The Polarization of Electric Vehicles in Partisan News Networks: An Analysis of CNN and Fox News

Due to the great leaps made within mass media, how people consume news, current events, and policy has drastically changed. It has become increasingly simple to succumb to confirmation bias and partisan views. This shift has stretched towards the framing of electric vehicles through mass media networks, including both CNN and Fox News. In this paper, we analyze what sentiment these two different news networks use to cover the discussion of electric vehicles. In particular, we ask: Does the sentiment of the media covering electric vehicles vary based on the partisan leaning of news outlets? Does the polarization of sentiment in regard to electric vehicles carry into the discussion of equity? We evaluate the use of topics, frames, and sentiments among articles published by CNN and Fox News. Due to the evident spike in polarization between CNN and Fox News, we investigate the articles posted on their websites between the years of 2020 and 2021. In this, we find that there exists a clear polarization of sentiment in the discussion of electric vehicles. Our study also establishes that, in the partisan spectrum, equity regarding electric vehicles is nearly six times more likely to be discussed within a left-leaning organization. Thus, our findings imply the necessity of diminishing the partisan and polarized discussion of electric vehicles.