Are You What You Watch?
Tracking the Political Divide through TV Preferences

The Lear Center's Media Impact Project polled some 3,000 Americans on their opinions about U.S. and world affairs as well as their favorite entertainment and news preferences.

Using a statistical clustering technique, respondents fell into three clusters: The Blues, who hold more liberal beliefs and enjoy a range of entertainment content; The Reds, who are more conservative in their beliefs and who watch very little TV entertainment, and a swing group, The Purples, who are not only the biggest fans of entertainment TV, but the most likely to take action based on the social issues they see depicted there.

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ARE YOU WHAT YOU WATCH? in the news
Washington Tech Policy Podcast: Johanna Blakley: TV and Politics (Ep. 196).
The Conversation: Liberals and conservatives have wildly different TV-viewing habits, by Johanna Blakley.
Newsy: Study: Your Favorite Show Might Say A Lot About Your Politics.
Poynter: It’s Blue vs. Red in TV Viewership Habits.
LA Times: TV Shows ‘Bones’ and ‘Criminal Minds’ Cross Political Divides, a New Study Finds.
Deadline Hollywood: Study Finds Surprising Connections Between TV Preference And Political Beliefs.
Vulture: New Study Finds Both Conservatives and Liberals Like Bones.

Phase II: Using Biological Data to Tell Better Stories (and sparking social change)

What kinds of stories move us to act?

For phase II of our Entertainment & Ideology research, MIP is collaborating with creative technologist Heidi J. Boisvert at FuturePerfect Lab as she measures how people's brains and bodies unconsciously respond to different media. In this TED talk, she shows how she's using this data to determine the specific narrative ingredients that inspire empathy and justice -- and spark large-scale social change.

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Highlights from "Are You What You Watch?"

• Common Ground 
  Despite the media narrative about an increasingly divided nation, we found Americans have gravitated toward more moderate positions on nine divisive issues over the last ten years: the environment, business regulation, technology, guns, public education, abortion, charity, marriage and taxes. Read about Nine Common Ground Issues
  

• Anatomy of Crime Dramas
  All Americans equally enjoyed watching one crime drama, Criminal Minds. Two other police and legal procedurals, Law & Order: SVU and NCIS drew larger blue and red audiences, respectively. Read our Anatomy of Three Crime Dramas

• ​How do Blue, Purple and Red TV Viewers Rank Social Issues
  Health care was the number one issue for most Americans, with Blues exhibiting the most concern. Purples and Reds were more concerned about Terrorism and Security issues. Read Social Issues and Entertainment Preferences

 

• How to use this research
  MIP is conducting this research in collaboration with futurePerfect Lab with support from the Pop Culture Collaborative. The survey is part of a larger study that uses content analysis of top TV shows to garner psychographic and biometric data as it relates to ideology and entertainment preferences. Best Ways To Use This Research

Our previous research with Zogby

Everyone knows that America is politically polarized. Over the past 25 years or so, regardless of the party in power, about 37% of the country has self-identified as liberal or progressive or Democratic or “Blue;” about 25% of the population has self-identified as conservative or Republican or “Red,” and the remaining 35% percent — call them moderates, independents, centrists, swing voters or “Purples?” — think of themselves as belonging to the political middle. Does that polarization play out not only on the spectrum of political values, but also in other ways? 

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Summary of 2008 Findings

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