Politics

At a time when the news media is routinely under public attack, journalists generally take one of two tacks: ignore it or defend themselves. ProPublica politics reporter Jessica Huseman made a case for the first tack in a Tweet from 2017:

Maybe controversial, but I think the media wastes energy saying we like America and are honest. Let’s just go our jobs well and prove it.

After local newspapers close, political polarization among voters increases, according to new research in the Journal of Communication.

There’s a clear link between the accounts journalists follow on Twitter and the partisanship of their work, finds a new study from researchers at Northeastern University and the University at Buffalo.

The national electorate often is framed in terms of partisan or generational divides. But there’s another important polarization of the electorate to consider: the health divide.

“Racially conservative” attitudes were the primary reason white Southerners abandoned the Democratic Party after party leaders began to advocate for civil rights legislation during the last half of the 20^th century, finds a new study from researchers at Princeton and Yale universities.

A survey of 1,300 adults living in rural America finds they are preoccupied by economic issues and the ongoing opioid epidemic — and most think the government can help solve these problems.

Eugene Scott is a longtime political reporter who writes about identity politics for the Washington Post’s The Fix. Before joining the Post in 2017, he covered breaking news at CNN Politics. And prior to that, he reported on local politics for the Arizona Republic, Kansas City Star and Charlotte Observer.

It’s difficult to choose which research articles to spotlight here as the most interesting or compelling — because scholars are doing so much interesting and compelling work. They’re continually asking tough questions to try to understand problems and trends within the digital news/social media space.