Graduation Year
2022
Document Type
Senior Thesis
Degree
Bachelor of Arts
Primary Major
Political Science
Primary Minor
Ecology and Environmental Science
Second Minor
Psychology
Thesis Advisor
Alison Howard, MA
Abstract
Since the 1830s, newspapers have been accessible to all members of the public in the United States regardless of socio-economic status. Newspapers are important political information providers. Local journalists provide invaluable expertise for the community they serve about community-level problems, local elections, and help hold government accountable. If news organizations cannot afford to sustain a local newspaper and its staff, the result is a news desert for the community. While recent research has examined the decline of local newspapers, little has been done on how the decline of local newspapers affects civic engagement and voter turnout across the United States. To what extent do local newspapers contribute to civic engagement? Using Daniel Elazar’s (1966) typology of a state’s political culture, this thesis hypothesizes that moralistic states have fewer news deserts, higher voter turnout, and higher civic engagement than individualistic and traditionalistic states. This thesis did not find a clear distinction of moralistic states being the highest in voter turnout, in civic engagement, and lower in news desert concentration, but it appears that moralistic states have higher voter turnout in the 2014 midterm election across the board and have news deserts growing at the slowest rate compared to the individualistic and traditionalistic typologies. The health of our democratic republic requires civic engagement, and people need access to quality information to participate and cast their ballots.