Christensen, Julia B. "The Impact of Media Supply on Bureaucratic Information Collection"
Bureaucrats rely on news media to navigate a complex information environment and make strategic decisions, yet the volume of news is overwhelming. Agencies, therefore, contract private firms to distill news into daily “clipbooks” of relevant stories. I analyze these clipbooks across U.S. executive agencies and find a systematic skew: conservative news sources appear more often in briefings for conservative agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The skew does not appear to arise from biased news selection; instead, it mirrors the news supply--conservative outlets generally produce less content about liberal agencies, and vice versa. Because of this supply asymmetry, liberal agencies receive very little news from conservative sources. While the pattern is generally stable across administrations, there is some evidence of biased demand during Trump's second term, representing a clear departure from prior periods. I close by discussing how these disparities in coverage may affect agency decision making and representation.
Working paper and appendix.
Christensen, Julia B. "The National Implications of Local News Decline"
The rise of the internet had a paradoxical effect on the influence of local news. The internet undercut advertising revenue while also making relatively obscure local papers visible outside of their local communities. Using daily news "clipbooks" produced for the Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama administrations, this paper reveals the value of local news to the White House and examines how the internet altered the supply of information to federal policymakers. Over time, the amount of local news in these clipbooks varies substantially. Local news collection drops sharply after each president wins reelection, suggesting that the value of local news is tied to electoral incentives. Technological developments also reshaped local news collection. After large-scale webscraping was implemented in 2001, the geographic diversity of local sources expanded sharply. However, following this initial spike, local news clips became increasingly less diverse and less frequent over the course of the 2000s and 2010s. I use the staggered rollout of Craigslist to establish that this decline is caused by the hollowing out of local news. By altering the flow of information to federal policymakers, the internet had an uneven effect on representation, benefiting some areas and groups and disadvantaging others. Taken together, these findings reveal the informational value of local news to national policymakers and demonstrate that the loss of local news has political consequences far beyond the local level.
Research memo available here (updated memo available upon request). Examples of clipbooks available here.
Christensen, Julia B. "Gatekeeping Bias in Local Media Coverage of Pedestrian and Cyclist Fatalities"
Last year, over a hundred thousand pedestrians were hit by cars in the United States and around eight thousand died. Decisions by local governments determine where and how often these deaths occur. While deaths often prompt cities to consider pedestrian improvements, responses vary widely and depend on whether politicians feel pressure from their constituents. This pressure is dependent on people learning about policy problems, which depends (in part) on the news media. Due to its critical role, we need to understand when and why the news chooses to feature pedestrian fatalities and other indicators of policy failure. When do journalists choose to feature a particular case? From prior research, we know that victim characteristics like race and gender can shape perceptions of newsworthiness in policy areas with strong racial and gender stereotypes. I find little evidence that these racial disparities persist when we look at coverage of pedestrian fatalities, although I do find that other victim characteristics like mode of transportation, gender, and age affect the likelihood of coverage. I also find some evidence that the hollowing-out of local news coverage has reduced coverage of pedestrian fatalities, but the effect is concentrated to certain papers/cities.
Working paper available upon request.
The President's Media Diet: White House News Consumption from Clinton to Obama.
The Causes and Consequences of Asymmetric Coverage of US Agencies in Partisan News Media.
The Moderating Effect of Expertise: Assessing the Effects of Partisan Media Bias on Policy School Graduates.
(with Amber Boydstun)
Spreading the News: Local and Partisan News in Congressional Newsletters.
(with David Beavers)
Unequal funding: Direct payments by the federal government to news media.