IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/dicedp/279887.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Too hot to play it cool? Temperature and media bias

Author

Listed:
  • Stadelmann, David
  • Thomas, Tobias
  • Zakharov, Nikita

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of outdoor temperature on media bias. We use 12 years of daily hand-coded data on the tonality of news broadcast by the three major US news networks, ABC News, CBS News, and NBC News, all headquartered in New York City, and merge it with granular, geospatial weather data. Our identification strategy exploits detailed variations in local daily high temperatures to estimate the effect of heat on media bias in news reporting about the Republican and Democratic parties, controlling for time and network-month fixed effects. We find a positive effect of a substantial magnitude: a 1êC increment in daily maximum temperature on a hot day (>25êC) leads to a 20% increase in the media bias measured as the difference in the share of negative news about the Republicans and the Democrats. This effect exists only for maximum temperatures, as opposed to minimum or average temperatures. The results are robust to placebo tests using past or future temperatures. Our findings extend the previously established link - from hot temperatures to negative affect and a decline in cognitive ability - to the determinants of media bias.

Suggested Citation

  • Stadelmann, David & Thomas, Tobias & Zakharov, Nikita, 2023. "Too hot to play it cool? Temperature and media bias," DICE Discussion Papers 408, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:dicedp:279887
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/279887/1/1870998863.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Larcinese, Valentino & Puglisi, Riccardo & Snyder, James M., 2011. "Partisan bias in economic news: Evidence on the agenda-setting behavior of U.S. newspapers," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(9), pages 1178-1189.
    2. Anthony Heyes & Soodeh Saberian, 2019. "Temperature and Decisions: Evidence from 207,000 Court Cases," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(2), pages 238-265, April.
    3. Heilmann, Kilian & Kahn, Matthew E. & Tang, Cheng Keat, 2021. "The urban crime and heat gradient in high and low poverty areas," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 197(C).
    4. Clemens Noelke & Mark E. McGovern & Daniel J. Corsi & Marcia Pescador-Jimenez & Ari Stern & Ian Sue Wing & Lisa Berkman, 2016. "Increasing Ambient Temperature Reduces Emotional Well-Being," CHaRMS Working Papers 16-01, Centre for HeAlth Research at the Management School (CHaRMS).
    5. Gehlbach, Scott & Sonin, Konstantin, 2014. "Government control of the media," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 163-171.
    6. Bernhardt, Dan & Krasa, Stefan & Polborn, Mattias, 2008. "Political polarization and the electoral effects of media bias," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(5-6), pages 1092-1104, June.
    7. Tim Groseclose & Jeffrey Milyo, 2005. "A Measure of Media Bias," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(4), pages 1191-1237.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Petrova, Maria, 2012. "Mass media and special interest groups," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 84(1), pages 17-38.
    2. Riccardo Puglisi & James M. Snyder Jr., 2015. "The Balanced Us Press," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 13(2), pages 240-264, April.
    3. Bernhardt, Lea & Dewenter, Ralf & Thomas, Tobias, 2020. "Measuring partisan media bias in US Newscasts from 2001-2012," Working Paper 183/2020, Helmut Schmidt University, Hamburg, revised 15 Nov 2022.
    4. Redlicki, B., 2017. "Spreading Lies," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1747, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    5. Bernhardt, Lea & Dewenter, Ralf & Thomas, Tobias, 2023. "Measuring partisan media bias in US newscasts from 2001 to 2012," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    6. Piolatto, Amedeo & Schuett, Florian, 2015. "Media competition and electoral politics," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 80-93.
    7. John Duggan & César Martinelli, 2008. "The Role of Media Slant in Elections and Economics," Wallis Working Papers WP54, University of Rochester - Wallis Institute of Political Economy.
    8. Rafael Di Tella & Ignacio Franceschelli, 2011. "Government Advertising and Media Coverage of Corruption Scandals," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(4), pages 119-151, October.
    9. Strömberg, David & Prat, Andrea, 2011. "The Political Economy of Mass Media," CEPR Discussion Papers 8246, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Andina-Díaz, Ascensión & García-Martínez, José A., 2020. "Reputation and news suppression in the media industry," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 240-271.
    11. Bernhardt, Lea & Dewenter, Ralf & Thomas, Tobias, 2020. "Watchdog or loyal servant? Political media bias in US newscasts," DICE Discussion Papers 348, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    12. Warren, Patrick L., 2012. "Independent auditors, bias, and political agency," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(1), pages 78-88.
    13. Junze Sun & Arthur Schram & Randolph Sloof, 2019. "A Theory on Media Bias and Elections," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 19-048/I, Tinbergen Institute.
    14. John Duggan & Cesar Martinelli, 2008. "Rational Expectations and Media Slant," Levine's Bibliography 122247000000001844, UCLA Department of Economics.
    15. Garz, Marcel & Sood, Gaurav & Stone, Daniel F. & Wallace, Justin, 2020. "The supply of media slant across outlets and demand for slant within outlets: Evidence from US presidential campaign news," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    16. Riccardo Puglisi & James M. Snyder, Jr., 2008. "Media Coverage of Political Scandals," NBER Working Papers 14598, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Ralf Dewenter & Uwe Dulleck & Tobias Thomas, 2020. "Does the 4th estate deliver? The Political Coverage Index and its application to media capture," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 31(3), pages 292-328, September.
    18. Shane Greenstein & Feng Zhu, 2016. "Open Content, Linus’ Law, and Neutral Point of View," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 27(3), pages 618-635.
    19. Giovanni Facchini & Anna Maria Mayda & Riccardo Puglisi, 2017. "Illegal immigration and media exposure: evidence on individual attitudes," IZA Journal of Migration and Development, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 7(1), pages 1-36, December.
    20. Pal Sudeshna, 2011. "Media Freedom and Socio-Political Instability," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 17(1), pages 1-23, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    media bias; tonality; temperature; U.S. newscasts;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L8 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services
    • D7 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:dicedp:279887. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/diduede.html .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.