Study links U.S. political polarization to TV news deregulation

Increasing American political polarization is linked to television news deregulation following the federal Telecommunications Act of 1996, according to a Washington State University study.

“After 1996, we see changes in polarization based on how much television people are using,” said researcher Jay Hmielowski, assistant professor in WSU’s Edward R. Murrow College of Communication. He conducted the study with Murrow colleague Myiah Hutchens and former colleague Michael Beam, now at Kent State University.

Their work was recently published online in the International Journal of Public Opinion Research (http://ijpor.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2015/07/02/ijpor.edv012.short).

The telecommunications act sought to open markets to competition, but the result was consolidation. This included large companies like FOX and NBC buying smaller, independent TV stations and cable news channels.