Internet effects in times of political crisis: online newsgathering and attitudes towards the European Union

Leonardo Baccini, Maria Laura Sudulich and Matthew Wall

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

Abstract: This paper evaluates the influence of online news consumption on attitudes towards the European Union in a context of protracted economic crisis. Using data from the 2011 Irish National Election Study, we combine location-specific information on broadband availability with respondent geo-location data, which facilitates causal inference about the effects of online news consumption via instrumental variable (IV) models. We find that Irish citizens who source political information online are more prone to blame the EU for the poor state of the economy than those who do not. We find evidence of preference reinforcement among those with negative predispositions towards the EU, but not among pro-EU citizens. We complement this analysis with a study of voting behaviour in the European Fiscal Compact Referendum, employing a similar methodological approach. The results from this second survey confirm the anti-EU influence of online news consumption among Irish citizens, although we find suggestive evidence of a pro-EU effect among voters who browsed the website of the politically neutral Irish Referendum Commission. Our paper contributes to the literature on public opinion, the EU, and political attitudes in times of crisis.

Keywords: public opinion; economic crisis; internet; European Union; Ireland (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-03-11
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published in Public Opinion Quarterly, 11, March, 2016, 80(2), pp. 411-436. ISSN: 0033-362X

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