Ideological Persuasion in the Media

Balan, David J.; DeGraba, Patrick; Wickelgren, Abraham L.

doi:10.2139/ssrn.637304

Cited by 19 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…The first row of Table IV presents the observed slant of the average newspaper in the sample. The second row of Table IV presents Newspapers could deviate systematically from profit maximization on average due to owner ideology (Balan, DeGraba, and Wickelgren (2009)), pressure from incumbent politicians (Besley and Prat (2006)), or the tastes of reporters (Baron (2006)). A large popular literature has argued that such forces create an overall conservative (Alterman (2003), Franken (2003) or liberal (Coulter (2003), Goldberg (2003)) bias in the media.…”

Section: Implications Of the Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

What Drives Media Slant? Evidence From U.S. Daily Newspapers

2010

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We construct a new index of media slant that measures the similarity of a news outlet's language to that of a congressional Republican or Democrat. We estimate a model of newspaper demand that incorporates slant explicitly, estimate the slant that would be chosen if newspapers independently maximized their own profits, and compare these profit-maximizing points with firms' actual choices. We find that readers have an economically significant preference for like-minded news. Firms respond strongly to consumer preferences, which account for roughly 20 percent of the variation in measured slant in our sample. By contrast, the identity of a newspaper's owner explains far less of the variation in slant. Copyright 2010 The Econometric Society.

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Section: Implications Of the Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

What Drives Media Slant? Evidence From U.S. Daily Newspapers

2010

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“…Balan, DeGraba, and Wickelgren (2004) proffer a supply‐side analysis of bias with owners having preferences for tilting what is read. The consumer demand for newspapers depends on the amount of “persuasion” in each of two newspapers (although the price of the newspapers is exogenous).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Our approach overlaps with several of these papers. We share with Balan, DeGraba and Wickelgren (2004) a supply‐side model whereby owners aim to influence outcomes, and also a concern for the effects of merger policy. We share with Strömberg (2004) an endogenous demand for news.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Media Mergers and Media Bias With Rational Consumers

Anderson

McLaren

2012

Journal of the European Economic Association

167

104

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We present an economic model of media bias and media mergers. Media owners have political motives as well as profit motives, and can influence public opinion by withholding information that is pejorative to their political agenda—provided that their agenda is not too far from the political mainstream. This is true even with rational consumers who understand the media owners’ biases, because the public do not know how much information the news organizations have and so do not know when news is being withheld. In line with conventional wisdom, this problem can be undone by competition; but competition can be defeated in equilibrium by media mergers that enhance profits at the expense of the public interest. We thus derive a motive for media merger policy that is completely distinct from the motives behind conventional antitrust. While media bias may reduce the profit incentives to merge, media markets nonetheless err by being insufficiently competitive, and the consequences of merger are more severe than in other markets.

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“…In Balan, DeGraba, and Wickelgren (2004); Duggan and Martinelli (2011); or Anderson and McLaren (2012), the incentives of media outlets to selectively report news devolves from their partisan views, which lead them to have a preferred candidate or policy outcome; in Bernhardt, Krasa, and Polborn (2008), media compete in their news mix for audiences that value hearing news that conforms with their views; in Chan and Suen (2008), media outlets commit to binary editorial recommendation cutoffs on the state of nature for recommending a left or right party that maximize their viewers' welfare, and these cutoffs feed back to influence party policy choice; and in Gentzkow and Shapiro (2006), the media care about reputation, which can lead to censoring of stories that do not conform with reader expectations.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…2 This literature focuses on consumer choice of media outlet, the competition between media outlets for audiences, including the effects of mergers and merger policy (Anderson andMcLaren 2012, or Balan, DeGraba, andWickelgren 2004), and the role of endogenous 1 Typically, two firms play a two-stage game. First, firms receive private information about demand or marginal costs of production.…”

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confidence: 99%