Perpetuating the Myth of the Culture War Court? Issue Attention in Newspaper Coverage of U.S. Supreme Court Nominations

Abstract

Using digital text analysis methods, we analyze over 3800 newspaper articles covering U.S. Supreme Court judicial appointments between 1981 and 2009 to measure the level of (in)congruence between the Court’s agenda and the issues emphasized by the media. We find that newspapers highlight “culture war” issues at the expense of other important issues addressed much more frequently by the Court. Moreover, abortion in particular receives attention in more articles and in much greater depth than any other issue. With a few minor deviations, these patterns are consistent across nominations. These findings raise normative concerns regarding the didactic function of the print media in American democracy and shed empirical light on positive theories of media behavior.