Media Supply, Audience Demand, and the Geography of News Consumption in the United States

Abstract The choice to seek out political information is a function both of the individual traits of consumers and of the supply of news content in particular media markets, but previous research has tended to focus only on the individual-level correlates of news exposure. This article explores how the size and complexity of local information markets influence levels of exposure to local, network, and cable television news, as well as exposure to talk radio, online news sources, and daily newspapers. Using multilevel modeling and spatial lag regression, our analysis shows that the structure and demographic tendencies of local news markets are strongly correlated with patterns of individual-level news exposure even after controlling for individual-level demographic characteristics known to predict information seeking behavior. Moreover, we find consistent evidence of regional information cultures that influence demand for news beyond the impact of demographic and market-level factors. Keywords: news exposuremedia consumptionmedia marketsspatial analysisnews consumptiongeographyspatial datamedia supply Notes 1. However, if local news products deliver large lead-in audiences to national programs, then the size of local news markets could be positively related to local variations in the size of television audiences for network news broadcasts (e.g., CitationMcDowell questions for the other five news media simply ask for the number of days per week. 10. Average Democratic vote share is the average percentage of the DMA's presidential vote that went to Democratic candidates in 1992 and 1996; political competition is 100 minus the absolute value of the average difference between the Democratic and Republican percentage of the presidential vote in 1992 and 1996. Higher values of the political competition variable indicate a closer contest between the major parties.