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Information, Media and Elections: Incentives for Media Capture

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  • Serena Marianna Drufuca

Abstract

Media play an essential role in democracy by making available valuable information for electoral decisions. In a framework of political economy of mass media, I inquiry the possibility of capture by rent-seeking o cers in a heterogeneous electoral environment. This allow me to discuss when relevant information is traded, when government captures media and what e ect this has on political outcomes. I nd media capture to be a pervasive phenomenon which implies minimum costs on politicians' side. However, incentives to corruption decrease if the possibility of being detected is introduced, leading to a more intermediate result with respect to the one obtained by Besley and Prat (2006). I show that information is a fundamental element for electoral choices and that any attempt to increase quality of news and to reduce information's costs can have positive e ects on the selection of politicians.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:brg:newwpa:1402
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Trombetta, Federico & Rossignoli, Domenico, 2021. "The price of silence: Media competition, capture, and electoral accountability," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    mass media; information acquisition; media capture; elections; incumbency advantage;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L82 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Entertainment; Media
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D73 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations; Corruption
    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
    • H10 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - General

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