Persuadable perceptions: the effect of media content on beliefs about corruption

Lucia Rizzica and Marco Tonello

Economic Policy, 2020, vol. 35, issue 104, 679-737

Abstract: SUMMARYWe study the impact of news content on individuals’ perceptions about corruption. To this purpose, we combine individuals’ beliefs about the likelihood that corruption events may occur in everyday life, as obtained from questions introduced in a large household survey, with their as-good-as-random exposure to corruption-related news on the date of the interview. Results show that a 1 SD increase in the number of corruption news items raises corruption perceptions by 3.5%. Consistently with a mechanism of persuasion, perceptions respond mainly to news not related to specific corruption events rather than to those reporting on arrests, investigations or convictions.

Keywords: L82; D73; D83; K42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:ecpoli:v:35:y:2020:i:104:p:679-737.

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