Date of Award
4-2025
Document Type
Thesis
Department
Political Science
First Advisor
Patrick Donnay
Abstract
In October of 2013, the federal government went into a partial shutdown. The cause of this shutdown was the polarized debate over the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), or Obamacare. The polarization of this policy did not stop at the elite level; the public has been by-and-large divided on the law as well. This division of the public may have been created by the large and diverse coverage over the policy. There are multiple approaches to determine how the media impacts public opinion. I attempt to find what has been the primary influence on the public attitude toward Obamacare. I hypothesize that news information is framed in such a way as to promote a specific agenda and that frame is different depending on the news media used. These varying frames should play a significant role in determining how the public thinks about Obamacare. I use data from the Kaiser Family Foundation health tracking polls of August and September of 2013. My results show that there is a significant relationship between news source and opinion towards Obamacare. These findings support the theory that framing plays a part in opinion making.
Recommended Citation
Burdick, Taylor, "The Relationship Between Media Consumption and Public Opinion, Using the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act as a Case Study" (2025). Political Science Theses and Capstones. 63.
https://pines.bemidjistate.edu/capstone-polisci/63
Included in
American Politics Commons, Communication Technology and New Media Commons, Health Policy Commons, Journalism Studies Commons, Mass Communication Commons, Public Relations and Advertising Commons, Social Influence and Political Communication Commons, Social Psychology Commons, Speech and Rhetorical Studies Commons
