IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/socsci/v101y2020i1p91-106.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Inequality and Bias in the Demand for and Supply of News

Author

Listed:
  • Ann L. Owen
  • Andrew Wei

Abstract

Objectives We examine how the supply and demand for news stories that reference an individualistic concept change in response to changes in inequality and the prevailing ideology. Methods We use Google Trends data to construct an index of demand for individualistic news and a database of newspaper articles to construct an index of supply. We estimate fixed effects models on state and DMA‐level data from 1993 to 2017. Results Demand for individualistic news is higher in more conservative areas and it is even stronger when inequality rises. Supply of individualistic news is higher when the share of income to the top 1 percent is higher. The supply effect is strongest in more liberal areas. Conclusion These results provide evidence of both confirmation bias influencing demand and media capture influencing supply. Confirmation bias and media capture are distinct phenomenon, but provide reinforcing explanations for why consumption of individualistic news increases with inequality.

Suggested Citation

  • Ann L. Owen & Andrew Wei, 2020. "Inequality and Bias in the Demand for and Supply of News," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 101(1), pages 91-106, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:socsci:v:101:y:2020:i:1:p:91-106
    DOI: 10.1111/ssqu.12734
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.12734
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/ssqu.12734?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Owen, Ann L. & Wei, Andrew, 2021. "Sexism, household decisions, and the gender wage gap," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    2. Owen, Ann L. & Wei, Andrew, 2020. "Sexism, Social Outcomes, and the Gender Wage Gap," MPRA Paper 102474, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:socsci:v:101:y:2020:i:1:p:91-106. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0038-4941 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.