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Media Bias in China.
- Source :
- American Economic Review; Sep2018, Vol. 108 Issue 9, p2442-2476, 35p
- Publication Year :
- 2018
-
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 trade-off, leading to product proliferation and less audience exposure to propaganda. (JEL D72, L31, L82, O14, O17, P26, P31) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Subjects :
- PREJUDICES in mass media
NEWSPAPERS
ECONOMIC competition
PROPAGANDA
MASS media
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 00028282
- Volume :
- 108
- Issue :
- 9
- Database :
- Complementary Index
- Journal :
- American Economic Review
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 131511124
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20170947