A Spatial Model of Political Communication:
Newspaper Readership, Ideology and Partisanship in Britain
This paper examines the relationship of mass media on consumers’ partisanship and ideology. The link
between real or perceived bias by news organizations and consumers ideological preferences is often
assumed, but relatively few empirical tests have been conducted. This paper investigates whether the
particular newspaper that citizens read correlates with partisan preferences. Data include survey
responses from the 1992 British General Election study. Britain provides a unique environment for such
a test as most major newspapers have clearly perceived partisan biases. Respondents’ party
identification, newspaper readership, and major party evaluations demonstrate that media consumption
correlates with partisan and ideological preferences, although news consumers who read papers are more
likely to modify their perceptions of party ideology in the direction of press bias. Media consumption
correlates with ideological preferences and perceptions of political parties.