Disentangling Demand and Supply of Media Bias: The Case of Newspaper Homepages

Tin Cheuk Leung () and Koleman Strumpf ()
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Tin Cheuk Leung: Wake Forest University, Economics Department, Postal: 1834 Wake Forest Rd., Winston-Salem, NC, 27109, https://sites.google.com/site/tincheukleung/
Koleman Strumpf: Wake Forest University, Economics Department, Postal: 1834 Wake Forest Rd., Winston-Salem, NC, 27109, https://users.wfu.edu/strumpks/

No 116, Working Papers from Wake Forest University, Economics Department

Abstract: We introduce a novel method for detecting supply-side media bias without needing information on the ideological leanings of media owners or editors. Focusing on digital homepages, we analyzed over 100,000 articles from The New York Times (NYT) and The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and 24 million tweets. By controlling for demand-side factors, we attribute extended homepage visibility of ideologically slanted articles to supply-side biases. Liberal articles stay longer on the NYT homepage, while conservative ones persist on WSJ. Further analysis into articles’ transition to print and podcasts suggest that competition may reduce media bias, supporting the presence of supply-side biases.

Keywords: Media Bias; Media Economics; Social Media; Machine Learning (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D22 D72 D83 L82 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 55 pages
Date: 2024-10-17
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-big and nep-cul
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ris:wfuewp:0116

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