Media, Partisanship, and Predisposition Change: Evidence from Gender Role Ideology Change in South Korea

This paper analyzes how the media reports affect and reflect predispositions.

Public opinion literature is divided on whether media reflects or affects public opinion and whether media affects predispositions as they do policy preferences. This paper addresses the above two debates. This paper analyzes how the media reports on the political debate on gender roles and gender-egalitarian policies in South Korea changed Korea’s gender role ideology between 2008 and 2018. The paper analyzes panel survey data, and an original data set constructed using a dictionary approach to newspaper reports from four major newspapers in South Korea. It estimates whether media coverage covaries with individuals’ predisposition change using event history analysis. It further estimates a Granger causality model to check the causal relationship between media coverage and gender role ideology change. The analysis shows that 1) media coverage covaries with individuals’ predisposition change, 2) media both affects and reflects predisposition change, and 3) the political inclination of the media and the individuals moderates the media’s affecting and reflecting role.