The Political Legacy of Entertainment TV

Ruben Durante (), Paolo Pinotti and Andrea Tesei
Additional contact information
Ruben Durante: UPF - Universitat Pompeu Fabra [Barcelona], CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research, ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Paolo Pinotti: Bocconi University [Milan, Italy], CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research
Andrea Tesei: QMUL - Queen Mary University of London, CEP - LSE - Centre for Economic Performance - LSE - London School of Economics and Political Science, CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research

Post-Print from HAL

Abstract: We study the political impact of commercial television in Italy exploiting the staggered introduction of Berlusconi's private TV network, Mediaset, in the early 1980s. We find that individuals with early access to Mediaset all-entertainment content were more likely to vote for Berlusconi's party in 1994, when he first ran for office. The effect persists for five elections and is driven by heavy TV viewers, namely the very young and the elderly. Regarding possible mechanisms, we find that individuals exposed to entertainment TV as children were less cognitively sophisticated and civic-minded as adults, and ultimately more vulnerable to Berlusconi's populist rhetoric.

Date: 2019-07-01
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

Published in American Economic Review, 2019, 109 (7), pp.2497-2530. ⟨10.1257/aer.20150958⟩

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
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:hal:journl:hal-03948081

DOI: 10.1257/aer.20150958

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Post-Print from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().