IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/soinre/v139y2018i2d10.1007_s11205-017-1726-x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Focussing on the Extremes of Good and Bad: Media Reporting of Countries Ranked Via Index-Based League Tables

Author

Listed:
  • Stephen Morse

    (University of Surrey)

Abstract

The paper provides the first published evidence for a ‘U’ shaped relationship between country ‘league-table’ ranking based on the Human Development Index and Corruption Perception Index and media reporting. The results suggest that the Extremity Hypothesis proposed by Heath (Glob Environ Change 21(1): 198–208, 1996) applies to such data rather than the alternative of the Centrality Hypothesis. In the Extremity Hypothesis people are more likely to transmit information regarding extremes, perhaps because people value ‘surprisingness’ or think that others do so, and the inevitable polarity of league-tables would appear to invite greater attention on those countries that rank high and low. This is an important finding as it suggests that countries at these extremes could act as exemplars. However, this is not to say that at more regional scales the media may pick-up on differences between ‘peer group’ countries ranked towards the middle of the league-table. Much more attention needs to be given by researchers to the use of indicators and indices and what helps to influence this, especially as it would help inform further development of existing indicators/indices and the creation of new ones.

Suggested Citation

  • Stephen Morse, 2018. "Focussing on the Extremes of Good and Bad: Media Reporting of Countries Ranked Via Index-Based League Tables," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 139(2), pages 631-652, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:soinre:v:139:y:2018:i:2:d:10.1007_s11205-017-1726-x
    DOI: 10.1007/s11205-017-1726-x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11205-017-1726-x
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11205-017-1726-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
    ---><---

    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. Guido Luchters & Lukas Menkhoff, 2000. "Chaotic signals from HDI measurement," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 7(4), pages 267-270.
    2. Heywood, Paul M. & Rose, Jonathan, 2014. "“Close but no Cigar”: the measurement of corruption," Journal of Public Policy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 34(3), pages 507-529, December.
    3. Andrea Saltelli, 2007. "Composite Indicators between Analysis and Advocacy," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 81(1), pages 65-77, March.
    4. Stephen Morse, 2013. "Out of Sight, Out of Mind. Reporting of Three Indices in the UK National Press Between 1990 and 2009," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(4), pages 242-259, July.
    5. Bienvenido Ortega & Antonio Casquero & Jesús Sanjuán, 2016. "Corruption and Convergence in Human Development: Evidence from 69 Countries During 1990–2012," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 127(2), pages 691-719, June.
    6. Danielle Warren & William Laufer, 2009. "Are Corruption Indices a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy? A Social Labeling Perspective of Corruption," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 88(4), pages 841-849, October.
    7. Ravallion, Martin, 2012. "Troubling tradeoffs in the Human Development Index," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(2), pages 201-209.
    8. Diane Coyle, 2014. "GDP: A Brief but Affectionate History," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 10183.
    9. Neumayer, Eric, 2001. "The human development index and sustainability -- a constructive proposal," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 101-114, October.
    10. Dilyan Donchev & Gergely Ujhelyi, 2014. "What Do Corruption Indices Measure?," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(2), pages 309-331, July.
    11. Elizabeth Stanton, 2007. "The Human Development Index: A History," Working Papers wp127, Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
    12. Heath, Chip, 1996. "Do People Prefer to Pass Along Good or Bad News? Valence and Relevance of News as Predictors of Transmission Propensity," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 79-94, November.
    13. Bienvenido Ortega & Antonio Casquero & Jesús Sanjuán, 2014. "Growth In Human Development: The Role Of Corruption," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(7), pages 974-998, October.
    14. Marcel Garz, 2014. "Good news and bad news: evidence of media bias in unemployment reports," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 161(3), pages 499-515, December.
    15. Stephen Morse, 2016. "Measuring the Success of Sustainable Development Indices in Terms of Reporting by the Global Press," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 125(2), pages 359-375, January.
    16. Srinivasan, T N, 1994. "Human Development: A New Paradigm or Reinvention of the Wheel?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(2), pages 238-243, May.
    17. Streeten, Paul, 1994. "Human Development: Means and Ends," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(2), pages 232-237, May.
    18. McCluskey, Jill J. & Swinnen, Johan & Vandemoortele, Thijs, 2015. "You get what you want: A note on the economics of bad news," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 1-5.
    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. Javier Bilbao-Ubillos, 2013. "Another Approach to Measuring Human Development: The Composite Dynamic Human Development Index," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 111(2), pages 473-484, April.
    2. Diogo Ferraz & Enzo B. Mariano & Daisy Rebelatto & Dominik Hartmann, 2020. "Linking Human Development and the Financial Responsibility of Regions: Combined Index Proposals Using Methods from Data Envelopment Analysis," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 150(2), pages 439-478, July.
    3. Giménez, Víctor & Ayvar-Campos, Francisco Javier & Navarro-Chávez, José César Lenin, 2017. "Efficiency in the generation of social welfare in Mexico: A proposal in the presence of bad outputs," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 43-52.
    4. Mark McGillivray & Farhad Noorbakhsh, 2004. "Composite Indices of Human Well-being: Past, Present, and Future," WIDER Working Paper Series RP2004-63, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    5. Morse, Stephen, 2006. "Making development simple. The genetic deterministic hypothesis for economic development," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 79-88, January.
    6. José-Miguel Bello y Villarino, 2021. "Measuring Corruption: A Critical Analysis of the Existing Datasets and Their Suitability for Diachronic Transnational Research," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 157(2), pages 709-747, September.
    7. F. Noorbakhsh, 2002. "Human development and regional disparities in Iran: a policy model," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(7), pages 927-949.
    8. Simon Bell & Stephen Morse, 2018. "Sustainability Indicators Past and Present: What Next?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(5), pages 1-15, May.
    9. Morse, Stephen, 2003. "For better or for worse, till the human development index do us part?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 281-296, June.
    10. Panagiotis Ravanos & Giannis Karagiannis, 2021. "A VEA Benefit-of-the-Doubt Model for the HDI," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 155(1), pages 27-46, May.
    11. Elizabeth Stanton, 2007. "The Human Development Index: A History," Working Papers wp127, Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
    12. Stephen Morse, 2013. "Bottom Rail on Top: The Shifting Sands of Sustainable Development Indicators as Tools to Assess Progress," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 5(6), pages 1-21, May.
    13. Stephen Morse, 2020. "To Rank or Not to Rank with Indices? That Is the Question," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(14), pages 1-20, July.
    14. Jeni Klugman & Francisco Rodríguez & Hyung-Jin Choi, 2011. "The HDI 2010: new controversies, old critiques," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 9(2), pages 249-288, June.
    15. Leandro Prados de la Escosura, 2021. "Augmented human development in the age of globalization," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 74(4), pages 946-975, November.
    16. Rachel M. Gisselquist, 2013. "Evaluating Governance Indexes: Critical and Less Critical Questions," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2013-068, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    17. Suri, Tavneet & Boozer, Michael A. & Ranis, Gustav & Stewart, Frances, 2011. "Paths to Success: The Relationship Between Human Development and Economic Growth," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 506-522, April.
    18. Peter Lawrence & Jeremy Meigh & Caroline Sullivan, 2002. "The Water Poverty Index:an International Comparison," Keele Economics Research Papers KERP 2002/19, Centre for Economic Research, Keele University, revised Mar 2003.
    19. Hezri, Adnan A. & Dovers, Stephen R., 2006. "Sustainability indicators, policy and governance: Issues for ecological economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 86-99, November.
    20. Ifeoluwa Adeola Ologunde & Forget Mingiri Kapingura & Kin Sibanda, 2020. "Sustainable Development and Crude Oil Revenue: A Case of Selected Crude Oil-Producing African Countries," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(18), pages 1-30, September.

    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:spr:soinre:v:139:y:2018:i:2:d:10.1007_s11205-017-1726-x. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.