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In a speech at the Center for American Progress in 2013, President Barack Obama highlighted crucial issues facing the United States:
- The American populace struggles with a trend of dangerous and growing inequality and lack of upward mobility that threatens the middle-class bargain: hard work should yield a chance for advancement.
- Warnings were issued that such economic issues pose a fundamental threat to the American Dream and the values claimed by the U.S. globally.
Highlights from media reactions to Obama's speech:
- The New York Times deemed it one of his strongest economic speeches.
- Philip Bump published an article discussing Obama’s declaration about inequality as the defining challenge of our time.
- Outlets like the Washington Post, USA Today, and NPR provided supportive commentary, although PBS NewsHour noted a minimum audience engagement on platforms like YouTube.

As Obama voiced concerns over the American Dream, contradicting narratives emerged in popular media, particularly through the show "Shark Tank":
- The show projected an image of America as a land of opportunity, where aspiring entrepreneurs could achieve success through talent and compelling ideas, supported by the president's perceived endorsement.
- During Obama’s discussions about economic distress, “Shark Tank” drew an average of eight million viewers weekly, demonstrating a preference for entertainment over policy news.
The dissonance between political realities and entertainment narratives raises concerns about media's role in shaping public perceptions of economic mobility.
Popular reality shows such as "American Idol" and "America’s Got Talent" promote rags-to-riches stories, reinforcing the seemingly achievable notion of the American Dream.

The study of media effects faces complications:
- Historical perceptions of media influence have shifted, leading to inconsistent views on their causal power.
- The challenges of measurement errors and self-selection bias complicate causal inference.
Recent advancements in experimental research methods aim to clarify the media's impact on public perception.
The author proposes a unique approach involving experimental tools to analyze if entertainment media perpetuates distortions in belief regarding economic mobility.
The research utilizes online experiments and field studies conducted with a mobile media lab, gathering data from various public venues.

The author employed a series of experimental methods to assess the influence of media on the belief in the American Dream:
- Online Experiments: Utilized platforms like Amazon Mechanical Turk to gather diverse participants.
- Lab-in-the-Field Experiments: Engaged participants in real-world settings at locations like farmers’ markets.
- A natural experiment was leveraged, observing a large survey conducted simultaneously with popular media exposure around the airing of "American Idol".

Initial surveys targeted a diverse range of demographics:
- Recruitment focused on politically diverse individuals by geographically targeting areas with varied voting behaviors in the 2016 presidential election.
- Specific settings like Blueberry Festivals and farmers' markets were chosen to attract varied audiences.
A total of 203 participants were successfully recruited through creative engagement strategies, such as incentivizing participation with modest payments for time spent in the research vehicle.

Following the media exposure, participants completed surveys measuring general attitudes towards the American Dream using four statements scored to create the Beliefs in Economic Mobility index (Cronbach α= 0.75).
This index was further adjusted to consider existing beliefs in the American Dream and other variates such as partisan identification and optimism towards life, thus refining the analysis of causality.

The research found measurable increases in belief in the American Dream among participants exposed to rags-to-riches narratives, supporting the hypothesis that entertainment media endorsed such beliefs:
- Online participants showed an increase of 5.5 percentage points, while in-field sample participants showed 6.8 percentage points relative to control groups exposed to neutral programming (e.g., “Cesar 911”).
Variability among program effectiveness emerged, with varying impacts observed across different shows:
- "America’s Got Talent" proved to be the most effective program in enhancing beliefs in the American Dream.

Further differentiation showed that the narrative effects varied according to the participants’ political affiliation and belief in meritocracy:
- Republicans were more likely to report increased belief in economic mobility post-exposure than Democrats.
- Individuals with existing system justification tendencies exhibited larger increases in beliefs following exposure to positive media narratives.

Notably, discontented participants analyzed concurrently experienced a decrease of around 5 percentage points in belief regarding economic mobility, a phenomenon termed the "backfire effect".
The outcomes suggested that a baseline belief in the fairness of the economic system may be necessary for media narratives to foster optimistic perspectives.

The cumulative evidence supports a profound relationship between entertainment media and beliefs in the American Dream, indicating:
- Rags-to-riches narratives are foundational in shaping public perceptions of upward mobility in American culture.
- Potential for the consumption of such narratives is magnified given that individuals generally watch these shows longer than the brief clips used in experiments.
However, methodological limitations such as participant selection biases, demographic discrepancies, and external validity concerns remain prevalent.

Although the findings highlight substantial positive influences of entertainment media on beliefs about economic mobility, ongoing questions about main effects across different demographics, long-term influences, and comparative effects with competing narratives in public discourse warrant further exploration.