Asfa Shakeel

News Media and Political Attitudes and Actions

My dissertation investigates the mechanisms by which news media impacts political attitudes and behaviour. My job market paper uses the variation in expansion of conservative U.S. broadcaster Sinclair to find that viewers with matching partisanship show strongest effects. Among matching viewers, there is a convergence in ideology and policy preferences to the slant of the news. The second project uses U.S. newspaper transcripts and bias incident data to find that increased coverage about Muslims correlates with increases in incidents, an effect amplified by the negative sentiment. My third project uses the variation in activist background onboard the June 2025 Flotilla and finds that news coverage about international humanitarian crises rises substantially in contexts where native citizens are affected, but far less where immigrant-background citizens are affected.

Converging to the Slant: How Partisan Media Shapes Ideology and Policy Preferences

Is political media still influential in agenda setting and opinion formation? Given the increase in one-sided partisan media, substantial research suggests it has an influence on political attitudes and electoral outcomes. However, we still do not fully understand the mechanisms behind this effect. I posit that when partisan news is available, individuals who derive higher benefits (i.e. are information seeking) or have lower costs (i.e. have matching beliefs) tune in and are treated. The treated population shifts preferences towards the slant of partisan news. Within the treated, matching viewers converge to news slant. To test this, I use the expansion of conservative local news conglomerate Sinclair Broadcast Group (SBG) across the U.S. in 2017. I exploit SBG’s successful entry into 8 DMAs and unsuccessful attempt at 19 DMAs to do a differences-in-differences analysis. I match individuals to their respective DMAs using CES data and find that the treated population shifts to the right in ideology and policy preferences; that within the treated population, Republicans show significant shifts to the right compared to Democrats; and that within Republicans, respondents that are more conservative than SBG shift to the left and respondents that are less conservative shift to the right, converging to news slant. I use these results to highlight the mechanisms behind the effects of partisan media.

• Asfa Shakeel. ‘Converging to the slant: How partisan media shapes ideology and policy preferences.’ Job Market Paper.
• Asfa Shakeel & Nazita Lajevardi. "Negative media coverage and anti-muslim hate." R&R at American Political Science Review.
• Giulia Ferrari, Khadija Islam Tisha, Andra Fry, Halima Akter Prova, Towhida Nasrin, Asfa Shakeel, Shehrin Shaila Mahmood. "Benefits and costs of pre-venting child marriage in low- and middle-income countries: A systematic re- view of literature." PROSPERO 2025 CRD420251040070.

• Professor Stephane Wolton
• Dr Florian Foos
• Professor Torun Dewan (Advisor)