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

Maxim Ananyev, Mikhail Poyker and Yuan Tian

No 2020-03, Discussion Papers from Nottingham Interdisciplinary Centre for Economic and Political Research (NICEP)

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.

Keywords: mobility; media bias; Fox News; COVID-19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

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Journal Article: The safest time to fly: pandemic response in the era of Fox News (2021)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:not:notnic:2020-03

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