 Electoral Competition under Media InfluenceWolfgang Bräuer No 98-19, ZEW Discussion Papers from ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research Abstract: We suggest a model of electoral competition between two parties which is extended by a third player : mass media. The classical one-dimensional competition model is changed by introducing an issue-specific sensibility-coefficient and by allowing for non-voting. The winner is selected by majority rule. The voter potentials of the parties are determined by their current policy choice. Deviating from (exogenous) traditional party policy reduces the credibility of a party in the eyes of potential voters. The number of non-voters increases with the sensibility of individuals to the issue and with the deviation distance. By reporting with political bias, mass media has selective influence on the sensibility-coefficient of potential voters of both parties. They get either desensitised or over-sensitised in respect to party credibility which alters the number of non-voters. Parties being able to successfully communicate with mass media can manage to turn an unfavourable situation before election campaigning into an electoral victory. Keywords: Public choice; electoral competition; mass media; reputation; credibility (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:zewdip:5192 Access Statistics for this paper More papers in ZEW Discussion Papers from ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research Contact information at EDIRC. |
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