A Citizens-Editors Model of News Media

Francesco Sobbrio ()

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: We model a market for news where profit maximizing media outlets choose their editors from a population of rational citizens. We show that when information acquisition is costly, liberal (conservative) citizens find optimal to acquire information from a media outlet having a liberal (conservative) editor. Consequently, we show that depending on the distribution of citizens' ideological preferences, a media outlet may choose to hire a non-moderate editor even in a monopolistic market. Moreover, the higher the degree of competition in the market for news, the more likely that media outlets will hire non-moderate editors. Finally, less moderate editors are more likely to be hired in a news market where the opportunity cost of acquiring information for citizens is low.

Keywords: Media Bias; Information Acquisition; Valence; Competition (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D81 D72 D83 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm and nep-cul
Date: 2009-10
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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:18213

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