TY - JOUR
T1 - Political polarization and the electoral effects of media bias
AU - Bernhardt, Dan
AU - Krasa, Stefan
AU - Polborn, Mattias
N1 - Copyright:
Copyright 2008 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2008/6
Y1 - 2008/6
N2 - We develop a model in which profits of media firms depend on their audience ratings, and maximizing profits may involve catering to a partisan audience by suppressing information that the partisan audience does not like hearing. While voters are rational, understand the nature of the news suppression bias and update appropriately, important information is lost through bias and can lead to electoral mistakes. We characterize those conditions that give rise to electoral mistakes, showing that heightened political polarization and asymmetric distributions of voter ideologies make electoral mistakes more likely. Even if the median ideology is a centrist and centrist voters gain access to unbiased news, media bias can generate excessive "cross-over" voting, which, in turn, can lead to the election of the wrong candidate.
AB - We develop a model in which profits of media firms depend on their audience ratings, and maximizing profits may involve catering to a partisan audience by suppressing information that the partisan audience does not like hearing. While voters are rational, understand the nature of the news suppression bias and update appropriately, important information is lost through bias and can lead to electoral mistakes. We characterize those conditions that give rise to electoral mistakes, showing that heightened political polarization and asymmetric distributions of voter ideologies make electoral mistakes more likely. Even if the median ideology is a centrist and centrist voters gain access to unbiased news, media bias can generate excessive "cross-over" voting, which, in turn, can lead to the election of the wrong candidate.
KW - Democracy
KW - Information aggregation
KW - Media bias
KW - Polarization
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U2 - 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2008.01.006
DO - 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2008.01.006
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:40849130820
VL - 92
SP - 1092
EP - 1104
JO - Journal of Public Economics
JF - Journal of Public Economics
SN - 0047-2727
IS - 5-6
ER -