How Media Coverage and Elite Communication Shape Public Opinion on AI Regulation

Attention to artificial intelligence (AI) is soaring around the world. The technology has the potential to profoundly impact many aspects of social and political life, including healthcare, education, transportation, employment, and finance. For the average news consumer, it is almost impossible not to come across media coverage of AI. Countless news articles have been published on AI between 2022 and 2023, some highlighting the incredible promise of AI and others calling out its potential dangers and risks. In this study, we present a systematic analysis of U.S. media coverage of the development of AI, as well as how elites cue the public about AI. We then examine how this media coverage influences public opinion on AI regulation by presenting an original, pre-registered experiment embedded in a representative U.S. survey. The experiment randomly manipulates both the content of media messages and the source delivering the messages, while focusing on three prominent themes covered by the media in the past year: racial bias in decision-making, automation in the labor market, and social effects of large language models. Using a set of attitudinal and quasi-behavioral measures, we assess the impact of these treatments on public support for policies regulating AI. Our research sheds light on the potential politicization of the public discourse on AI and its regulation.