3. The Educative Effects of Extreme Television Media

Using lab experiments with both student and non-student samples, Taylor finds that extreme media increase political knowledge and that they increase negative affect among viewers compared to control groups. Taylor also shows that extreme media are at least as informative as traditional news. This research adds to the growing literature on media effects in a polarized media environment, showing that extreme television media can have a beneficial impact on at least one important area of American politics: citizen competence. To account for external validity and popular conceptions on extreme media’s non-informative nature, Taylor uses cross-sectional data from the 2008 National Annenberg Election Survey finding that extreme television viewership correlates with greater political knowledge, while controlling for other known predictors.