Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Do Television and Radio Destroy Social Capital? Evidence from Indonesian Villages

Contents:

Author Info

  • Benjamin A. Olken

    ()

Registered author(s):

    Abstract

    In "Bowling Alone," Putnam (1995) famously argued that the rise of television may be responsible for social capital's decline. I investigate this hypothesis in the context of Indonesian villages. To identify the impact of exposure to television (and radio), I exploit plausibly exogenous differences in over-the-air signal strength associated with the topography of East and Central Java. Using this approach, I find that better signal reception, which is associated with more time spent watching television and listening to radio, is associated with substantially lower levels of participation in social activities and with lower self-reported measures of trust. I find particularly strong effects on participation in local government activities, as well as on participation in informal savings groups. However, despite the impact on social capital, improved reception does not appear to affect village governance, at least as measured by discussions in village-level meetings and by corruption in a village-level road project.

    Download Info

    If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
    File URL: http://www.esocialsciences.org/Download/repecDownload.aspx?fname=Document113102006170.6772119.pdf&fcategory=Articles&AId=642&fref=repec
    Our checks indicate that this address may not be valid because: 403 Forbidden. If this is indeed the case, please notify (Padma Prakash)
    Download Restriction: no

    Bibliographic Info

    Paper provided by eSocialSciences in its series Working Papers with number id:642.

    as in new window
    Length:
    Date of creation: Oct 2006
    Date of revision:
    Handle: RePEc:ess:wpaper:id:642

    Note: Institutional Papers
    Contact details of provider:
    Web page: http://www.esocialsciences.org

    Related research

    Keywords: East and Central Java; Indonesia; television; radio; social capital; village governance; South-East Asia; Media Studies;

    References

    References listed on IDEAS
    Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
    as in new window
    1. David Strömberg, 2004. "Radio's Impact on Public Spending," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 119(1), pages 189-221, February.
    2. Dean S. Karlan, 2005. "Using Experimental Economics to Measure Social Capital and Predict Financial Decisions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(5), pages 1688-1699, December.
    3. Besley, T. & Coate, S. & Loury, G., 1992. "The economics of Rotating Savings and Credit Associations," Papers 157, Princeton, Woodrow Wilson School - Development Studies.
    4. Matthew Gentzkow, 2006. "Television and Voter Turnout," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 121(3), pages 931-972, 08.
    5. Joel Sobel, 2002. "Can We Trust Social Capital?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 40(1), pages 139-154, March.
    6. Benjamin A. Olken, 2006. "Corruption Perceptions vs. Corruption Reality," NBER Working Papers 12428, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Benjamin A. Olken, 2005. "Monitoring Corruption: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Indonesia," NBER Working Papers 11753, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Benjamin Olken, 2005. "Monitoring corruption: Evidence from a field experiment in indonesia," Natural Field Experiments 00317, The Field Experiments Website.
    9. Knack, Stephen & Keefer, Philip, 1997. "Does Social Capital Have an Economic Payoff? A Cross-Country Investigation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 112(4), pages 1251-88, November.
    10. Christian, Bjørnskov, 2003. "Corruption and Social Capital," Working Papers 03-13, University of Aarhus, Aarhus School of Business, Department of Economics.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as in new window

    Cited by:
    1. Labonne, Julien & Chase, Robert S., 2008. "A road to trust," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4706, The World Bank.
    2. Robert Jensen & Emily Oster, 2007. "The Power of TV: Cable Television and Women's Status in India," NBER Working Papers 13305, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Felix Oberholzer-Gee & Joel Waldfogel, 2009. "Media Markets and Localism: Does Local News en Español Boost Hispanic Voter Turnout?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(5), pages 2120-28, December.
    4. Eliana La Ferrara & Alberto Chong & Suzanne Duryea, 2008. "Soap Operas and Fertility: Evidence from Brazil," Research Department Publications 4573, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    5. Alberto Chong & Eliana La Ferrara, 2009. "Television and Divorce: Evidence from Brazilian Novelas," Research Department Publications 4611, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    6. John Gibson & David McKenzie, 2007. "Using the Global Positioning System (GPS) in Household Surveys For Better Economics and Better Policy," Working Papers in Economics 07/04, University of Waikato, Department of Economics.
    7. Enikolopov, Ruben & Petrova, Maria & Zhuravskaya, Ekaterina, 2009. "Media and Political Persuasion: Evidence from Russia," CEPR Discussion Papers 7257, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. Nathan Nunn & Diego Puga, 2009. "Ruggedness: The Blessing of Bad Geography in Africa," NBER Working Papers 14918, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Eliana La Ferrara & Alberto Chong & Suzanne Duryea, 2008. "Novelas y fertilidad: elementos de juicio de Brasil," Research Department Publications 4574, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    10. Rong, Zhao, 2011. "Free riding and durable adoption: a test of color television consumption in rural China," MPRA Paper 33434, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Alberto Chong & Eliana La Ferrara, 2009. "Televisión y divorcio: evidencias de las novelas en Brasil," Research Department Publications 4621, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    12. Isabella Santini & Anna de Pascale, . "Social capital and its impact on poverty reduction: measurement issues in longitudinal and cross-country comparisons. Towards a unified framework in the European Union," Working Papers 101/12, Sapienza University of Rome, Metodi e modelli per l'economia, il territorio e la finanza MEMOTEF.

    Lists

    This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ess:wpaper:id:642

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Padma Prakash).

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

    If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.