IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/lic/licosd/19107.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Rational Ignorance and Negative News in the Information Market

Author

Listed:
  • Jill McCluskey
  • Johan F.M. Swinnen

Abstract

While the availability of information has increased rapidly, the public is still considered poorly informed. This paper contributes to the emerging field of media economics by studying how the demand side of the media market affects news production and consumption. We show that consumers are likely to remain imperfectly informed on most issues and that negative news coverage is likely to dominate positive news stories because of demand side effects.

Suggested Citation

  • Jill McCluskey & Johan F.M. Swinnen, 2007. "Rational Ignorance and Negative News in the Information Market," LICOS Discussion Papers 19107, LICOS - Centre for Institutions and Economic Performance, KU Leuven.
    • Handle: RePEc:lic:licosd:19107
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.econ.kuleuven.be/licos/publications/dp/dp191.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Djankov, Simeon & McLiesh, Caralee & Nenova, Tatiana & Shleifer, Andrei, 2003. "Who Owns the Media?," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 46(2), pages 341-381, October.
    2. 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.
    3. Matthew Gentzkow & Jesse M. Shapiro, 2006. "Media Bias and Reputation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 114(2), pages 280-316, April.
    4. Anthony Downs, 1957. "An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 65, pages 135-135.
    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.
    6. Sendhil Mullainathan & Andrei Shleifer, 2005. "The Market for News," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(4), pages 1031-1053, September.
    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.
    8. Baron, David P., 2006. "Persistent media bias," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(1-2), pages 1-36, January.
    9. repec:cto:journl:v:20:y:2001:i:3:p:431-451 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Stromberg, David, 2001. "Mass media and public policy," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(4-6), pages 652-663, May.
    11. Besley, Timothy & Burgess, Robin, 2001. "Political agency, government responsiveness and the role of the media," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(4-6), pages 629-640, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. 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.
    2. Stone, Daniel F., 2011. "Ideological media bias," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 78(3), pages 256-271, May.

    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. 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.
    2. David Strömberg, 2015. "Media and Politics," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 7(1), pages 173-205, August.
    3. Piolatto, Amedeo & Schuett, Florian, 2015. "Media competition and electoral politics," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 80-93.
    4. Garcia Pires, Armando J., 2014. "Media diversity, advertising, and adaptation of news to readers’ political preferences," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 28-38.
    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.
    6. Ascensión Andina Díaz, 2011. "Mass Media in Economics: Origins and Subsequent Contributions," Working Papers 2011-02, Universidad de Málaga, Department of Economic Theory, Málaga Economic Theory Research Center.
    7. Petrova, Maria, 2012. "Mass media and special interest groups," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 84(1), pages 17-38.
    8. Sobbrio, Francesco, 2009. "Indirect Lobbying and Media Bias," MPRA Paper 18215, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Strömberg, David & Prat, Andrea, 2011. "The Political Economy of Mass Media," CEPR Discussion Papers 8246, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Ascensión Andina-Díaz & José A. García-Martínez & Antonio Parravano, 2019. "The market for scoops: a dynamic approach," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 10(2), pages 175-206, June.
    11. Petrova, Maria, 2008. "Inequality and media capture," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(1-2), pages 183-212, February.
    12. Antony Millner & Hélène Ollivier, 2016. "Beliefs, Politics, and Environmental Policy," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 10(2), pages 226-244.
    13. Sun, Junze & Schram, Arthur & Sloof, Randolph, 2021. "Elections under biased candidate endorsements — an experimental study," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 141-158.
    14. Ruben Durante & Brian Knight, 2012. "Partisan Control, Media Bias, And Viewer Responses: Evidence From Berlusconi'S Italy," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 10(3), pages 451-481, May.
    15. repec:tiu:tiucen:2013072 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Petrova, Maria, 2011. "Newspapers and Parties: How Advertising Revenues Created an Independent Press," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 105(4), pages 790-808, November.
    17. Chun-Fang Chiang & Brian Knight, 2011. "Media Bias and Influence: Evidence from Newspaper Endorsements," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 78(3), pages 795-820.
    18. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/eu4vqp9ompqllr09iats7d416 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. 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.
    20. Ascensión Andina-Díaz, 2015. "Competition and uncertainty in a paper’s news desk," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 116(1), pages 77-93, September.
    21. Matthias Heinz & Johan Swinnen, 2013. "Media Bias in Economic News: A Factor 20," LICOS Discussion Papers 33013, LICOS - Centre for Institutions and Economic Performance, KU Leuven.
    22. repec:dgr:kubcen:2013072 is not listed on IDEAS
    23. Bruns, Christian & Himmler, Oliver, 2014. "A Theory of Political Accountability and Journalism," MPRA Paper 59286, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Media; bias; rational ignorance; negative news coverage;
    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

    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:lic:licosd:19107. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/licosbe.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.