IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/worlde/v29y2006i5p637-654.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Summits, Riots and Media Attention: The Political Economy of Information on Trade and Globalisation

Author

Listed:
  • Johan F. M. Swinnen
  • Nathalie Francken

Abstract

Supply of information has increased rapidly through the growth of commercial media and technological innovations. Yet economists still blame anti‐globalists’ demonstrations and public opposition to trade liberalisation on poor information. This paper analyses how the structure of the media industry affects the distribution of information on trade policy and globalisation. We present an empirical analysis of Belgian media reporting on trade policy and globalisation over the 1999–2002 period, supports these hypotheses and finds strong negative bias in media coverage. Moreover, we find that media coverage of trade policy and globalisation is highly concentrated around summit meetings of political leaders. Media attention in the popular press is heavily influenced by riots and demonstrations at summits. The paper points at important implications for public information on trade policy and globalisation and for economists.

Suggested Citation

  • Johan F. M. Swinnen & Nathalie Francken, 2006. "Summits, Riots and Media Attention: The Political Economy of Information on Trade and Globalisation," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(5), pages 637-654, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:worlde:v:29:y:2006:i:5:p:637-654
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9701.2006.00804.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9701.2006.00804.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1467-9701.2006.00804.x?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Johan F. M. Swinnen & Jill McCluskey & Nathalie Francken, 2005. "Food safety, the media, and the information market," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 32(s1), pages 175-188, January.
    2. Anthony Downs, 1957. "An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 65(2), pages 135-135.
    3. Timothy Besley & Andrea Prat, 2006. "Handcuffs for the Grabbing Hand? Media Capture and Government Accountability," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(3), pages 720-736, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Sendhil Mullainathan & Andrei Shleifer, 2005. "The Market for News," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(4), pages 1031-1053, September.
    2. Kym Anderson & Gordon Rausser & Johan Swinnen, 2013. "Political Economy of Public Policies: Insights from Distortions to Agricultural and Food Markets," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 51(2), pages 423-477, June.
    3. repec:lic:licosd:33013 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. repec:lic:licosd:34814 is not listed on IDEAS

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Blasco, Andrea & Pin, Paolo & Sobbrio, Francesco, 2016. "Paying positive to go negative: Advertisers׳ competition and media reports," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 243-261.
    2. Alessandro Olper & Johan Swinnen, 2013. "Mass Media and Public Policy: Global Evidence from Agricultural Policies," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 27(3), pages 413-436.
    3. Federico Vaccari, 2023. "Influential news and policy-making," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 76(4), pages 1363-1418, November.
    4. Pande, Rohini, 2008. "Understanding Political Corruption in Low Income Countries," Handbook of Development Economics, in: T. Paul Schultz & John A. Strauss (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 50, pages 3155-3184, Elsevier.
    5. Germano, Fabrizio & Meier, Martin, 2013. "Concentration and self-censorship in commercial media," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 117-130.
    6. Andrew Leigh, 2009. "Does the World Economy Swing National Elections?," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 71(2), pages 163-181, April.
    7. Antony Millner & Hélène Ollivier, 2016. "Beliefs, Politics, and Environmental Policy," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 10(2), pages 226-244.
    8. Alexander Dyck & Natalya Volchkova & Luigi Zingales, 2008. "The Corporate Governance Role of the Media: Evidence from Russia," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(3), pages 1093-1135, June.
    9. Archishman Chakraborty & Parikshit Ghosh, 2016. "Character Endorsements and Electoral Competition," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(2), pages 277-310, May.
    10. Ahlquist, John S. & Ichino, Nahomi & Wittenberg, Jason & Ziblatt, Daniel, 2018. "How do voters perceive changes to the rules of the game? Evidence from the 2014 Hungarian elections," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(4), pages 906-919.
    11. Piolatto, Amedeo & Schuett, Florian, 2015. "Media competition and electoral politics," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 80-93.
    12. Garcia Pires, Armando J., 2014. "Media diversity, advertising, and adaptation of news to readers’ political preferences," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 28-38.
    13. van Gils, Freek & Müller, Wieland & Prüfer, Jens, 2020. "Big Data and Democracy," Other publications TiSEM ecc11d8d-1478-4dd2-b570-4, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    14. Serena Marianna Drufuca, 2014. "Information, Media and Elections: Incentives for Media Capture," Working Papers (2013-) 1402, University of Bergamo, Department of Management, Economics and Quantitative Methods.
    15. Ivar Kolstad & Arne Wiig, 2016. "How do voters respond to information on self-serving elite behaviour? Evidence from a randomized survey experiment in Tanzania," CMI Working Papers 9, CMI (Chr. Michelsen Institute), Bergen, Norway.
    16. Vukovic, Vuk, 2011. "Political agency model of persistent electoral success with endogenous rents," MPRA Paper 39085, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 25 Jan 2012.
    17. Rodet, Cortney Stephen, 2013. "Seniority, Information and Electoral Accountability," MPRA Paper 49863, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. repec:lic:licosd:19107 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Jacopo Perego & Sevgi Yuksel, 2022. "Media Competition and Social Disagreement," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 90(1), pages 223-265, January.
    20. Valentino Larcinese, 2009. "Information Acquisition, Ideology and Turnout: Theory and Evidence From Britain," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 21(2), pages 237-276, April.
    21. repec:tiu:tiucen:2013072 is not listed on IDEAS
    22. Gábor Virág, 2008. "Playing for Your Own Audience: Extremism in Two‐Party Elections," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 10(5), pages 891-922, October.

    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:worlde:v:29:y:2006:i:5:p:637-654. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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=0378-5920 .

    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.