The Political Economy of Mass Media
David Strömberg
October 2011
Strömberg ()
Pol Econ of Mass Media
October 2011
1 / 22
Introduction
Media and Politics
Media has a unique role transmitting information to mass audiences,
potentially producing
policial accountability and
bias.
Strömberg ()
Pol Econ of Mass Media
October 2011
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A. Brunetti, B. Weder / Journal of Public Economics 87 (2003) 1801–1824
1811
Fig. 1. Corruption and press freedom. Note: corruption index ranges from 0 (highest corruption) to 6
(lowest corruption), index of press freedom ranges from 0 (highest press freedom) to 100 (lowest press
freedom).
and corruption is not driven by the differences between developed and less
developed countries alone. This regression estimates the base specification for a
sample containing only less developed (non-OECD) countries. The coefficient of
PRESS is significant and of the expected sign. BUREAU remains significantly
related to corruption whereas the coefficient of RULE is not significant in this
regression. Compared to regression (1) the adjusted R 2 drops sharply from 0.67 to
0.38 indicating that including the developed countries in the sample improves the
fit of the regression. To exclude possible outliers we restricted the sample to
observations with residuals plus minus two standard deviations (results not
reported). The results are not affected (the coefficient of press freedom is 0.017
with a t statistic of 5.4. Column (3) shows the results of a two-stage least squares
Capture
Media Pluralism as a Defense against Capture
Besley and Prat (2006)
Proposition
Turnover of politicians and voter welfare are nondecreasing in
The number of newspapers n;
Audience-related news revenues a;
Transaction cost between government and media τ.
Capture by interest groups (Corneo 2006); Inequality and capture
(Petrova 2007).
Prat-Strömberg ()
Pol Econ of Mass Media
ESWC, Shanghai, August 2010
8 / 30
Capture
Determinants of Media Capture: Evidence
Cross-country: Media concentration correlated with negative political
outcomes. Djankov et al. (2003)
Argentinian newspapers with more government-funded advertising
cover corruption less (Di Tella-Franceschelli, 2009).
Increased commercial motive made newspapers more independent and
aggressive in the US in 1870-1920 (Hamilton 2004,
Gentzkow-Glaeser-Goldin 2006, Petrova 2009).
Prat-Strömberg ()
Pol Econ of Mass Media
ESWC, Shanghai, August 2010
11 /
30
Free media
Studied aspects of free media: what, how, who?
What issues do the media cover?
How are they covered?
Who gets the news?
Prat-Strömberg ()
Pol Econ of Mass Media
ESWC, Shanghai, August 2010
12 /
31
Issue Selection
Accountability
Media provides information.
Voters can better hold politicians accountable on issues of which they
are informed.
More political e¤ort and better policies for voters who get the news
and for covered issues.
Proposition
Public expenditures, ei , to group i are increasing in
(a) the share of media users, ri , (who gets the news) and
(b) the amount of coverage by the media to issues a¤ecting that group, qi ,
(what issues are covered).
Prat-Strömberg ()
Pol Econ of Mass Media
ESWC, Shanghai, August 2010
14 /
30
Issue Selection
Evidence: (a) Who gets the news in‡uences policy
Voter turnout and New Deal spending increasing in share households
with radio. (Strömberg, 1999, 2004b).
Introduction of radio. Improved media access in rural America
1920-1940.
Identi…cation: quality of reception (ground conductivity) drives radio
ownership.
Newspaper access in‡uenced Indian disaster relief
(Besley and Burgess, 2002).
Looks at responsiveness, interaction term between need and spending.
Bias: people without media access receive less bene…ts.
Prat-Strömberg ()
Pol Econ of Mass Media
ESWC, Shanghai, August 2010
17 /
32
Issue Selection
Evidence: (b) What issues are covered in‡uences policy
Agenda setting theory of policy e¤ects, (e.g. Soroka, 2003).
foreign policy is MIP correlates positively with the number of articles
about this issue in leading national media.
Defense spending changes in the USA and the UK 1965-2000
correlated to responses to MIP facing the nation.
Network news in‡uences U.S. government disaster relief
(Eisensee and Strömberg, 2007).
5000 natural disasters 1968-2002, 10% covered in network news and
20% get U.S. relief.
Identi…cation: other newsworthy events crowds out disasters from TV
news.
Prat-Strömberg ()
Pol Econ of Mass Media
ESWC, Shanghai, August 2010
18 /
32
Issue Selection
Evidence: Bias favoring journalistically newsworthy issues
(c) Media induces bias in U.S. relief to natural disasters favoring
newsworthy disasters (Eisensee and Strömberg, 2007).
Disaster type
Volcano
Earthquake
Fire
Storm
Flood
Landslide
Drought
Prat-Strömberg ()
Death ratio
1
2
12
280
674
882
2395
Continent
Europe
S. and C. America
Asia
Africa
Pol Econ of Mass Media
Death ratio
1
3
43
45
ESWC, Shanghai, August 2010
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Issue Selection
Mechanism
Proposition
The outcomes:
(i) the share informed voters,
(ii) the responsiveness of votes to perceived competence di¤erences on
issue i, and
(iii) the e¤ort of politicians
are all increasing in (a) the share of media users, ri , and (b) the amount of
coverage devoted by the media to issues of interest to that group, qi .
Evidence:
(ii) - Priming literature, e.g. Iyengar and Kinder, 1987.
- Votes responds more to reported corruption in Brazilian
municipalities with local radio, (Ferraz and Finan, 2008).
Prat-Strömberg ()
Pol Econ of Mass Media
ESWC, Shanghai, August 2010
20 /
32
Influence of local newspaper coverage on U.S. Congressional politics
(Snyder and Strömberg, 2010)
Congruence (match) between media market and congressional district drives coverage
7
6
40
60
80
100
Congruence*100 (Additional articles)
95
7.9
7.8
7.7
0
90
100
20
40
60
80
100
Congruence*100 (Additional articles)
85
80
80
60
75
40
Pct. Party Loyal Votes
20
7.6
20
Per capita spending
5
4
3
2
Witness Appearances
.6
.5
.4
.3
Name recall
0
.2
.1
0
Policy
(iii) Effort and selection of politicians
7.5
(i) Voter Information
0
20
40
60
80
100
Congruence*100 (Additional articles)
Ideological Position and E¤ects on Elections
What is the e¤ect of media ideology on partisan voting?
Audience …lters out ideology, to some extent.
Only unexpected endorsements have e¤ects
(Chiang and Knight, forthcoming).
What issues are covered matters more than how the coverage is
ideologically slanted (Gerber, Karlan and Bergan (2006).
Audience selects media based on ideological match.
Gentzkow and Shapiro (2010), Durante and Knight (2009).
Signi…cant e¤ects on elections
– for new media and unstable voter preferences.
Fox News increased the Republican vote share in 2000 U.S. presidential
election (Della Vigna and Kaplan, 2007).
NTV increased the opposition’s vote share in the 1999 Russian election
(Enikolopov et al, 2009).
Prat-Strömberg ()
Pol Econ of Mass Media
ESWC, Shanghai, August 2010
30 /
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Conclusions and Discussion
Future research
E¤ects of new media technologies.
Apply empirical methodology to new outcomes.
Media in authoritarian regimes.
A theory of optimal media regulation.
Public service broadcasting
What determines the ideological position of media.
What is the e¤ect of media ideology on informativeness.
Strömberg ()
Pol Econ of Mass Media
October 2011
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