Opposition Media, State Censorship, and Political Accountability: Evidence from Chavez's Venezuela

Brian Knight and Ana Tribin

No 25916, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This paper investigates the effects of state censorship of opposition media using evidence from the closing of RCTV, a popular opposition television channel in Venezuela. The government did not renew RCTV’s license, and the channel was replaced overnight, during May 2007, by a pro-government channel. Based upon this censorship of opposition television, we have three key findings. First, using Nielsen ratings data, viewership fell, following the closing of RCTV, on the pro-government replacement, but rose on Globovision, the only remaining television channel for opposition viewers. This finding is consistent with a model in which viewers have a preference for opposition television and substitute accordingly. Second, exploiting the geographic location of the Globovision broadcast towers, Chavez approval ratings fell following the closing of RCTV in places with access to the Globovision signal, relative to places without access. Third, in places with access to the Globovision signal, relative to places without, support for Chavez in electoral data also fell following the closing of RCTV. Counterfactuals, which account for both substitution patterns in media consumption and the persuasive effects of opposition television, document that switching to uncensored outlets led to an economically significant reduction in support for Chavez.

JEL-codes: D7 D8 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-pol
Note: DEV IO PE POL
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Published as Brian Knight & Ana Tribin, 2022. "Opposition Media, State Censorship, and Political Accountability: Evidence from Chavez’s Venezuela," The World Bank Economic Review, vol 36(2), pages 455-487.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w25916.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Opposition Media, State Censorship, and Political Accountability: Evidence from Chavez’s Venezuela (2022)
Working Paper: Opposition Media, State Censorship, and Political Accountability:Evidence from Chavezís Venezuela (2020)
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:nbr:nberwo:25916

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w25916

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().