Me Against Myself: How Right-Partisan Media Use Predicts Support for Redistribution Across Class and Partisan Identities

2025/07/11 by Yifei Wang, Miriam J. Metzger, Daniel S. Lane · 1 voice
Social Sciences · #Electoral Systems and Political Participation #Media Influence and Politics #Social and Cultural Dynamics

paper · doi:10.1177/10776990251350567

openalex publication_date 2025/07/11 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21

Abstract

Despite rising economic inequality in the United States, lower-class Americans have yet to demand economic redistribution in overwhelming numbers. Analysis of the 2020 American National Election Study finds that right-partisan media use is associated with lower support for redistributive policies, and this relationship is strongest among individuals who identify as lower-class or Independent. We also found the relationship between right-partisan media use and taxing the rich was strongest among lower-class Republicans and upper-class Democrats. We discuss the potential for right-partisan media to breed system-justifying beliefs and shape opposition to economic redistribution among those who might benefit most from such policies.

Citations

• Source Cues, Partisan Identities, and Political Value Expression
• A Decade of System Justification Theory: Accumulated Evidence of Conscious and Unconscious Bolstering of the Status Quo
• The Parties in Our Heads: Misperceptions about Party Composition and Their Consequences
• The Nature of Affective Polarization: Disentangling Policy Disagreement from Partisan Identity
• ‘The Economy is Rigged’: Inequality Narratives, Fairness, and Support for Redistribution in Six Countries
• Social Identity, Self-Categorization, and the Communication of Group Norms

Discussions

• Wang, Metzger & Lane show that using right-partisan media is tied to lower support for redistribution—with the effect strongest among lower-class and Independent individuals, particularly lower-class [bsky, 2 points, 0 comments]

Related

• Inequality and the Partisan Political Economy
• ‘The Economy is Rigged’: Inequality Narratives, Fairness, and Support for Redistribution in Six Countries
• Asymmetry of Partisan Media Effects?: Examining the Reinforcing Process of Conservative and Liberal Media with Political Beliefs
• The emerging fault line of alternative news: Intra-party division in Republican representatives’ media engagement
• Consuming Cross-Cutting Media Causes Learning and Moderates Attitudes: A Field Experiment with Fox News Viewers