IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/osf/socarx/v7x83_v1.html

Regional News, Regional Bias? Media Influence on Administrative Decisions in Welfare Offices

Author

Listed:
  • Rueß, Stefanie

    (University of Konstanz)

Abstract

How do media representations of immigrants affect their access to public services? Though prior research links national news reporting and administrative decisions, little is known about regional variation, an important omission because regional media produces more local news. I argue that street-level bureaucrats are embedded within a regional news environment, where reporting shapes their perception of regional immigration patterns and influences their decisions on public service allocation—a dynamic I term the regional media bias mechanism. To examine this phenomenon, I combine state-level data on benefit reduction rates in Germany’s welfare program Citizen’s Benefit with regional newspaper articles (2010-2020). Leveraging topic modeling and panel data analysis, I show that regional narratives on positive aspects of immigration are associated with more favorable administrative outcomes for immigrants, whereas frames emphasizing financial burdens correspond with stricter treatment. These results highlight the critical role of regional media in shaping policy implementation.

Suggested Citation

  • Rueß, Stefanie, 2025. "Regional News, Regional Bias? Media Influence on Administrative Decisions in Welfare Offices," SocArXiv v7x83_v1, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:v7x83_v1
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/v7x83_v1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://osf.io/download/68371e7ef4916b54055392f4/
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.31219/osf.io/v7x83_v1?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alberto Alesina & Armando Miano & Stefanie Stantcheva, 2023. "Immigration and Redistribution," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 90(1), pages 1-39.
    2. Lael R. Keiser & Peter R. Mueser & Seung‐Whan Choi, 2004. "Race, Bureaucratic Discretion, and the Implementation of Welfare Reform," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 48(2), pages 314-327, April.
    3. Lieberman, Robert C. & Lapinski, John S., 2001. "American Federalism, Race and the Administration of Welfare," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 31(2), pages 303-329, April.
    4. Jan P. Vogler, 2023. "How Do European Citizens Form their Views of the EU Public Administration? Exploring the Role of Heuristics," Journal of Political Institutions and Political Economy, now publishers, vol. 4(2), pages 183-230, August.
    5. Ellger, Fabio & Hilbig, Hanno & Riaz, Sascha & Tillmann, Philipp, 2024. "Local Newspaper Decline and Political Polarization – Evidence from a Multi-Party Setting," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 54(4), pages 1256-1275, October.
    6. Ellger, Fabio & Hilbig, Hanno & Riaz, Sascha & Tillmann, Philipp, 2024. "Local Newspaper Decline and Political Polarization – Evidence from a Multi-Party Setting," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 54(4), pages 1256-1275.
    7. Brown, Jacob R. & Hilbig, Hanno, 2022. "Locked Out of College: When Admissions Bureaucrats Do and Do Not Discriminate," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 52(3), pages 1436-1446, July.
    8. Aarøe, Lene & Petersen, Michael Bang, 2020. "Cognitive Biases and Communication Strength in Social Networks: The Case of Episodic Frames," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 50(4), pages 1561-1581, October.
    9. Margaret E. Roberts & Brandon M. Stewart & Edoardo M. Airoldi, 2016. "A Model of Text for Experimentation in the Social Sciences," Journal of the American Statistical Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 111(515), pages 988-1003, July.
    10. Kumpmann, Ingmar, 2009. "Im Fokus: Sanktionen gegen Hartz-IV-Empfänger: Zielgenaue Disziplinierung oder allgemeine Drohkulisse?," Wirtschaft im Wandel, Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH), vol. 15(6), pages 236-239.
    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. Rueß, Stefanie & Schneider, Gerald & Vogler, Jan, 2024. "Priming and prejudice: Experimental evidence on negative news frames and discrimination in German welfare offices," Working Papers 34, University of Konstanz, Cluster of Excellence "The Politics of Inequality. Perceptions, Participation and Policies".
    2. Koichi Fukumura & Atsushi Yamagishi, 2020. "Minimum wage competition," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 27(6), pages 1557-1581, December.
    3. Francesco Capozza & Ingar Haaland & Christopher Roth & Johannes Wohlfart, 2021. "Studying Information Acquisition in the Field: A Practical Guide and Review," CEBI working paper series 21-15, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. The Center for Economic Behavior and Inequality (CEBI).
    4. Knell, Markus & Stix, Helmut, 2020. "Perceptions of inequality," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    5. Sandra Wankmüller, 2023. "A comparison of approaches for imbalanced classification problems in the context of retrieving relevant documents for an analysis," Journal of Computational Social Science, Springer, vol. 6(1), pages 91-163, April.
    6. Timmons, Shane & Fox, Celine & Carron-Kee, Evan & Murphy, Keire & Lunn, Pete, 2026. "The role of misperceptions in attitudes to immigration," Research Series, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), number RS225.
    7. Lasse J. Jessen & Sebastian Koehne & Patrick Nüß & Jens Ruhose, 2024. "Socioeconomic Inequality in Life Expectancy: Perception and Policy Demand," CESifo Working Paper Series 10940, CESifo.
    8. Ayaita, Adam, 2021. "Labor Market Discrimination and Statistical Differences in Unobserved Characteristics of Applicants," EconStor Preprints 236615, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    9. Aksoy Cevat Giray & Antonio Cabrales & Mathias Dolls & Windsteiger Lisa, 2020. "COVID-19, Trust and Solidarity in the EU," EconPol Policy Reports 27, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.
    10. Sallin, Aurelién, 2021. "Estimating returns to special education: combining machine learning and text analysis to address confounding," Economics Working Paper Series 2109, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science.
    11. Hermes, Henning & Lergetporer, Philipp & Mierisch, Fabian & Schwerdt, Guido & Wiederhold, Simon, 2024. "Does Information about Inequality and Discrimination in Early Child Care Affect Policy Preferences?," CEPR Discussion Papers 18835, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    12. Cabeza Martínez, Begoña, 2023. "Social preferences, support for redistribution, and attitudes towards vulnerable groups," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    13. Bastiaan Bruinsma & Moa Johansson, 2024. "Finding the structure of parliamentary motions in the Swedish Riksdag 1971–2015," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 58(4), pages 3275-3301, August.
    14. Aksoy, Cevat Giray & Cabrales, Antonio & Dolls, Mathias & Durante, Ruben & Windsteiger, Lisa, 2025. "Calamities, common interests, shared identity: What shapes social cohesion in Europe?," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(4), pages 1049-1068.
    15. Kerim Peren Arin & Juan A. Lacomba & Francisco Lagos & Deni Mazrekaj & Marcel Thum, 2021. "Misperceptions and Fake News during the Covid-19 Pandemic," CESifo Working Paper Series 9066, CESifo.
    16. Rodríguez Chatruc, Marisol & Rozo, Sandra, 2021. "How Does it Feel to Be Part of the Minority?: Impacts of Perspective Taking on Prosocial Behavior," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 11599, Inter-American Development Bank.
    17. Mingyang Zhang & Zhiqiang Xia, 2026. "Unveiling the complex tapestry of China’s carbon policy: an innovative topic-network-prediction framework," Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 13(1), pages 1-20, December.
    18. Barrera, Oscar & Guriev, Sergei & Henry, Emeric & Zhuravskaya, Ekaterina, 2020. "Facts, alternative facts, and fact checking in times of post-truth politics," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 182(C).
    19. Das, Kallol & Patel, Jayesh D. & Sharma, Anuj & Shukla, Yupal, 2023. "Creativity in marketing: Examining the intellectual structure using scientometric analysis and topic modeling," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    20. Matti Viren, 2022. "The fiscal consequences of immigration: a study of local governments’ expenditures," Review of Regional Research: Jahrbuch für Regionalwissenschaft, Springer;Gesellschaft für Regionalforschung (GfR), vol. 42(1), pages 75-94, April.

    More about this item

    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:osf:socarx:v7x83_v1. 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: OSF (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://arabixiv.org .

    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.