IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/pubeco/v220y2023ics0047272723000294.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Does candidates’ media exposure affect vote shares? Evidence from Pope breaking news

Author

Listed:
  • Caprini, Giulia

Abstract

I study the impact of politicians’ media exposure in campaign on their vote share, exploiting an exogenous change in coverage during the Italian 2013 electoral race. Right before the election, the Pope Benedict XVI suddenly resigned and broadcast coverage of politics markedly dropped. Only five days of lower visibility of the right-wing leader and TV tycoon Berlusconi (-26 percentage points) caused a 2 percentage points dip in his vote share, and lead to his defeat by 0.4 percentage points. Following the TV coverage disruption, a part of Berlusconi’s electorate resorted to Internet for political news, and later favored a new party with Internet-centred propaganda.

Suggested Citation

  • Caprini, Giulia, 2023. "Does candidates’ media exposure affect vote shares? Evidence from Pope breaking news," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 220(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:220:y:2023:i:c:s0047272723000294
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2023.104847
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047272723000294
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2023.104847?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. Erik Snowberg & Justin Wolfers & Eric Zitzewitz, 2007. "Partisan Impacts on the Economy: Evidence from Prediction Markets and Close Elections," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(2), pages 807-829.
    2. David Leblang & Bumba Mukherjee, 2005. "Government Partisanship, Elections, and the Stock Market: Examining American and British Stock Returns, 1930–2000," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 49(4), pages 780-802, October.
    3. Gemmill, Gordon, 1992. "Political risk and market efficiency: Tests based in British stock and options markets in the 1987 election," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 211-231, February.
    4. Cumby, Robert E & Huizinga, John, 1992. "Testing the Autocorrelation Structure of Disturbances in Ordinary Least Squares and Instrumental Variables Regressions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 60(1), pages 185-195, January.
    5. repec:hal:pseose:halshs-01245557 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. 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.
    7. Maja Adena & Ruben Enikolopov & Maria Petrova & Veronica Santarosa & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, 2015. "Radio and the Rise of The Nazis in Prewar Germany," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 130(4), pages 1885-1939.
    8. Erik Snowberg & Justin Wolfers & Eric Zitzewitz, 2011. "How Prediction Markets can Save Event Studies," CAMA Working Papers 2011-07, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    9. 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.
    10. Wolfers, Justin & Zitzewitz, Eric, 2006. "Prediction Markets in Theory and Practice," CEPR Discussion Papers 5578, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. Ruben Durante & Paolo Pinotti & Andrea Tesei, 2019. "The Political Legacy of Entertainment TV," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(7), pages 2497-2530, July.
    12. Knight*, Brian, 2007. "Are policy platforms capitalized into equity prices? Evidence from the Bush/Gore 2000 Presidential Election," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(1-2), pages 389-409, February.
    13. Matthew Gentzkow & Jesse M. Shapiro & Michael Sinkinson, 2011. "The Effect of Newspaper Entry and Exit on Electoral Politics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(7), pages 2980-3018, December.
    14. Andrea Mattozzi, 2008. "Can we insure against political uncertainty? Evidence from the U.S. stock market," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 137(1), pages 43-55, October.
    15. Ruben Durante & Paolo Pinotti & Andrea Tesei, 2019. "The Political Legacy of Entertainment TV," Post-Print hal-03948081, HAL.
    16. Ruben Durante & Paolo Pinotti & Andrea Tesei, 2019. "The Political Legacy of Entertainment TV," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03948081, HAL.
    17. Miner, Luke, 2015. "The unintended consequences of internet diffusion: Evidence from Malaysia," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 66-78.
    18. Guglielmo Barone & Francesco D'Acunto & Gaia Narciso, 2015. "Telecracy: Testing for Channels of Persuasion," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 7(2), pages 30-60, May.
    19. Imbens,Guido W. & Rubin,Donald B., 2015. "Causal Inference for Statistics, Social, and Biomedical Sciences," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521885881, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items 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. Donati, Dante, 2023. "Mobile Internet access and political outcomes: Evidence from South Africa," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    2. Sekou Keita & Thomas Renault & Jérôme Valette, 2024. "The Usual Suspects: Offender Origin, Media Reporting and Natives’ Attitudes Towards Immigration," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 134(657), pages 322-362.
    3. Mathias Bühler & Andrew Dickens & Andrew C. Dickens, 2024. "From Couch to Poll: Media Content and the Value of Local Information," CESifo Working Paper Series 10959, CESifo.
    4. Timothy Besley & Thiemo Fetzer & Hannes Mueller, 2023. "How Big Is the Media Multiplier? Evidence from Dyadic News Data," CESifo Working Paper Series 10619, CESifo.
    5. 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.
    6. Coulomb, Renaud & Sangnier, Marc, 2014. "The impact of political majorities on firm value: Do electoral promises or friendship connections matter?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 158-170.
    7. Brian Knight & Ana Tribin, 2022. "Opposition Media, State Censorship, and Political Accountability: Evidence from Chavez’s Venezuela," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 36(2), pages 455-487.
    8. Piolatto, Amedeo & Schuett, Florian, 2015. "Media competition and electoral politics," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 80-93.
    9. Ashani Amarasinghe & Paul A. Raschky, 2022. "Competing for Attention - The Effect of Talk Radio on Elections and Political Polarization in the US," SoDa Laboratories Working Paper Series 2022-02, Monash University, SoDa Laboratories.
    10. Cantarella, Michele & Fraccaroli, Nicolò & Volpe, Roberto, 2023. "Does fake news affect voting behaviour?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(1).
    11. Coulomb, Renaud & Sangnier, Marc, 2014. "The impact of political majorities on firm value: Do electoral promises or friendship connections matter?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 158-170.
    12. Poy, Samuele & Schüller, Simone, 2020. "Internet and voting in the social media era: Evidence from a local broadband policy," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(1).
    13. Carvalho, Augusto & Guimaraes, Bernardo, 2018. "State-controlled companies and political risk: Evidence from the 2014 Brazilian election," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 66-78.
    14. Samuele Poy & Simone Schüller, 2016. "Internet and Voting in the Web 2.0 Era: Evidence from a Local Broadband Policy," CESifo Working Paper Series 6129, CESifo.
    15. Amorim, Guilherme & Lima, Rafael Costa & Sampaio, Breno, 2022. "Broadband internet and protests: Evidence from the Occupy movement," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    16. 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.
    17. Alex Armand & Paul Atwell & Joseph F. Gomes & Yannik Schenk, 2023. "It’s a Bird, it’s a Plane, it’s Superman! Using Mass Media to fight Intolerance," LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES 2023012, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    18. Quoc-Anh Do & Bang Dang Nguyen & Yen-Teik Lee & Kieu-Trang Nguyen, 2011. "Out of Sight, Out of Mind:The Value of Political Connections in Social Networks," Working Papers 19-2011, Singapore Management University, School of Economics.
    19. Sarah Schneider-Strawczynski & Jérôme Valette, 2021. "Media Coverage of Immigration and the Polarization of Attitudes," PSE Working Papers halshs-03322229, HAL.
    20. Mougin, Elisa, 2024. "TV in times of political uncertainty: Evidence from the 2017 elections in Kenya," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    TV coverage; Media; Politics; Voting;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L82 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Entertainment; Media
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading

    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:pubeco:v:220:y:2023:i:c:s0047272723000294. 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/505578 .

    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.