 Time scarcity and the market for newsLarbi Alaoui and Fabrizio Germano Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2020, vol. 174, issue C, 173-195 Abstract: We develop a theory of news coverage in environments of information abundance. Time-constrained consumers browse through news items across competing outlets. They choose which outlets to access and which stories to read or skip, thus indirectly deciding how much time to spend on a given outlet. Firms decide on rankings of news items that maximize their profits. We show that even when readers (or television viewers) and firms are rational and unbiased, they spend more time on the news than they would like and not necessarily on the topics they prefer. In particular, relevant news items may be crowded out. We then study how reader-efficient standards can be restored, and derive implications on diverse aspects of new and traditional media. These include tabloidization and polarization of the news, and other aspects relevant for the political economy of the media, including political knowledge gaps and voter turnout. Keywords: Media markets; Ranking news items; Time-constrained consumers; Digital media; Tabloidization of news; Political knowledge gaps (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:174:y:2020:i:c:p:173-195 DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2020.04.009 Access Statistics for this article Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization is currently edited by Houser, D. and Puzzello, D. More articles in Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization from Elsevier |
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