Notes: Media, Elections, and Violence

Political Economics: Media, Elections, and Violence

Course Information

  • Course Code: ECO00058H

  • Subject: Political Economics

  • Institution: University of York

Key Themes to Understand

  • Media Influence on Political Outcomes:

    • Role of media in shaping political events.

  • Media Influence on Political Violence:

    • How media can incite or mitigate incidences of violence related to political events.

Types of Media

  • Definition: Media refers to means of mass communication.

  • Categories:

    • Traditional media: Newspapers, radio, television, etc.

    • Social media: Twitter, Facebook, blogs, forums, etc.

  • Ongoing Debate: There is a long-standing debate concerning how media impacts election outcomes.

Media Effects on Elections

  • Potential Channels Through Which Media Influences Elections:

    • Information Flow: Biased vs. unbiased.

    • Crowding Out: Media can overshadow other information sources and activities.

    • Interest Group Organization: Media facilitates the organization of interest groups.

  • Main Dimensions of Influence:

    • Choice of Candidate: Affecting voters' choices based on media portrayal.

    • Turnout: Media impacts voter turnout at elections.

Media Coverage of Donald J. Trump

  • Tone of Trump's Coverage:

    • Negative Coverage:

    • CNN: 93% negative

    • NBC: 93% negative

    • CBS: 91% negative

    • New York Times: 87% negative

    • Washington Post: 83% negative

    • Positive Coverage:

    • Wall Street Journal: 70% positive, 30% negative

    • Fox: 52% positive, 48% negative

Challenges in Determining Media Effects

  • Causality Issues:

    • Difficulty in establishing causal relationships between media exposure and election outcomes.

  • Endogeneity of Media Penetration:

    • Access to media may be influenced by factors unrelated to election outcomes.

  • Need for Natural Experiments:

    • Randomized control trials or quasi-experiments needed to assess real media impact.

  • Popular Approaches:

    • Difference-in-Differences (DiD): Exploiting timing of media rollout.

    • Geographical Signal Strength Analysis: Leveraging geographic characteristics for media impact measurement.

Use of Traditional Media: Television

  • Impact of TV on Election Outcomes:

    • Extensive research exists assessing how TV influences electoral behavior (e.g., Enikolopov and Petrova (2015)).

  • Biased Content's Influence:

    • DellaVigna and Kaplan (2007): Rollout of Fox News increased Republican vote share due to its biased reporting.

    • Enikolopov et al. (2011): Availability of non-state TV increases opposition party’s vote share in Russia.

Durante et al. Study (AER 2019)

  • Research Focus: The influence of entertainment TV on political outcomes.

  • Study Design: Assessing staggered introduction of Mediaset in Italy and its impact on politics.

  • Historical Context:

    • Private TV was banned in Italy until 1976, after which Silvio Berlusconi created Mediaset focusing on entertainment.

    • By 1990, major penetration of Mediaset into the populace occurred.

  • Television's Entertainment Focus:

    • Mediaset prioritized light entertainment; direct news reports were limited until 1991.

Key Findings and Results from Durante et al.

  • Results Overview:

    • Increased availability of Mediaset corresponded with higher votes for Berlusconi's Forza Italia Party.

    • The effect persisted until 2008 and influenced populist attitudes, suggesting TV consumption affects youth's political engagement.

    • Mechanisms proposed include lower cognitive engagement due to entertainment television.

  • Causal Identification:

    • The analysis used OLS regression models to parse out the effects of signal strength on vote share while controlling for various municipality-specific factors.

Media and Violence

  • Media's Role in Political Violence:

    • Examination of the Rwandan genocide as a key case study for media's influence on violence.

    • Evidence suggests that mass media can act as an incitement tool for political violence, with qualitative cases supporting this hypothesis.

  • Yanagizawa-Drott Study (QJE 2014):

    • Investigated the impacts of Hutu propaganda on Radio TV during the Rwandan genocide.

    • Two main broadcasting stations highlighted: RTLM and Radio Rwanda, both propagating anti-Tutsi sentiment.

    • Quantitative analysis tied radio coverage to levels of violence using chicken and egg causal modeling tactics.

Social Media and Political Violence

  • Recent Trends:

    • Social media platforms like Facebook contribute significantly to political hate crimes.

    • The adoption of social media as a modern form of propaganda introduces challenges in measuring true effects due to dynamic content landscapes.

  • Müller and Schwarz (JEEA 2020) Study:

    • Analyzed how right-wing AfD party posts on Facebook could provoke hate crimes against refugees in Germany; their hypothesis was validated through local statistical analyses.

Conclusions

  • Media as a Political Tool:

    • Both traditional and social media are powerful instruments shaping elections and influencing socio-political violence through biased narratives and informational cascades.

  • Critical Factors:

    • The context of media use, audience demographics, and nature of content are critical for understanding media's political significance and implications.