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Media Bias

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  • Sendhil Mullainathan
  • Andrei Shleifer

Abstract

There are two different types of media bias. One bias, which we refer to as ideology, reflects a news outlet's desire to affect reader opinions in a particular direction. The second bias, which we refer to as spin, reflects the outlet's attempt to simply create a memorable story. We examine competition among media outlets in the presence of these biases. Whereas competition can eliminate the effect of ideological bias, it actually exaggerates the incentive to spin stories.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Harvard - Institute of Economic Research in its series Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers with number 1981.

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Date of creation: 2002
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Handle: RePEc:fth:harver:1981

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References

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  1. Timothy Besley & Robin Burgess, 2002. "The Political Economy Of Government Responsiveness: Theory And Evidence From India," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 117(4), pages 1415-1451, November.
  2. De Long, J Bradford & Andrei Shleifer & Lawrence H. Summers & Robert J. Waldmann, 1990. "Noise Trader Risk in Financial Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(4), pages 703-38, August.
  3. Coase, R H, 1974. "The Market for Goods and the Market for Ideas," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 64(2), pages 384-91, May.
  4. Scharfstein, David. & Stein, Jeremy C., 1988. "Herd behavior and investment," Working papers WP 2062-88., Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management.
  5. Timothy Besley & Andrea Prat, 2006. "Handcuffs for the Grabbing Hand? Media Capture and Government Accountability," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(3), pages 720-736, June.
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Cited by:
  1. Corneo, Giacomo, 2006. "Media capture in a democracy: The role of wealth concentration," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(1-2), pages 37-58, January.
  2. Sendhil Mullainathan & Joshua Schwartzstein & Andrei Shleifer, 2008. "Coarse Thinking and Persuasion," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 123(2), pages 577-619, 05.
  3. Devarajan, Shantayanan & Khemani, Stuti & Walton, Michael, 2011. "Civil Society, Public Action and Accountability in Africa," Working Paper Series rwp11-036, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
  4. Alsem, Karel-Jan & Brakman, Steven & Hoogduin, Lex & Kuper, Gerard, 2004. "The impact of newspapers on consumer confidence: does spin bias exist?," CCSO Working Papers 200410, University of Groningen, CCSO Centre for Economic Research.
  5. Vilella-Vila, Marta & Costa-Font, Joan, 2008. "Press media reporting effects on risk perceptions and attitudes towards genetically modified (GM) food," The Journal of Socio-Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(5), pages 2095-2106, October.
  6. Daniel Sutter, 2006. "Media scrutiny and the quality of public officials," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 129(1), pages 25-40, October.

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