Working Paper: NBER ID: w12561
Authors: Benjamin A. Olken
Abstract: In "Bowling Alone," Putnam (1995) famously argued that the rise of television may be responsible for social capital's decline. I investigate this hypothesis in the context of Indonesian villages. To identify the impact of exposure to television (and radio), I exploit plausibly exogenous differences in over-the-air signal strength associated with the topography of East and Central Java. Using this approach, I find that better signal reception, which is associated with more time spent watching television and listening to radio, is associated with substantially lower levels of participation in social activities and with lower self-reported measures of trust. I find particularly strong effects on participation in local government activities, as well as on participation in informal savings groups. However, despite the impact on social capital, improved reception does not appear to affect village governance, at least as measured by discussions in village-level meetings and by corruption in a village-level road project.
Keywords: Social Capital; Media Exposure; Television; Radio; Indonesia
JEL Codes: Z13
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| better signal reception (L96) | lower levels of participation in social activities (I14) |
| better signal reception (L96) | lower self-reported measures of trust (Z13) |
| improved television reception (L96) | reduced participation in local government activities (H79) |
| improved television reception (L96) | reduced participation in informal savings groups (D14) |
| better signal reception (L96) | decrease in village governance outcomes (H11) |