Government control of the media
Scott Gehlbach and
Konstantin Sonin
Journal of Public Economics, 2014, vol. 118, issue C, 163-171
Abstract:
We present a formal model of government control of the media to illuminate variation in media freedom across countries and over time. Media bias is greater and state ownership of the media more likely when the government has a particular interest in mobilizing citizens to take actions that further some political objective but are not necessarily in citizens' individual best interest; however, the distinction between state and private media is smaller. Large advertising markets reduce media bias in both state and private media but increase the incentive for the government to nationalize private media. Media bias in state and private media markets diverge as governments become more democratic, whereas media bias in democracies and autocracies converge as positive externalities from mobilization increase.
Keywords: Media; Political economy; Formal theory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (56)
Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047272714001443
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
Related works:
Working Paper: Government Control of the Media (2008) 
Working Paper: Government Control of the Media (2008) 
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:eee:pubeco:v:118:y:2014:i:c:p:163-171
DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2014.06.004
Access Statistics for this article
Journal of Public Economics is currently edited by R. Boadway and J. Poterba
More articles in Journal of Public Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().