How much do your politics determine your news diet? Quite a lot, according to the latest numbers from Pew.
The Pew study looked into political polarization and media habits, and found that, at the opposite ends of the spectrum—consistently liberal and consistently conservative—respondents selected news outlets along partisan lines.
An impressive 47 percent of consistent conservatives said that Fox News was their main source of political news. Consistent liberals were loyal to a few more outlets, but they were all choices Fox News viewers would likely turn their noses up at: MSNBC, NPR, CNN, and the New York Times. 81 percent of liberals distrust Fox News, while 88 percent of conservatives trust them.
Conservatives distrusted 24 out of 36 news outlets, while liberals trusted 28.
And the ideological fish bowl doesn’t stop with cable: Conservatives are more likely to share their political views with their friends and hear opinions they agree with on Facebook. But liberals are more likely to block people on social media whose views they disagree with, and are more likely to break up a friendship over political disputes.
These consistent liberals and conservatives were also found to be much more politically involved than their more mediocre counterparts—“mostly” conservative or liberal, or “mixed.”
Much has been made of whether America is really more “polarized” than ever. Studies like this can leave a lot of the story untold. Pew’s method of determining ideology, for example, relies on just 10 survey questions. But the changing media landscape, and the freedom of the internet, seem to be encouraging people ever more to select only the news they want to hear.
