Under friendly fire: An experiment on partisan press, fragmented opposition and voting behavior

Statements in which a one-sided partisan media source criticizes a politician aligned with it—friendly fire—are particularly persuasive. This literature assumes a bipartisan context. We argue that when there is a dominant party on one side of the political spectrum with a strong link with a media ou...

Full description

Autores:
Tipo de recurso:
Fecha de publicación:
2019
Institución:
Universidad del Rosario
Repositorio:
Repositorio EdocUR - U. Rosario
Idioma:
eng
OAI Identifier:
oai:repository.urosario.edu.co:10336/23911
Acceso en línea:
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2019.04.008
https://repository.urosario.edu.co/handle/10336/23911
Palabra clave:
Electoral geography
Experimental study
Political geography
Voting behavior
Argentina
Rights
License
Abierto (Texto Completo)
Description
Summary:Statements in which a one-sided partisan media source criticizes a politician aligned with it—friendly fire—are particularly persuasive. This literature assumes a bipartisan context. We argue that when there is a dominant party on one side of the political spectrum with a strong link with a media outlet, voters treat attacks against a co-partisan candidate as friendly fire. But when there is a fragmented opposition, we expect that the strength of the signal conveyed by the friendly fire is diminished. Based on a survey experiment conducted in Argentina, we find the fragmented nature of the opposition changes the dynamic of friendly fire. Only partisan and sophisticated opposition voters treat attacks on opposition candidates as friendly fire. These voters are better able to overcome the lack of clear partisan link with the opposition newspaper and punish their co-partisan candidate. © 2019