IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/poleco/v56y2019icp212-232.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Local television, citizen knowledge and U.S. senators' roll-call voting

Author

Listed:
  • Nordin, Mattias

Abstract

I study the effect of access to local television on citizens' political knowledge. I do so by utilizing the mismatch between U.S. television markets and state borders, causing some citizens to receive local television which primarily covers neighboring state politics. I find that access to relevant local television causes citizens to be more informed about their senators' roll-call votes, and more likely to hold opinions about these senators. I also find that citizens with access to relevant local television are more likely to assess their senators based on how well the senators' roll-call votes align with the citizens' policy preferences. These results suggest that passively acquired information through television can help individuals evaluate their elected representatives.

Suggested Citation

  • Nordin, Mattias, 2019. "Local television, citizen knowledge and U.S. senators' roll-call voting," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 212-232.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:poleco:v:56:y:2019:i:c:p:212-232
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2018.08.012
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0176268017304780
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2018.08.012?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Claire S. H. Lim & James M. Snyder Jr. & David Strömberg Jr., 2015. "The Judge, the Politician, and the Press: Newspaper Coverage and Criminal Sentencing across Electoral Systems," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 7(4), pages 103-135, October.
    2. Hainmueller, Jens, 2012. "Entropy Balancing for Causal Effects: A Multivariate Reweighting Method to Produce Balanced Samples in Observational Studies," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(1), pages 25-46, January.
    3. Felix Oberholzer-Gee & Joel Waldfogel, 2009. "Media Markets and Localism: Does Local News en Español Boost Hispanic Voter Turnout?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(5), pages 2120-2128, December.
    4. Strömberg, David, 2015. "Media Coverage and Political Accountability: Theory and Evidence," CEPR Discussion Papers 10638, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. Ruben Enikolopov & Maria Petrova & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, 2011. "Media and Political Persuasion: Evidence from Russia," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(7), pages 3253-3285, December.
    6. Cameron, A. Colin & Gelbach, Jonah B. & Miller, Douglas L., 2011. "Robust Inference With Multiway Clustering," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 29(2), pages 238-249.
    7. James M. Snyder & David Strömberg, 2010. "Press Coverage and Political Accountability," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 118(2), pages 355-408, April.
    8. Strömberg, David & Prat, Andrea, 2011. "The Political Economy of Mass Media," CEPR Discussion Papers 8246, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    9. Strömberg, David & Prat, Andrea, 2005. "Commercial Television and Voter Information," CEPR Discussion Papers 4989, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Garz, Marcel, 2018. "Retirement, consumption of political information, and political knowledge," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 109-119.
    11. Claudio Ferraz & Frederico Finan, 2008. "Exposing Corrupt Politicians: The Effects of Brazil's Publicly Released Audits on Electoral Outcomes," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(2), pages 703-745.
    12. Stefano DellaVigna & Ethan Kaplan, 2007. "The Fox News Effect: Media Bias and Voting," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(3), pages 1187-1234.
    13. Atsushi Inoue & Gary Solon, 2010. "Two-Sample Instrumental Variables Estimators," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 92(3), pages 557-561, August.
    14. Fergusson, Leopoldo, 2014. "Media markets, special interests, and voters," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 13-26.
    15. Schroeder, Elizabeth & Stone, Daniel F., 2015. "Fox News and political knowledge," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 52-63.
    16. David Strömberg, 2015. "Media and Politics," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 7(1), pages 173-205, August.
    17. Mattias Nordin, 2014. "Do Voters Vote in Line with their Policy Preferences?—The Role of Information," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 60(4), pages 681-721.
    18. Bafumi, Joseph & Herron, Michael C., 2010. "Leapfrog Representation and Extremism: A Study of American Voters and Their Members in Congress," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 104(3), pages 519-542, August.
    19. 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.
    20. Popkin, Samuel & Gorman, John W. & Phillips, Charles & Smith, Jeffrey A., 1976. "Comment: What Have You Done for Me Lately? Toward An Investment Theory of Voting," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 70(3), pages 779-805, September.
    21. Horacio A. Larreguy & John Marshall & James M. Snyder, Jr., 2014. "Revealing Malfeasance: How Local Media Facilitates Electoral Sanctioning of Mayors in Mexico," NBER Working Papers 20697, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    22. Jessee, Stephen A., 2009. "Spatial Voting in the 2004 Presidential Election," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 103(1), pages 59-81, February.
    23. Bartels, Larry M., 1993. "Messages Received: The Political Impact of Media Exposure," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 87(2), pages 267-285, June.
    24. Matthew Gentzkow, 2006. "Television and Voter Turnout," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(3), pages 931-972.
    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. Patrick Balles & Ulrich Matter & Alois Stutzer, 2024. "Special Interest Groups Versus Voters and the Political Economics of Attention," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 134(662), pages 2290-2320.

    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. Nordin, Mattias, 2015. "Local Television, Citizen Knowledge and Political Accountability: Evidence from the U.S. Senate," Working Paper Series 2015:5, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
    2. Francesco Drago & Tommaso Nannicini & Francesco Sobbrio, 2014. "Meet the Press: How Voters and Politicians Respond to Newspaper Entry and Exit," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 6(3), pages 159-188, July.
    3. Oliver Falck & Robert Gold & Stephan Heblich, 2014. "E-lections: Voting Behavior and the Internet," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(7), pages 2238-2265, July.
    4. Liang, Che-Yuan & Nordin, Mattias, 2012. "The Internet, News Consumption, and Political Attitudes," Working Paper Series 2012:14, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
    5. Strömberg, David & Prat, Andrea, 2011. "The Political Economy of Mass Media," CEPR Discussion Papers 8246, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. Halberstam, Yosh & Montagnes, B. Pablo, 2015. "Presidential coattails versus the median voter: Senator selection in US elections," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 40-51.
    7. Choe, Chongwoo & Raschky, Paul A., 2016. "Media, institutions, and government action: Prevention vs. palliation in the time of cholera," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 75-93.
    8. Alessandro Gavazza & Mattia Nardotto & Tommaso Valletti, 2019. "Internet and Politics: Evidence from U.K. Local Elections and Local Government Policies," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 86(5), pages 2092-2135.
    9. Garz, Marcel & Sörensen, Jil, 2017. "Politicians under investigation: The news Media's effect on the likelihood of resignation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 82-91.
    10. Piolatto, Amedeo & Schuett, Florian, 2015. "Media competition and electoral politics," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 80-93.
    11. Francesco Sobbrio, 2012. "A Citizen-Editors Model of News Media," RSCAS Working Papers 2012/61, European University Institute.
    12. Benesch, Christine & Loretz, Simon & Stadelmann, David & Thomas, Tobias, 2019. "Media coverage and immigration worries: Econometric evidence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 52-67.
    13. Biondo, A.E. & Pluchino, A. & Rapisarda, A., 2018. "Modeling surveys effects in political competitions," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 503(C), pages 714-726.
    14. David Strömberg, 2015. "Media and Politics," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 7(1), pages 173-205, August.
    15. Bruno Carvalho & Claudia Custodio & Benny Geys & Diogo Mendes & Susana Peralta, 2020. "Information, Perceptions, and Electoral Behaviour of Young Voters: A Randomised Controlled Experiment," Working Papers ECARES 2020-14, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    16. Balles, Patrick & Matter, Ulrich & Stutzer, Alois, 2023. "Television market size and political accountability in the U.S. House of Representatives," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    17. Piolatto, Amedeo & Schuett, Florian, 2015. "Media competition and electoral politics," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 80-93.
    18. Francesco Sobbrio, 2014. "The political economy of news media: theory, evidence and open issues," Chapters, in: Francesco Forte & Ram Mudambi & Pietro Maria Navarra (ed.), A Handbook of Alternative Theories of Public Economics, chapter 13, pages 278-320, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    19. Cagé, Julia, 2017. "Media Competition, Information Provision and Political Participation: Evidence from French Local Newspapers and Elections, 1944," CEPR Discussion Papers 12198, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    20. Nina Czernich, 2012. "Broadband Internet and Political Participation: Evidence for G ermany," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 65(1), pages 31-52, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Local television; Political information; Natural experiment; Roll-call votes;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D80 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - General
    • H50 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - General

    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:eee:poleco:v:56:y:2019:i:c:p:212-232. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505544 .

    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.