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

Ananyev, Maxim; Poyker, Michael; Tian, Yuan

Abstract

We document a causal effect of the conservative Fox News Channel in the USA on physical distancing during COVID-19 pandemic. We measure county-level mobility covering all US states and District of Columbia produced by GPS pings to 15–17 million smartphones and zip-code-level mobility using Facebook location data. 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 a smaller increase in the probability of staying home after the national emergency declaration in the USA. Our results show that slanted media can have a harmful effect on containment efforts during a pandemic by affecting people’s behavior.

Citation

Ananyev, M., Poyker, M., & Tian, Y. (2021). The safest time to fly: pandemic response in the era of Fox News. Journal of Population Economics, 34(3), 775-802. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00148-021-00847-0

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Mar 25, 2021
• Online Publication Date: Apr 24, 2021
• Publication Date: Jul 1, 2021
• Deposit Date: Apr 26, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 26, 2021
• Journal: Journal of Population Economics
• Print ISSN: 0933-1433
• Electronic ISSN: 1432-1475
• Publisher: Springer Verlag
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 34
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 775-802
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00148-021-00847-0
• Keywords: Economics and Econometrics; Demography
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/5496072
• Publisher URL: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00148-021-00847-0
• Additional Information: Received: 22 October 2020; Accepted: 25 March 2021; First Online: 24 April 2021; : ; : No need for IRB; : We have no non-disclosure obligations.