PEMB · The Political Economy of Media Bias
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2019-09-02 → 2021-09-01
- EU contribution
- €171,473
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF-EF-ST
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
The Political Economy of Media Bias
The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action titled “Political Economy of Media Bias” (PEMB) studies how media bias can affect electoral outcomes and the welfare of citizens. A large majority of voters get political information from the media, which therefore constitute a critical component of modern democracies. A widespread source of concern is that the media may disseminate misinformation to affect political outcomes by shaping the beliefs of voters. This concern is supported by substantial empirical evidence showing that media bias has an impact on voters’ decisions at the ballot box. Yet, despite recent efforts to mitigate the “fake news phenomenon,” the spread of misinformation is still pervading the modern political landscape. Failures in addressing the issue of misinformation prompted criticisms of how such a problem is being addressed. This EU-funded PEMB project will use game-theoretical and experimental techniques to better understand the societal implications of media bias and to assess the effectiveness of current measures to regulate the media. The problems addressed by this project are important for societies because the well-functioning of modern democracies crucially hinges on the information that voters receive. Therefore, it is key to ensure that such information is accurate and unbiased. Doing so would help voters in selecting better candidates for office and lead to the implementation of more efficient policies. Moreover, a better understanding of the fake news phenomenon would assist policymakers in designing an effective system of regulatory interventions. The broad goal of the project is that of investigating the effects of information distortions. More specifically, the project has the following objectives: 1) to assess what are the implications of media bias on the welfare of voters; 2) study how misinformation affects policies; 3) provide a theoretical framework to study interventions that aim to increase the media’s costs of misreporting information; 4) to analyze how competition between media outlets impact on information transmission; 5) to provide empirical evidence of the impact of competition on the welfare. An additional objective of this MSCA Individual Fellowship is to promote the development of the individual researcher.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
The well-functioning of modern democracies crucially hinges on the information that voters receive, and mass media are the primary source of policy-relevant information. Yet, substantial evidence indicates that media bias has an impact on voters’ decision, and there is a widespread concern among governments regarding the implications of such information distortions on political outcomes. To date, it is not clear what the effects of media bias are and how regulators should intervene in order to mitigate the problem. This project will employ both novel game-theoretical and experimental techniques to understand the impact of strategically biased news. This innovative modelling strategy will allow me to address two key and timely questions: how media bias affects electoral and political outcomes? How should news markets be regulated? The main objective is to understand political distortions as a function of the news providers' costs of information misreporting. Regulators often intervene by affecting such misreporting costs, e.g. via direct fines or the introduction of media watchdogs. However, this link is highly understudied, and until now there is no formal model that can assess what are the implications of interventions directed toward regulating misreporting costs. The project will focus on understanding the distortions of media bias on three crucial dimensions: (i) the choice of voters, (ii) the process of policy-making, and (iii) competition. The nature of the project is intrinsically multidisciplinary as it involves both theoretical and empirical investigations which are highly relevant and pertinent to studies in economics, political science, and media studies. Results have the potential to improve the efficacy of regulations of the media sector, mitigate the informational distortions in electoral and political outcomes, and make room for further research in the political economy of media bias and its market determinants.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI TRENTO · TrentoCoordinatorItaly
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union