7 - Diagnosing and Exploring Dynamics

Summary

Preceding chapters have provided evidence that media coverage frequently reflects public policy, and that public preferences respond to a combination of policy and the media “policy signal.” Those results speak to some important questions about the nature and functioning of representative democracy, we believe. A good number of questions nevertheless remain. This chapter attempts to address some of what seem to us to be the most pressing issues. First, we consider the impact that trends in media consumption have on public responsiveness. Second, we consider heterogeneity in public responsiveness to the media policy signal. Third, we reconsider the causal relationships between policy, news coverage, and the public. Fourth and finally, we investigate several of the domain-specific media effects identified in Chapter 6. Media coverage of policy matters, but to varying degrees and in different ways. We offer additional analyses here to help illuminate some of these domain-level differences in information flows.