Understanding the Internet's relevance to media ownership policy: a model of too many choices

Matthew Nagler

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: Does the Internet provide a failsafe against media consolidation in the wake of an easing of media ownership rules? This paper posits a model of news outlet selection on the Internet in which consumers experience cognitive costs that increase with the number of options faced. Consistent with psychological evidence, these costs may be reduced by constraining one’s choice set to “safe bets” familiar from offline (e.g., CNN.com). It is shown that, as the number of outlets grows, dispersion of consumer visitation across outlets inevitably declines. Consequently, independent Internet outlets may fail to mitigate lost outlet independence on other media.

Keywords: Choice framing; Media ownership; Internet; Differentiated products; Location models (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D11 L11 L86 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006-12-14
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cul, nep-ict and nep-mkt
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Related works:
Journal Article: Understanding the Internet's Relevance to Media Ownership Policy: A Model of Too Many Choices (2007)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:2180

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