Mass media and political accountability

Timothy Besley, Robin Burgess and Andrea Pratt

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: Mass media can play a key role in enabling citizens to monitor the actions of incumbents and to use this information in their voting decisions. This can lead to government which is more accountable and responsive to its citizens' needs. In spite of the intuitive plausibility of the proposition, there is comparatively little work in political economy literature that scrutinises the role and effectiveness of the media in fulfilling this function. A literature, however, is emerging which focuses attention on the importance of the so-called 'fourth estate of government' in the policy process. A key feature of the approach taken here is to focus on incentives the media have to produce and disseminate information.

JEL-codes: F3 G3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 19 pages
Date: 2002-02
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (34)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:35988

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