The News Media and The Thermostatic Response

The central goal of this project is to further explore the mechanisms that bring about the thermostatic response, asking whether the public receives the factual information it needs from the news media to evaluate the substance of new policies and investigating the degree to which journalistic norms shape policy-focused news reports in ways that are both predictable and consequential for public opinion. I develop a theory that posits that public affairs journalists and editors are incentivized to focus on the partisan conflict and debate inherent in the legislative process - elements of that process that previous studies find many Americans dislike and interpret as “dysfunction.” I argue that this media focus makes the public more aware of and more likely to respond to the contentious nature of the policymaking process than the substance of new laws. Further, I hypothesize that exposure to a bitter, partisan policy debate can cause a shift in public mood, even in the absence of policy change. I test this theory using a case study of attitudes toward health policy spanning from 1980 to 2010. I find that health policy mood is responsive to the policy debate presented in the news media, even in instances where the proposed policy fails.