Abstract
Mixed findings have been produced from the literature on the influence of social networks in altering public opinion. The sudden emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic resulted in a response among U.S. politicians and citizens split across party lines. This novel and partisan issue presents an opportunity to conduct a critical retest of the influence of the partisan composition of one’s social network on behavior. I use data from the ANES 2020 Social Media Study and ordered probit regression models to study the effect of the partisan composition of one’s social network on support for mask mandates and confidence in the CDC. I find no support that heterogeneous partisan networks affect pandemic-related beliefs and nearly no support that homogenous partisan networks affect pandemic-related beliefs.
Supplementary materials
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Datasets, Code, and Figures
Description
Original datasets, merged dataset, full code, and figures 1 - 8
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