IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/gms/wpaper/1076.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Swings, News, and Elections

Author

Listed:
  • Saptarshi Ghosh

    (Indian Institute of Technology Bombay)

  • Nidhi Jain

    (Shiv Nader University)

  • Cesar Martinelli

    (Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science and Department of Economics, George Mason University)

  • Jaideep Roy

    (University of Bath)

Abstract

Can public mood swings that make all voters undergo ideological shifts towards a policy, hurt the electoral performance of that policy? The answer has an interesting connection with the operations of an apolitical, viewership- maximizing dominant media. The media chooses news quality about funda- mental uncertainties. Ex-ante preferences and news quality affect the voters’ value for information and viewership, influencing ex-post policy preferences and votes. We find that public mood swings in a policy’s favor can hurt its electoral performance by affecting the news quality, crowding out the mass ideological gain that initiates the favorable swing.

Suggested Citation

  • Saptarshi Ghosh & Nidhi Jain & Cesar Martinelli & Jaideep Roy, 2019. "Swings, News, and Elections," Working Papers 1076, George Mason University, Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:gms:wpaper:1076
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.gmu.edu/schools/chss/economics/icesworkingpapers.gmu.edu/pdf/1076.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Matthew Gentzkow & Jesse M. Shapiro & Daniel F. Stone, 2014. "Media Bias in the Marketplace: Theory," NBER Working Papers 19880, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Siddhartha Bandyopadhyay & Kalyan Chatterjee & Jaideep Roy, 2020. "Extremist Platforms: Political Consequences Of Profit‐Seeking Media," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 61(3), pages 1173-1193, August.
    4. Juan D. Carrillo & Micael Castanheira, 2008. "Information and Strategic Political Polarisation," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(530), pages 845-874, July.
    5. 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.
    6. Markussen, Simen, 2008. "How the left prospers from prosperity," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 329-342, June.
    7. Simon P. Anderson & John McLaren, 2012. "Media Mergers And Media Bias With Rational Consumers," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 10(4), pages 831-859, August.
    8. Ascensión Andina-Díaz, 2006. "Political competition when media create candidates’ charisma," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 127(3), pages 345-366, June.
    9. Andrew Pickering & James Rockey, 2011. "Ideology and the Growth of Government," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(3), pages 907-919, August.
    10. Lisa M. George & Joel Waldfogel, 2006. "The New York Times and the Market for Local Newspapers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(1), pages 435-447, March.
    11. Mark Andreas Kayser, 2009. "Partisan Waves: International Business Cycles and Electoral Choice," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 53(4), pages 950-970, October.
    12. Santiago Oliveros & Felix Várdy, 2015. "Demand for Slant: How Abstention Shapes Voters' Choice of News Media," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 125(587), pages 1327-1368, September.
    13. Matthew Gentzkow & Jesse M. Shapiro, 2010. "What Drives Media Slant? Evidence From U.S. Daily Newspapers," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 78(1), pages 35-71, January.
    14. repec:ulb:ulbeco:2013/10003 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Durr, Robert H., 1993. "What Moves Policy Sentiment?," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 87(1), pages 158-170, March.
    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. Siddhartha Bandyopadhyay & Kalyan Chatterjee & Jaideep Roy, 2020. "Extremist Platforms: Political Consequences Of Profit‐Seeking Media," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 61(3), pages 1173-1193, August.
    2. 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.
    3. Piolatto, Amedeo & Schuett, Florian, 2015. "Media competition and electoral politics," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 80-93.
    4. Siddhartha Bandyopadhyay & Kalyan Chatterjee & Jaideep Roy, 2015. "Manufacturing extremism: political consequences of profit-seeking media," Discussion Papers 15-14, Department of Economics, University of Birmingham.
    5. 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.
    6. Bernhardt, Lea & Dewenter, Ralf & Thomas, Tobias, 2023. "Measuring partisan media bias in US newscasts from 2001 to 2012," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    7. Ghosh, Saptarshi P. & Jain, Nidhi & Martinelli, Ćesar & Roy, Jaideep, 2023. "Responsive democracy and commercial media," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 222(C).
    8. Redlicki, B., 2017. "Spreading Lies," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1747, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    9. Jetter, Michael, 2017. "Terrorism and the Media: The Effect of US Television Coverage on Al-Qaeda Attacks," IZA Discussion Papers 10708, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Francesco Sobbrio, 2012. "A Citizen-Editors Model of News Media," RSCAS Working Papers 2012/61, European University Institute.
    11. Sun, Junze & Schram, Arthur & Sloof, Randolph, 2021. "Elections under biased candidate endorsements — an experimental study," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 141-158.
    12. 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.
    13. Jacopo Perego & Sevgi Yuksel, 2022. "Media Competition and Social Disagreement," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 90(1), pages 223-265, January.
    14. Bertin Martens & Luis Aguiar & Estrella Gomez Herrera & Frank Muller, 2018. "The digital transformation of news media and the rise of disinformation and fake news," JRC Working Papers on Digital Economy 2018-02, Joint Research Centre.
    15. repec:tiu:tiucen:2013072 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Friebel, Guido & Heinz, Matthias, 2014. "Media slant against foreign owners: Downsizing," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 97-106.
    17. Sobbrio, Francesco, 2014. "Citizen-editors' endogenous information acquisition and news accuracy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 43-53.
    18. Junze Sun & Arthur Schram & Randolph Sloof, 2019. "A Theory on Media Bias and Elections," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 19-048/I, Tinbergen Institute.
    19. 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.
    20. Ralf Dewenter & Uwe Dulleck & Tobias Thomas, 2020. "Does the 4th estate deliver? The Political Coverage Index and its application to media capture," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 31(3), pages 292-328, September.
    21. Bernhardt, Lea & Dewenter, Ralf & Thomas, Tobias, 2020. "Watchdog or loyal servant? Political media bias in US newscasts," DICE Discussion Papers 348, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Mood swings; Media coverage; Media viewership; Elections;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D02 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Institutions: Design, Formation, Operations, and Impact
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design

    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:gms:wpaper:1076. 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: Shams Bahabib (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/icgmuus.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.