Media Consolidation's Relationship to Voter Turnout in Elections

Abstract

Media consolidation is on the rise especially when it comes to local news. This study aims to find if media consolidation affects citizens’ civic engagement, specifically voter turnout in non-presidential and presidential elections. Understanding what factors lead to higher voter turnout can be helpful in creating a more civically engaged country leading to progress that reflects the needs and wants of a more accurate majority. Consumption of local news has been tied to better civic engagement in the past. While media consolidation has been known to diminish the local news environment it has taken control over. Due to these two notions, it could be expected that there would be a connection between media consolidation and voter turnout. Through data analysis of voter turnout data of 24 Texas counties from the years 1990 to 2020 it was found through ANOVA tests that there were no significant changes in voter turnout between elections. These results lead to the belief that media consolidation alone does not have a significant impact on voter turnout. This opens up further understanding into the relationship between journalism and election turnout, and the reasons for fluctuation in voter turnout between elections.