Authors
Stefano DellaVigna, Ethan Kaplan
Publication date
2007
Journal
The Quarterly Journal of Economics
Volume
122
Pages
1187-1234
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Description
Does media bias affect voting? We analyze the entry of Fox News in cable markets and its impact on voting. Between October 1996 and November 2000, the conservative Fox News Channel was introduced in the cable programming of 20 percent of U. S. towns. Fox News availability in 2000 appears to be largely idiosyncratic, conditional on a set of controls. Using a data set of voting data for 9,256 towns, we investigate if Republicans gained vote share in towns where Fox News entered the cable market by the year 2000. We find a significant effect of the introduction of Fox News on the vote share in Presidential elections between 1996 and 2000. Republicans gained 0.4 to 0.7 percentage points in the towns that broadcast Fox News. Fox News also affected voter turnout and the Republican vote share in the Senate. Our estimates imply that Fox News convinced 3 to 28 percent of its viewers to vote Republican …
Total citations
Scholar articles
S DellaVigna, E Kaplan - The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2007
S DellaVigna, E Kaplan - 2005