Tuning Out or Tuning Elsewhere? Partisanship, Polarization, and Media Migration from 1998 to 2006

The fragmentation of the mass media audience has led scholars to examine the growing partisanship of news consumers as less partisan individuals turn to more entertainment-oriented fare. An analysis of national survey data from 1998 to 2006 suggests that not only has the news audience grown somewhat more partisan over time, but among these partisans a distinct migration has occurred to sources more likely to be friendly to individual political beliefs or away from sources perceived as less friendly.