Media Bias in China
American Economic Review
vol. 108,
no. 9, September 2018
(pp. 2442-76)
(Complimentary)
Abstract
This paper examines whether and how market competition affected the political bias of government-owned newspapers in China from 1981 to 2011. We measure media bias based on coverage of government mouthpiece content (propaganda) relative to commercial content. We first find that a reform that forced newspaper exits (reduced competition) affected media bias by increasing product specialization, with some papers focusing on propaganda and others on commercial content. Second, lower-level governments produce less-biased content and launch commercial newspapers earlier, eroding higher-level governments' political goals. Third, bottom-up competition intensifies the politico-economic tradeoff, leading to product proliferation and less audience exposure to propaganda.Citation
Qin, Bei, David Strömberg, and Yanhui Wu. 2018. "Media Bias in China." American Economic Review, 108 (9): 2442-76. DOI: 10.1257/aer.20170947Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D72 Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
- L31 Nonprofit Institutions; NGOs; Social Entrepreneurship
- L82 Entertainment; Media
- O14 Industrialization; Manufacturing and Service Industries; Choice of Technology
- O17 Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements
- P26 Socialist Systems and Transitional Economies: Political Economy; Property Rights
- P31 Socialist Enterprises and Their Transitions