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The safest time to fly: Pandemic response in the era of Fox News

Author

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  • Maxim Ananyev
  • Michael Poyker
  • Yuan Tian
Abstract
We document a causal effect of conservative Fox News Channel in the United States on physical distancing during COVID-19 pandemic. We measure county-level mobility covering all U.S. states and District of Columbia produced by GPS pings to 15-17 million smartphones and zip-code-level mobility using Facebook location data. Then, using the historical position of Fox News Channel in the cable lineup as the source of exogenous variation, we show that increased exposure to Fox News led to a smaller reduction in distance traveled and smaller increase in the probability to stay home after the national emergency declaration in the United States. Our results show that slanted media can have a harmful effect on containment efforts during a pandemic by affecting people’s behaviour.

Suggested Citation

  • Maxim Ananyev & Michael Poyker & Yuan Tian, 2020. "The safest time to fly: Pandemic response in the era of Fox News," Discussion Papers 2020-03, Nottingham Interdisciplinary Centre for Economic and Political Research (NICEP).
    • Handle: RePEc:not:notnic:2020-03
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    Cited by:

    1. Marcel Garz & Maiting Zhuang, 2024. "Media coverage and pandemic behavior: Evidence from Sweden," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(6), pages 1319-1367, June.
    2. Sergei Guriev & Elias Papaioannou, 2022. "The Political Economy of Populism," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 60(3), pages 753-832, September.
    3. Caselli, Mauro & Fracasso, Andrea, 2021. "Covid-19 and Technology," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1001, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    4. Leonardo Bursztyn & Aakaash Rao & Christopher Roth & David Yanagizawa-Drott, 2023. "Opinions as Facts," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 90(4), pages 1832-1864.
    5. Deopa, Neha & Fortunato, Piergiuseppe, 2021. "Coronagraben in Switzerland: Culture and social distancing in times of COVID-19," GLO Discussion Paper Series 857, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    6. Tian, Yuan & Caballero, Maria Esther & Kovak, Brian K., 2022. "Social learning along international migrant networks," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 195(C), pages 103-121.
    7. Egorov, Georgy & Enikolopov, Ruben & Makarin, Alexey & Petrova, Maria, 2021. "Divided we stay home: Social distancing and ethnic diversity," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 194(C).
    8. Gabriele Beccari & Matilde Giaccherini & Joanna Kopinska & Gabriele Rovigatti, 2023. "Refueling a Quiet Fire: Old Truthers and New Discontent in the Wake of Covid-19," CESifo Working Paper Series 10803, CESifo.
    9. Ashani Amarasinghe & Paul A. Raschky, 2022. "Competing for Attention - The Effect of Talk Radio on Elections and Political Polarization in the US," SoDa Laboratories Working Paper Series 2022-02, Monash University, SoDa Laboratories.
    10. Ze Chen & Yuan Wang & Yanjun Guan & Michael Jie Guo & Rong Xu, 2023. "Long‐term effect of childhood pandemic experience on medical major choice: Evidence from the 2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak in China," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(5), pages 1120-1147, May.
    11. Matteo Pazzona & Nicola Spagnolo, 2024. "Do not shut up and do dribble: social media and TV consumption," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 37(2), pages 1-25, June.
    12. Maxim Ananyev & Michael Poyker & Yuan Tian, 2021. "The safest time to fly: pandemic response in the era of Fox News," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 34(3), pages 775-802, July.
    13. Zhuang, Maiting & Garz , Marcel, 2022. "Media coverage and pandemic behaviour: Evidence from Sweden," SITE Working Paper Series 61, Stockholm School of Economics, Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics.
    14. Theresa Kuchler & Johannes Stroebel, 2022. "Social Interactions, Resilience, and Access to Economic Opportunity: A Research Agenda for the Field of Computational Social Science," CESifo Working Paper Series 9606, CESifo.
    15. Neha Deopa & Piergiuseppe Fortunato, 2021. "Coronagraben in Switzerland: culture and social distancing in times of COVID-19," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 34(4), pages 1355-1383, October.
    16. Basu, Arnab K. & Chau, Nancy H. & Firsin, Oleg, 2023. "Social Connections and COVID-19 Vaccination," IZA Discussion Papers 16307, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Iglesias, Emma M., 2022. "The influence of extreme events such as Brexit and Covid-19 on equity markets," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 418-430.
    18. Porismita Borah & Kyle Lorenzano & Anastasia Vishnevskaya & Erica Austin, 2022. "Conservative Media Use and COVID-19 Related Behavior: The Moderating Role of Media Literacy Variables," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(13), pages 1-13, June.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    mobility; media bias; Fox News; COVID-19;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D1 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior
    • D7 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making
    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

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