IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_1402.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Media Capture in a Democracy: The Role of Wealth Concentration

Author

Listed:
  • Giacomo Corneo

Abstract

Since objective news coverage is vital to democracy, captured media can seriously distort collective decisions. The current paper develops a voting model where citizens are uncertain about the welfare effects induced by alternative policy options and derive information about those effects from the mass media. The media might however secretly collude with interest groups in order to influence the public opinion. In the case of voting over the level of a productivity-enhancing public bad, it is shown that an increase in the concentration of firm ownership makes the occurrence of media bias more likely. Although media bias is not always welfare worsening, conditions for it to raise welfare are restrictive.

Suggested Citation

  • Giacomo Corneo, 2005. "Media Capture in a Democracy: The Role of Wealth Concentration," CESifo Working Paper Series 1402, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_1402
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp1402.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Djankov, Simeon & McLiesh, Caralee & Nenova, Tatiana & Shleifer, Andrei, 2003. "Who Owns the Media?," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 46(2), pages 341-381, October.
    2. repec:bla:scandj:v:81:y:1979:i:2:p:216-26 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Sendhil Mullainathan & Andrei Shleifer, 2002. "Media Bias," NBER Working Papers 9295, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Harsanyi, John C, 1995. "Games with Incomplete Information," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(3), pages 291-303, June.
    5. repec:bla:scandj:v:95:y:1993:i:2:p:227-38 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Chan, Jimmy & Suen, Wing, 2009. "Media as watchdogs: The role of news media in electoral competition," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(7), pages 799-814, October.
    7. Roland Benabou & Guy Laroque, 1992. "Using Privileged Information to Manipulate Markets: Insiders, Gurus, and Credibility," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(3), pages 921-958.
    8. 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.
    9. Baron, David P., 2004. "Persistent Media Bias," Research Papers 1845r, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    10. John C. Harsanyi & Reinhard Selten, 1972. "A Generalized Nash Solution for Two-Person Bargaining Games with Incomplete Information," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 18(5-Part-2), pages 80-106, January.
    11. Crawford, Vincent P & Sobel, Joel, 1982. "Strategic Information Transmission," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(6), pages 1431-1451, November.
    12. Sendhil Mullainathan & Andrei Shleifer, 2005. "The Market for News," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(4), pages 1031-1053, September.
    13. David Strömberg, 2004. "Mass Media Competition, Political Competition, and Public Policy," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 71(1), pages 265-284.
    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. Miura, Shintaro, 2019. "Manipulated news model: Electoral competition and mass media," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 306-338.
    2. Chan, Jimmy & Suen, Wing, 2009. "Media as watchdogs: The role of news media in electoral competition," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(7), pages 799-814, October.
    3. Ascensión Andina Díaz, 2011. "Mass Media in Economics: Origins and Subsequent Contributions," Working Papers 2011-02, Universidad de Málaga, Department of Economic Theory, Málaga Economic Theory Research Center.
    4. 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.
    5. Petrova, Maria, 2011. "Newspapers and Parties: How Advertising Revenues Created an Independent Press," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 105(4), pages 790-808, November.
    6. Cagé, Julia, 2020. "Media competition, information provision and political participation: Evidence from French local newspapers and elections, 1944–2014," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 185(C).
    7. Blasco, Andrea & Sobbrio, Francesco, 2012. "Competition and commercial media bias," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(5), pages 434-447.
    8. Sobbrio, Francesco, 2009. "Indirect Lobbying and Media Bias," MPRA Paper 18215, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Chun-Fang Chiang & Brian Knight, 2011. "Media Bias and Influence: Evidence from Newspaper Endorsements," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 78(3), pages 795-820.
    10. Maria Battaggion & Alessandro Vaglio, 2015. "Watchdogs, Platforms and Audience: An Economic Perspective on Media Markets," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 43(2), pages 209-228, June.
    11. Matthew Gentzkow & Jesse M. Shapiro, 2006. "Media Bias and Reputation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 114(2), pages 280-316, April.
    12. Ascensión Andina-Díaz, 2007. "Reinforcement vs. change: The political influence of the media," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 131(1), pages 65-81, April.
    13. Elena Panova, 2009. "Confirmatory News," Cahiers de recherche 0912, CIRPEE.
    14. Jung, Hanjoon Michael, 2007. "Strategic Information Transmission through the Media," MPRA Paper 5556, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Oct 2007.
    15. 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.
    16. Germano, Fabrizio & Meier, Martin, 2013. "Concentration and self-censorship in commercial media," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 117-130.
    17. Matthew Gentzkow & Jesse M. Shapiro, 2008. "Competition and Truth in the Market for News," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 22(2), pages 133-154, Spring.
    18. Svaleryd, Helena & Vlachos, Jonas, 2009. "Political rents in a non-corrupt democracy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(3-4), pages 355-372, April.
    19. Di Gioacchino, Debora & Verashchagina, Alina, 2020. "Mass media and preferences for redistribution," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    20. 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.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    mass media; public bads; voting; wealth inequality;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ces:ceswps:_1402. 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: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.html .

    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.