Swings, News, and Elections

Saptarshi Ghosh (), Nidhi Jain (), Cesar Martinelli and Jaideep Roy
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Saptarshi Ghosh: Indian Institute of Technology Bombay
Nidhi Jain: Shiv Nader University

No 1076, Working Papers from George Mason University, Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science

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.

Keywords: Mood swings; Media coverage; Media viewership; Elections (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D02 D72 D82 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 20
Date: 2019-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mic and nep-pol
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