| By: |
Mastrorocco, Nicola (Trinity College Dublin);
Minale, Luigi (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid) |
| Abstract: |
In democracies voters rely on media outlets to learn about politically salient
issues. This raises an important question: how strongly can media affect
public perceptions? This paper uses a natural experiment – the staggered
introduction of the Digital TV signal in Italy – to measure the effect of
media persuasion on the perceptions individuals hold. We focus on crime
perceptions and, combining channel-specific viewership and content data, we
show that the reduced exposure to channels characterized by high levels of
crime reporting decreases individual concerns about crime. The effect is
driven by individuals aged 50 and over, who turn out to be more exposed to
television while using other sources of information less frequently. Finally,
we provide some evidence about the effect of the digital introduction on
public policies closely related to crime perceptions and on voting behavior. |
| Keywords: |
information, news media, persuasion, crime perceptions |
| JEL: |
D72 D83 K42 L82 |
| Date: |
2018–04 |
| URL: |
http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11491&r=cul |