How the Media Matters for the Economic Vote: Evidence from Britain

Existing research finds that the tone of economic news can influence citizens’ eval-uations of their governments, but the relative importance of different channels through which this effect arises remains unclear. I argue that, during an economic crisis, we should observe larger media effects on citizens’ evaluations of governing parties’ responsibility for, and handling of, the economic situation, than on their assessments of the state of the economy. Moreover, these effects should be stronger among existing supporters of those parties. Analysis of British public opinion following the 2007-8 global financial crisis pro-vides empirical support for this theory. Various empirical strategies provide confidence that the estimated effects are produced by a genuine causal effect of newspaper exposure on voter opinion. These findings have implications for our understanding of how the media matters for the economic vote, as well as the ability of voters to use elections as instruments of accountability during crises.