Joseph E. Uscinski

What's in a name? coverage of senator Hillary Clinton during the 2008 democratic primary

Throughout the 2008 Democratic primary, Senator Hillary Clinton, her supporters and advocates, feminist groups, and commentators accused the media of sexist coverage. Was Hillary Clinton treated differently in the media because of her gender? The authors attempt to answer this question by examining the forms of address that television newspeople use to refer to the Democratic primary candidates. The authors find that newspeople referred to Clinton more informally than her male competitors. This treatment stemmed from the gender of the broadcaster; males show gender bias in how they reference presidential candidates. The authors conclude with suggestions for addressing gender bias in news coverage.

What Drives Conspiratorial Beliefs? The Role of Informational Cues and Predispositions:

Why do people believe in conspiracy theories? This study breaks from much previous research and attempts to explain conspiratorial beliefs with traditional theories of opinion formation. Specifically, we focus on the reception of informational cues given a set of predispositions (political and conspiratorial). We begin with observational survey data to show that there exists a unique predisposition that drives individuals to one degree or another to believe in conspiracy theories. This predisposition appears orthogonal to partisanship and predicts political behaviors including voter participation. Then a national survey experiment is used to test the effect of an informational cue on belief in a conspiracy theory while accounting for both conspiratorial predispositions and partisanship. Our results provide an explanation for individual-level heterogeneity in the holding of conspiratorial beliefs and also indicate the conditions under which information can drive conspiratorial beliefs.

The Epistemology of Fact Checking

ABSTRACT Fact checking has become a prominent facet of political news coverage, but it employs a variety of objectionable methodological practices, such as treating a statement containing multiple facts as if it were a single fact and categorizing as accurate or inaccurate predictions of events yet to occur. These practices share the tacit presupposition that there cannot be genuine political debate about facts, because facts are unambiguous and not subject to interpretation. Therefore, when the black-and-white facts—as they appear to the fact checkers—conflict with the claims produced by politicians, the fact checkers are able to see only (to one degree or another) “lies.” The examples of dubious fact-checking practices that we discuss show the untenability of the naïve political epistemology at work in the fact-checking branch of journalism. They may also call into question the same epistemology in journalism at large, and in politics.

The Epistemology of Fact Checking (Is Still Naìve): Rejoinder to Amazeen

ABSTRACT Michelle Amazeens rebuttal of Uscinski and Butler 2013 is unsuccessful. Amazeens attempt to infer the accuracy of fact checks from their agreement with each other fails on its own terms and, in any event, could as easily be explained by fact checkers’ political biases as their common access to the objective truth. She also ignores the distinction between verifiable facts and unverifiable claims about the future, as well as contestable claims about the causes of political, social, and economic phenomena. The social benefits that she claims for the fact-checking enterprise must, at the very least, be weighed against the strong possibility that what passes for fact checking is actually just a veiled continuation of politics by means of journalism rather than being an independent, objective counterweight to political untruths.

The Effect of Conspiratorial Thinking and Motivated Reasoning on Belief in Election Fraud

Belief in electoral fraud has received heightened attention due to elite rhetoric and controversial voter identification (ID) laws. Using a two-wave national survey administered before and after the 2012 election, we examine the individual-level correlates of belief in a range of election-related conspiracy theories. Our data show that partisanship affects the timing and content of belief in election-related conspiracy theories, but a general disposition toward conspiratorial thinking strongly influences those beliefs. Support for voter ID laws, in contrast, appears to be driven largely by party identification through elite-mass linkages. Our analysis suggests that belief in election fraud is a common and predictable consequence of both underlying conspiratorial thinking and motivated partisan reasoning.

What’s a Dog Story Worth?

Journalists consider the importance of events and the audience’s interest in them when deciding on which events to report. Events most likely to be reported are those that are both important and can capture the audience’s interest. In turn, the public is most likely to become aware of important news when some aspect of the story piques their interest. We suggest an efficacious means of drawing public attention to important news stories: dogs. Examining the national news agenda of 10 regional newspapers relative to that of the New York Times, we evaluated the effect of having a dog in a news event on the likelihood that the event is reported in regional newspapers. The “dog effect” is approximately equivalent to the effect of whether a story warrants front- or back-page national news coverage in the New York Times. Thus, we conclude that dogs are an important factor in news decisions.

The partisan contours of conspiracy theory beliefs

The “conspiracy theories are for losers” argument suggests that out-of-power groups use conspiracy theories to sensitize minds, close ranks, and encourage collective action. Two necessary conditions of this argument are that (1) group members subscribe mostly to conspiracy theories that malign out-groups or bolster their in-group, and (2) group members must recognize whether conspiracy theories emanate from their own group, an opposing group, or are outside of partisan conflict. Using representative survey data from the 2012 Cooperative Congressional Election Study, we show that conspiracy accusations follow the contours of partisan conflict: partisans accuse opposing groups, rather than co-partisans or non-partisans, of conspiring. Using MTurk data, we show that partisans can differentiate between the conspiracy theories coming from members of each party. We suggest that many conspiracy beliefs behave like most partisan attitudes; they follow the contours of partisan conflict and act as calling cards that send clear signals to co-partisans.

(Where) Do Campaigns Matter? The Impact of National Party Convention Location

The quadrennial presidential nominating conventions are the biggest campaign events of the election cycle. Previous studies find that conventions significantly impact national-level candidate preferences; however, scholars have not yet specified the effects that such large campaign events have on residents of the host areas. As fairly uniform and one-sided interventions across years and parties, the conventions offer an opportunity for a cross time, cross-sectional analysis of the local effect of campaign events. We develop a difference-in-difference analysis to show conventions significantly affect the presidential candidates’ county-level vote shares. Individual-level data from panel surveys from before and after the 2000 and 2004 conventions are used to validate the aggregate-level findings. Beyond providing strong evidence of meaningful campaign event effects, the results demonstrate how campaign effects can be conditional on local political characteristics and geography. Overall, we find Democrats are more likely to gain support in convention host communities than Republicans.

Determinants of Representatives' Votes on the Flake Amendment to End National Science Foundation Funding of Political Science Research

In May 2012, political scientists learned of efforts by representative Jeff Flake (R-AZ) to eliminate political science funding from theNational Science Foundation (NSF) budget.TheAmericanPoliticalScienceAssociation (APSA)was caughtoff-guard, andconcerned political scientists scrambled to contact their representatives and urge the amendment’s defeat. Flake’s initial effort to cut funds overall from the NSF was defeated, but a second measure, specifically to keep the NSF from funding political science, passed only hours later. This was the second time in three years that legislators targeted the NSF Political Science Program. Although thesemeasures have been sponsored andwidely supported by Republicans, someDemocrats have supported thesemeasures as well. This articleexaminesthevoteontheFlakeAmendmenttounderstandwhyindividualrepresentatives voted for or against cuttingNSF funding for political science research. The National Science Foundation (NSF) supports political science research by faculty, as well as by undergraduate and graduate students. In fiscal year 2011, the Political Science Program spent about

The conditional effect of conspiracy thinking on attitudes toward climate change

1,000,000 on new research, training andworkshop projects, and dissertation grants.1 In 2009, this important source of research funding was threatened when senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) filed an amendment to eliminate political science funding from the NSF budget. Coburn argued that political science “really is not science at all” and that “theories on political behavior are best left to CNN, pollsters, pundits, historians, candidates, political parties, and the voters, rather than being funded out of taxpayers’ wallets.”2 The Coburn Amendment, as it came to be known, was defeated in the Senate with little debate. Studies analyzing that amendment found that while party was the largest determinant of senators’ votes, the number of highly rated political science PhD programs in each state, the proportion of each state’s population with an advanced degree, and whether the senator had majored in political science as an undergraduate significantly influenced the votes as well (Uscinski and Klofstad 2010). Following the defeat of the Coburn Amendment, it seemed political science NSF funding was safe. Thus, when representative Jeff Flake (R-AZ) sought to diminish NSF funding in May 2012, theAmericanPolitical ScienceAssociation (APSA)was seemingly caught off-guard, and political scientists were only told of Flake’s efforts as they unfolded. Unlike the Coburn Amendment, there was little build-up to Flake’s proposals because they were not subject to a drawn-out committee process. Representative Flake first introduced an amendment to reduce overallNSF funding by