"What Kind of Bias Do I Want?" How Cross-Pressured Voters Select Political Media

"What Kind of Bias Do I Want?" How Cross-Pressured Voters Select Political Media | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article "What Kind of Bias Do I Want?" How Cross-Pressured Voters Select Political Media Lucas Paulo da Silva This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-9096787/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Media selection is an important form of political behavior that often shapes public opinion and voting. While most people select like-minded media, recent evidence suggests that media markets do not represent the growing populations of cross-pressured voters (CPVs) with "mixed" ideological positions. CPVs consist of two groups: "left-conservatives" are economically leftist and culturally conservative, while "right-progressives" are the reverse. Since CPVs are under-represented by political media outlets, how do they select outlets and content? My theory draws on another type of political behavior — voting — and adapts the prominent spatial voting model to political media selection. Hence, I argue that salience shapes outlet selection. Moreover, within an outlet, both salience and outlet ideology influence content selection. I administer a pre-registered survey to British CPVs that simulates the media selection process with two experiments. This is supplemented by large-scale, representative panel data from the UK, US, and Germany. My results indicate that (1) CPVs usually select right-conservative outlets, (2) salience likely has some influence over content selection within outlets, and (3) outlet ideology has a powerful effect on content selection. However, surprisingly, salience might not drive the initial outlet selection process, pointing to new avenues for research. This study has important implications for selective exposure, media effects, public opinion, and voting behavior. cross-pressured voters ideology media selection selective exposure experiment panel data Full Text Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Supplementary Files onlineappendices.pdf Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-9096787","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":612842708,"identity":"90fa6303-7606-4028-b3f6-544dbd65870e","order_by":0,"name":"Lucas Paulo da Silva","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAAA3UlEQVRIie3QMQrCQBCF4bcsrM2q7YqCV1gRFAmSs0jANB7AwiISiJV4AdErpLJWBrTxAnaKkMrGLhaCEQux2WhnsT8D08zXDGCz/WGl1+LZ8AAYAhoQRiLehGVk/xNBRlj0DVHe6ZrCqdcnLFK3Bblt8ORoJv1mVcJvxMSiynRFvBOItjaTAaoAsZizUBdXJPRaCpVD+C0FucuQhY37nOQ3RCgJ6gXExudiQCqfyKTlSO178ZPUtr7WJFpGUi5450M6dLrLGa03l5Hj6l2YGMmrjw/x/HubzWaz5fQAG2k9y3MNZ0YAAAAASUVORK5CYII=","orcid":"","institution":"University of Zurich","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Lucas","middleName":"Paulo da","lastName":"Silva","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2026-03-11 16:53:18","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-9096787/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-9096787/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":105751344,"identity":"93b1172b-4afc-4413-b5a8-49932b849e9f","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-03-30 15:28:04","extension":"pdf","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":2496162,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"manuscript.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-9096787/v1_covered_e0270c4a-e2ad-4261-ae43-f59107c5e66e.pdf"},{"id":105751280,"identity":"70e611d6-c489-4213-9471-6168909d4bd9","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-03-30 15:27:53","extension":"pdf","order_by":0,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"supplement","size":11417011,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"onlineappendices.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-9096787/v1/01e0cf4cf937e1ead45db2bc.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"No competing interests reported.","formattedTitle":"\"What Kind of Bias Do I Want?\" How Cross-Pressured Voters Select Political Media","fulltext":[],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":false,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":false,"hideJournal":true,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":true,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":true,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true},"keywords":"cross-pressured voters, ideology, media selection, selective exposure, experiment, panel data","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-9096787/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-9096787/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"Media selection is an important form of political behavior that often shapes public opinion and voting. While most people select like-minded media, recent evidence suggests that media markets do not represent the growing populations of cross-pressured voters (CPVs) with \"mixed\" ideological positions. CPVs consist of two groups: \"left-conservatives\" are economically leftist and culturally conservative, while \"right-progressives\" are the reverse. Since CPVs are under-represented by political media outlets, how do they select outlets and content? My theory draws on another type of political behavior — voting — and adapts the prominent spatial voting model to political media selection. Hence, I argue that salience shapes outlet selection. Moreover, within an outlet, both salience and outlet ideology influence content selection.\n\nI administer a pre-registered survey to British CPVs that simulates the media selection process with two experiments. This is supplemented by large-scale, representative panel data from the UK, US, and Germany. 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