (2016). Talking Politics on Twitter: Gender, Elections, and Social Networks. Social Media + Society, 2(3), 2056305116664218. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305116664218
Padgett, J., Dunaway, J. L., & Darr, J. P. (2019). As Seen on TV? How Gatekeeping Makes the U.S. House Seem More Extreme. Journal of Communication, 69(6), 696–719. https://doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqz039

Authors

• Shannon C McGregor, University of North Carolina

• Carolyn Schmitt, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

• Allison M.N. Archer, University of Houston

• Heesoo Jang, University of Massachusetts - Amherst