The effect of big-city news on rural America during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Can "urban-centric" local television news coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic affect the behavior of rural residents with lived experiences so different from their "local" news coverage? Leveraging quasi-random geographic variation in media markets for 771 matched rural counties, we show that rural residents are more likely to practice social distancing if they live in a media market that is more impacted by COVID-19. Individual-level survey responses from residents of these counties confirm county-level behavioral differences and help attribute the differences we identify to differences in local television news coverage-self-reported differences only exist among respondents who prefer watching local news, and there are no differences in media usage or consumption across media markets. Although important for showing the ability of local television news to affect behavior despite urban-rural differences, the media-related effects we identify are at most half the size of the differences related to partisan differences.

Protecting the integrity of survey research.

Although polling is not irredeemably broken, changes in technology and society create challenges that, if not addressed well, can threaten the quality of election polls and other important surveys on topics such as the economy. This essay describes some of these challenges and recommends remediations to protect the integrity of all kinds of survey research, including election polls. These 12 recommendations specify ways that survey researchers, and those who use polls and other public-oriented surveys, can increase the accuracy and trustworthiness of their data and analyses. Many of these recommendations align practice with the scientific norms of transparency, clarity, and self-correction. The transparency recommendations focus on improving disclosure of factors that affect the nature and quality of survey data. The clarity recommendations call for more precise use of terms such as "representative sample" and clear description of survey attributes that can affect accuracy. The recommendation about correcting the record urges the creation of a publicly available, professionally curated archive of identified technical problems and their remedies. The paper also calls for development of better benchmarks and for additional research on the effects of panel conditioning. Finally, the authors suggest ways to help people who want to use or learn from survey research understand the strengths and limitations of surveys and distinguish legitimate and problematic uses of these methods.