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Rational Learners or Impervious Partisans? Economic News and Partisan Bias in Economic Perceptions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2018

J. Scott Matthews  and
Mark Pickup
J. Scott Matthews*
Affiliation:
Memorial University of Newfoundland, Science Building, Room 2028, St. John's, NL A1B 3X9Canada
Mark Pickup
Affiliation:
Simon Fraser University, AQ6069 – 8888 University Drive, Burnaby, B.C. V5A 1S6Canada
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

Decades of research have established the direct influence of partisanship on voter perception of a host of real-world conditions. Even so, numerous factors have been found to moderate this “partisan bias.” We examine one plausible moderator: the volume of perceptually relevant information that is available in the mass media. Both dissonance-theoretic and motivated-reasoning formulations of partisan bias in political perception suggest that the availability of perceptually relevant information may constrain perceptual bias. Yet this proposition has rarely been investigated systematically. This article investigates the moderation of partisan bias by informational conditions, focusing on the impact of economic news on economic perceptions during five Canadian general elections (1993–2006). Although the overall pattern is mixed, evidence suggests that bias reduction in response to information depends on the broader economic and political context.

Résumé

Des décennies de recherche attestent l'influence directe de la partisanerie sur la perception qu'ont les électeurs d'une foule de conditions réelles. On a observé que de nombreux facteurs exercent une influence modérée sur ce « biais partisan ». Nous examinons un modérateur plausible : le volume d'information pertinente sur le plan perceptif qui est accessible dans les médias de masse. Les formulations de la théorie de la dissonance et du raisonnement motivé des biais partisans dans la perception politique suggèrent que de tels préjugés peuvent être limités par l’accessibilité d'informations pertinentes sur le plan perceptif. Pourtant, cette proposition a rarement fait l'objet d'une enquête systématique. Cet article examine la modération des biais partisans par les conditions informationnelles en soulignant l'impact des nouvelles économiques sur les perceptions économiques au cours de cinq élections générales canadiennes (1993 à 2006). Nous constatons une tendance générale mixte, mais des preuves suggérant que la réduction des biais en réponse à l'information dépend du contexte économique et politique plus large.

Type
Research Article/Étude originale
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 52 , Issue 2 , June 2019 , pp. 303 - 321
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 2018 

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Footnotes

A previous version of this article was presented at the Canadian Political Science Association Annual General Meeting, Ottawa, Ontario, in June 2015. This article builds on an earlier article presented at the American Political Science Association Annual Conference, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in September 2006. For comments, advice or suggestions regarding that article, the authors would like to thank Chris Wlezien, Elizabeth Goodyear-Grant, Dimitrios Panagos and James Cottrill. Components of the research arise from Matthews’ dissertation, which was supported, in the form of a doctoral fellowship, by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. For comments on the dissertation and related research, the authors would like to thank Richard Johnston, Fred Cutler and Paul Quirk. For generously making available to us the media data utilized in the article, the authors thank Stuart Soroka. None of these parties are responsible for the arguments of, or errors in, this article.

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