The unbundling of journalism

Michele Bisceglia ()
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Michele Bisceglia: TSE-R - Toulouse School of Economics - UT Capitole - Université Toulouse Capitole - UT - Université de Toulouse - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement

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Abstract: Due to the switching behavior of online consumers, news outlets increasingly compete with each other to attract audience for each single news item they produce, rather than for complete editions of their newspapers: the so called unbundling of journalism. Using a standard Hotelling model, I show that online competition unambiguously reduces news articles' quality, as compared to the scenario in which outlets compete to sell their newspapers (content bundles) to single-homing consumers. The unbundling of journalism also dampens outlets' newsgathering activities when their ideological positions are relatively unimportant from consumers' viewpoint. In this case, consumers are worse off in the online market for news, even though they consume more articles and have low disutility from switching.

Keywords: Online news; Unbundling; News quality; Newsgathering (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-09
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Published in European Economic Review, 2023, 158, pp.104532. ⟨10.1016/j.euroecorev.2023.104532⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04941017

DOI: 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2023.104532

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