IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/mul/jb33yl/doi10.1428-36747y2012i1p81-110.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Market for News: A Demand-Oriented Analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Maria Rosa Battaggion
  • Alessandro Vaglio

Abstract

In this paper we investigate two elements of news demand behavior: the choice between gathering information through the news market and making one's decisions on the basis of prior beliefs; the choice between consulting more than one source and relying on just one. We single out education as the main determinant of behavior, by assuming that education is inversely related to (time) opportunity cost that the individual bears when he gets informed. In our model, two sources of information compete for an audience composed by rational individuals, assumed to be heterogeneous regarding their education level. We show that two market configurations may emerge. In the first one, individuals split into two groups, one composed by those who do not demand news at all, and another one composed by individuals who consult both sources. In the second configuration, individuals split into a group of non-readers, a group of one-report readers and a group of two-report readers. The former configuration is associated to high costs of news production and high opportunity costs. One of the sources in the latter configuration provides higher quality news than any of the two sources in the former, and it may also result in a larger number of news-demanding individuals.

Suggested Citation

  • Maria Rosa Battaggion & Alessandro Vaglio, 2012. "The Market for News: A Demand-Oriented Analysis," Economia politica, Società editrice il Mulino, issue 1, pages 81-110.
    • Handle: RePEc:mul:jb33yl:doi:10.1428/36747:y:2012:i:1:p:81-110
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.rivisteweb.it/download/article/10.1428/36747
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers
    File URL: https://www.rivisteweb.it/doi/10.1428/36747
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Maria Rosa Battaggion & Alessandro Vaglio, 2020. "TV watching in the new millennium: insights from Europe," Economia e Politica Industriale: Journal of Industrial and Business Economics, Springer;Associazione Amici di Economia e Politica Industriale, vol. 47(4), pages 645-661, December.
    2. Maria Battaggion & Alessandro Vaglio, 2015. "Watchdogs, Platforms and Audience: An Economic Perspective on Media Markets," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 43(2), pages 209-228, June.
    3. Armando J. Garcia Pires, 2017. "Media pluralism and competition," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 43(2), pages 255-283, April.
    4. Maria Rosa Battaggion & Alessandro Vaglio, 2018. "Newspapers and public grants: A matter of quality," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 65(1), pages 27-38, February.
    5. Serena Marianna Drufuca, 2014. "Information, Media and Elections: Incentives for Media Capture," Working Papers (2013-) 1402, University of Bergamo, Department of Management, Economics and Quantitative Methods.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    J.E.L.: L82; D83; Z1;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L82 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Entertainment; Media
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • Z1 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics

    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:mul:jb33yl:doi:10.1428/36747:y:2012:i:1:p:81-110. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.rivisteweb.it/ .

    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.