News Media Reporting Patterns and our Biased Understanding of Global Unrest

Andrew Shaver
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Andrew Shaver: University of California, Merced

Empirical Studies of Conflict Project (ESOC) Working Papers from Empirical Studies of Conflict Project

Abstract: News reports of political violence are systematically compiled into large global conflict-event datasets used by academics, governments, and international organizations. These datasets present opportunities to examine the micro-dynamics of conflict but are often systematically skewed. We compare various news-report based datasets to high quality administrative records from Afghanistan, Iraq, the Philippines, South Africa, and Syria to identify sources of systematic missingness in the former. We identify under-reporting related to violence intensity, weaponry, target, perpetrator, and non-deadly violence. In a large replication exercise, we show that media-based data fail to uncover the results reported in leading economics/political science journal articles.

Keywords: Afghanistan; Iraq; Philippines; South Africa; Syria (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D83 F51 H56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022-10
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pri:esocpu:32

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