Séminaire

Media pluralism, competition, and the election

Junze Sun (European University Institute)

2 juin 2020, 14h00–15h00

Toulouse

Salle Zoom Meeting

Résumé

It is widely believed that having a plural and diverse media landscape is crucial for electoral democracy. This relies on two common intuitions. First, the quality of decision making increases in the information available. Second, competition among experts with diverse interests can promote better information revelation. In this paper, we theoretically explore the welfare impacts of media pluralism and competition. Our key insight is, perhaps surprisingly, neither of the common intuitions are warranted to hold true. When there exists ex-ante conflict of interests between the average and the median voter, full information revelation is generically not optimal. When media outlets lack commitment ability, increased competition may reduce voter welfare.

Référence

Junze Sun (European University Institute), « Media pluralism, competition, and the election », IAST Lunch Seminar, Toulouse : IAST, 2 juin 2020, 14h00–15h00, salle Zoom Meeting.