Advertising and Political Bias in the Media: The Market for Criticism of the Market Economy

Daniel Sutter

American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 2002, vol. 61, issue 3, 725-745

Abstract: Many observers of the media argue that advertiser support of the news insulates business from critical scrutiny. News organizations know better than to bite the hand that feeds them. I examine several weaknesses in this corporate advertising bias argument. Most significantly, a favorable political climate for business is a public good, so individual businesses have an incentive to support anti–business messages that generate an audience. Transmission of messages that fail to generate sufficient demand is inefficient. In short, advertising does not create a significant political bias.

Date: 2002
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/1536-7150.00187

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:bla:ajecsc:v:61:y:2002:i:3:p:725-745

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0002-9246

Access Statistics for this article

American Journal of Economics and Sociology is currently edited by Laurence S. Moss

More articles in American Journal of Economics and Sociology from Wiley Blackwell
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().