FOOD CRISES AND THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THE MEDIA

Johan Swinnen and Nathalie Francken

No 31885, PRG Working Papers from Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, LICOS - Centre for Institutions and Economic Performance

Abstract: The objective of our paper is to contribute to this understanding by presenting a conceptual model of the information supply and comparing it with empirical observations on media reporting on two recent food safety crises. Our paper starts with an analysis of the organization and incentives of the media industry, looking at both supply and demand factors, and discusses a set of general hypothesis on the characteristics of information provided by the media industry. This section relies heavily upon a formal model of the information market developed in Swinnen and McCluskey (2002). The second part of the paper is empirical. We compare the hypotheses with media reporting on two recent food safety crises in Western Europe: the 1999 dioxin crisis which originated in Belgium, and the 2001 foot-and-mouth disease which originated in the UK.

Keywords: Food; Consumption/Nutrition/Food; Safety (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 23
Date: 2002
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:kuliwp:31885

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.31885

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