From Couch to Poll: Media Content and The Value of Local Information

Mathias Bühler and Andrew Dickens

No 496, Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series from CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition

Abstract: We document the importance of local information in mass media for the political engagement of citizens and accountability of politicians. We study this in the context of Canada, where until 1958, competition in television markets was suppressed—Canadians received either public or private television content, but never both. While public television provided national-level informational content, private television content was distinctly local and more politically relevant to voters. We find that the introduction of television reduced voter turnout, but that this effect is exclusive to public television districts. Our findings qualify existing knowledge about the political effects of the rollout of new media, by allowing the informational content to vary while holding the media type constant. We support this argument with evidence from parliamentary debates: politicians from districts with private television are more likely to speak and act on behalf of their constituents in Parliament. Our findings thus suggest that politicians are held accountable by relevant media content.

JEL-codes: D72 L82 N42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-02-14
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-cul, nep-pol and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://rationality-and-competition.de/wp-content/ ... ussion_paper/496.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: From Couch to Poll: Media Content and the Value of Local Information (2024)
Working Paper: From Couch to Poll: Media Content and the Value of Local Information (2024)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:rco:dpaper:496

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series from CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Viviana Lalli ().