Fox News is no longer the flagship of GOP extremism after a surprising shift in the conservative media landscape

Republican skepticism toward coronavirus vaccines and American democracy is increasingly being driven by Fox News' right-wing competitors.

One America News Network and Newsmax remain far behind Fox News in TV ratings, but the two upstarts are becoming the primary news source for an increasingly extremist slice of the Republican electorate, reported FiveThirtyEight.

"Republicans who got their news from OANN or Newsmax were generally more extreme in their beliefs around QAnon and in their refusal to get vaccinated than those who got their news from Fox News," wrote Natalie Jackson, research director at the Public Religion Research Institute. "Meanwhile, Fox News Republicans were often more in line with Republicans who got their news from other mainstream outlets."

Just 27 percent of Republicans said in March that Fox News is their go-to news source, compared with 40 percent in September, and polling shows acceptance of the anti-democratic QAnon conspiracy or skepticism toward COVID-19 vaccinations were strongly linked to media consumption.

"Republicans who trust mainstream news sources or Fox News were actually the least likely to believe in the main QAnon conspiracy theory, with just 19 percent and 17 percent, respectively," Jackson wrote. "Meanwhile, Republicans who don't watch television news, which notably includes those who get news solely from online sources, were considerably more likely to believe in a system run by Satanist pedophiles (27 percent). But by far, the Republicans who were most likely to believe in QAnon were those who trusted far-right news sources (39 percent)."

The same trends showed up in polling on vaccination, with 58 percent of Republicans who trust mainstream outlets and 54 percent who prefer Fox News have already been vaccinated or will soon, while just 32 percent who watch far-right sources are willing to be get the shots.

"What's more, 32 percent of these Republicans said they would refuse the vaccine, versus 11 percent of Republicans who get their news from mainstream outlets and 16 percent of Republicans who get their news from Fox News," Jackson wrote. "That said, all three groups of Republicans expressed similar levels of hesitancy about getting vaccinated — 31 percent of mainstream news Republicans and 29 percent of Fox News Republicans said they weren't sure if they'd get vaccinated, compared to 37 percent of far-right news Republicans who said the same."

However, the vast majority of Republicans -- 86 percent of Fox News Republicans and 96 percent of OAN/Newsmax Republicans -- believe the election was stolen from Donald Trump, although those numbers drop to 66 percent of Republicans who don't watch TV news and just 44 percent of mainstream news Republicans.

"We don't yet know whether Republicans are choosing their different media sources based on preexisting views, or whether the media sources are actively shaping those views," Jackson wrote. "It's likely that both forces are at play. But what we do know is that far-right news sources are attracting a small but growing proportion of Republicans — many of whom either already held or developed extreme views — while Fox News, once the go-to source for many on the fringe of the party, may no longer be a hotbed for some of the GOP's most extreme beliefs."