This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Fox channels have mentioned the US congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for 42 consecutive days, a study has found.

The 29-year-old liberal star received at least 3,181 mentions in six weeks from Fox News or its sister Fox Business, according to research by Media Matters for America, a not-for-profit media watchdog.

The finding will reinforce perceptions that Fox, owned by media mogul Rupert Murdoch, is obsessed by Ocasio-Cortez, portraying her as a radical socialist who threatens the American way of life.

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She tweeted in response on Friday: “Fox News brought me up 3,000+ times in *6 weeks.* That’s how hard they’re fighting against dignified healthcare, wages, & justice for all; and turning their firepower on the youngest Congresswoman in history to do it. Too bad for them, cause we don’t flinch. # ForThePeople.”

Ocasio-Cortez, who has promoted ambitious leftist policies such as a Green New Deal , has supplanted Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi as the favoured target of many conservatives.

Ocasio-Cortez condemns college Republicans' email calling her a domestic terrorist Read more

Courtney Hagle, a researcher at Media Matters for America, said: “Ocasio-Cortez is brought up constantly, even if the topic has nothing to do with her, as with the recent terror attacks in New Zealand. Hosts and guests smear and misrepresent Ocasio-Cortez’s agenda, caricaturing it while painting it as radical, dangerous, far-left socialism.”

Hagle added: “Fox figures go on extended, aggressively angry rants about her. They’ve repeatedly attacked her intelligence, used her age to discredit her, and dismissed her as a ‘little girl’.”

After only three months in Congress, Ocasio-Cortez has attracted outsized coverage in general, including a Time magazine cover and a huge social media presence. She has nearly 4 million followers on Twitter.

Media Matters searched Grabien transcripts for “AOC” and “Ocasio” between 25 February and 7 April.