Working Paper: NBER ID: w12317
Authors: Felix Oberholzer-Gee; Joel Waldfogel
Abstract: Since the dawn of broadcasting, and especially in the past decade, Americans have turned their attention from local to more distant sources of news and entertainment. While the integration of media markets will raise the private welfare of many consumers, a globalized information and entertainment industry can undermine civic engagement, transforming locally engaged citizens into viewers consuming programming from distant sources. In response to such concerns, many regulatory agencies, including the Federal Communication Commission in the United States, curtail the integration of media markets to promote "localism." Determining the right balance between the private benefits of integrated markets and the public value of civic engagement requires evidence on the size of the positive spillovers from local media. In this paper, we exploit the rapid growth of Hispanic communities in the United States to test whether the presence of local television news affects local civic behavior. We find that Hispanic voter turnout increased by 5 to 10 percentage points, relative to non-Hispanic voter turnout, in markets where local Spanish-language television news became available. Thus, the tradeoff between integrated media markets and civic engagement is real, and our results provide a basis for the continued pursuit of regulatory policies that promote localism.
Keywords: Local News; Hispanic Voter Turnout; Media Markets; Localism
JEL Codes: L82; D72
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Availability of local Spanish-language television news (N96) | Hispanic voter turnout (K16) |
| Markets with local Spanish-language television news (N26) | Hispanic voter turnout (K16) |
| Presence of local Spanish-language news programs (N96) | Hispanic turnout in non-presidential elections (K16) |
| Presence of local Spanish-language news (N96) | Hispanic turnout in presidential elections (K16) |
| Hispanic voter turnout in markets without local Spanish news (K16) | Hispanic voter turnout in markets with local Spanish news (K16) |