Literature review / Due in 15 hours

Introduction: (Everyone)

Public opinion on the Affordable Care Act or “Obamacare” is a messy issue because

individuals often do not realize that they are the same thing. We aim to investigate how media

consumption is related to support for healthcare; we will conduct this research via a public

opinion survey to determine what type of news media respondents consume, what type of health

insurance they have or do not have, and whether respondents view the Affordable Care Act the

same way that they view “Obamacare”. Previous research on media has demonstrated that

individuals do not fully understand the details of the act and individuals tend to engage in

selective exposure in terms of media that they consume. The research on political knowledge is

XXXXXXXXX. The research on the third category is XXXXXX.

Media: (Brianna)

Media is one of the largest tools for socialization in our society. It sets expectations for

how we should behave. Media shapes political opinion as well as political knowledge and affects

the way that individuals view the world and various issues (Hepburn 1998). News media is also

vital for disseminating information to the public, and we know that individuals are more likely to

have political knowledge when they consume less biased news such as NPR and PBS (Clawson

2016).

In terms of the Affordable Care Act, previous research has shown that most local news

primarily covered the issue in relation to the political battling instead of policy specifics,

implementation, and how to get ACA coverage. This ultimately resulted in the public having a

poor understanding of the ACA (Gollust et al 2017). From prior research, we know that the type

of news that an individual consumes is correlated with their ideological leanings in a theory

called selective exposure (Arceneaux et al 2012). Ideological leanings are typically related to

views on healthcare reform (McCabe 2016). Despite ideological leanings and opinions on the

ACA, areas with some of the strongest ACA opposition have huge enrollment rates (Callaghan

and Jacobs 2017). In our research, we expect to find that students will largely be in favor or not

in favor of healthcare reform based upon what type of news media they consume, however this

will likely not affect whether or not they use ACA health insurance.

Political Knowledge: (Sarah)

Third category: (Trevor)

References

Arceneaux Kevin, Johnson Martin, and Murphy Chad. 2012. “Polarized Political

Communication, Oppositional Media Hostility, and Selective Exposure.” ​The Journal of

Politics​, no. 1: 174. doi:10.1017/s002238161100123x.

Callaghan, Timothy H., and Lawrence R. Jacobs. 2017. “The Future of Health Care Reform:

What Is Driving Enrollment?” ​Journal of Health Politics, Policy & Law​ 42 (2): 215–46.

doi:10.1215/03616878-3766710.

Clawson, Rosalee A., and Zoe M. Oxley. 2016. ​Public Opinion: Democratic Ideals, Democratic

Practice​, 3rd Edition. Los Angeles: CQ Press.

Hepburn, Mary A. 1998. “The Power of the Electronic Media in the Socialization Of..” Social

Studies 89 (2): 71.

http://libpublic3.library.isu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=

true&db=ehh&AN=413985&site=eds-live&scope=site​.

Gollust, Sarah E., Laura M. Baum, Jeff Niederdeppe, Colleen L. Barry, and Erika Franklin

Fowler. 2017. “Local Television News Coverage of the Affordable Care Act:

Emphasizing Politics Over Consumer Information.” ​American Journal of Public Health

107 (5): 687–93. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2017.303659.

McCabe, Katherine. 2016. “Attitude Responsiveness and Partisan Bias: Direct Experience with

the Affordable Care Act.” ​Political Behavior​ 38 (4): 861–82.

doi:10.1007/s11109-016-9337-9.