by Catherine Chen

Hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking”, has brought down the price of natural gas in the U.S. and made it an energy exporter to the U.K. and Germany, among other countries. In the meantime, anti-fracking movements have swept through states with rich shale gas reservoirs. Political conflicts about fracking play out on the national stage, featuring Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign promise of “no more drilling on federal lands”, and the “Drill Baby Drill” shawl worn by Congresswoman Lauren Boebert to the 2022 State of Union speech. Beyond these high-profile displays, citizens bear the day-to-day consequences of fracking, be it economic opportunities or environmental damages. Do state-level fracking policies genuinely respond to local public opinion? What are the driving forces behind the responsiveness of energy development policies?

My recently published research article, entitled Policy responsiveness and media attention, aims to address these questions by considering the media’s role as an intermediary between the public and the legislators within a U.S. context. Local newspapers, not national cable television, inform citizens of local affairs and state politics. Regarding matters such as releasing liquid from fracking production to a soil farm as a dumping ground, a local newspaper’s coverage is the source that local residents rely on, which in turn could lead to a bill proposal about regulating soil farms in the statehouse.

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