Media Proliferation and Partisan Selective Exposure
42 Pages Posted: 10 May 2010 Last revised: 6 Aug 2014
Date Written: December 1, 2011
Abstract
The number of Internet news media outlets has increased rapidly in recent years. We analyze the effects of media proliferation on electoral outcomes and social welfare. We assume voters are information-seeking as media consumers but choose outlets that are excessively partisan, given the voters' ideologies, due to quasi-rationality. We find that if voters who prefer extreme news -- either because they have extreme ideologies, or have moderate ideologies but make irrational news choices -- can be the median voter, then media proliferation strictly improves welfare. Otherwise, proliferation causes welfare to change non-monotonically, but still protects against very poor welfare outcomes that can occur when the number of outlets is small.
Keywords: Media Bias, Media Competition, Internet Media, Quasi-rationality, Blogs, Elections
JEL Classification: D72, D81, D83, L82
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
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