Persuading Voters with Partisan TV News: A Natural Experiment Using Spatial Reception Data

Nicolas Herault (), Trevor Kollmann () and Russell Thomson ()
Additional contact information
Nicolas Herault: University of Bordeaux
Trevor Kollmann: Swinburne University of Technology
Russell Thomson: Swinburne University of Technology

No 17452, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We estimate the causal effect of partisan media on voter behavior by exploiting a natural experiment in which Sky News Australia – a conservative 24-hour news channel – became freely available to 8 million people. Using comprehensive national polling-station-level electoral data and broadcast signal strength variation, we implement a continuous treatment difference-in-differences design comparing voting patterns in areas with and without access to the channel before and after its September 2018 free-to-air launch. We find that exposure to partisan media increased the conservative party's lead by 1.5 percentage points in Australia's 2019 federal election. These findings shed light on the role of partisan media in shaping electoral outcomes by influencing swing voters, not just by affecting who turns out to vote.

Keywords: partisan news; elections; spatial economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 L82 R19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 47 pages
Date: 2024-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-pol and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp17452.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
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:iza:izadps:dp17452

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().