A Citizens-Editors Model of News Media

Francesco Sobbrio

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: We model a market for news where profit maximizing media outlets choose their editors from a population of rational citizens. We show that when information acquisition is costly, liberal (conservative) citizens find optimal to acquire information from a media outlet having a liberal (conservative) editor. Consequently, we show that depending on the distribution of citizens' ideological preferences, a media outlet may choose to hire a non-moderate editor even in a monopolistic market. Moreover, the higher the degree of competition in the market for news, the more likely that media outlets will hire non-moderate editors. Finally, less moderate editors are more likely to be hired in a news market where the opportunity cost of acquiring information for citizens is low.

Keywords: Media Bias; Information Acquisition; Valence; Competition (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 D81 D83 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm and nep-cul
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/30291/2/MPRA_paper_30291.pdf revised version (application/pdf)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/31037/2/MPRA_paper_31037.pdf revised version (application/pdf)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/37029/1/MPRA_paper_37029.pdf revised version (application/pdf)

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