Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/180509 
Year of Publication: 
2018
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 11491
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
In democracies voters rely on media outlets to learn about politically salient issues. This raises an important question: how strongly can media affect public perceptions? This paper uses a natural experiment – the staggered introduction of the Digital TV signal in Italy – to measure the effect of media persuasion on the perceptions individuals hold. We focus on crime perceptions and, combining channel-specific viewership and content data, we show that the reduced exposure to channels characterized by high levels of crime reporting decreases individual concerns about crime. The effect is driven by individuals aged 50 and over, who turn out to be more exposed to television while using other sources of information less frequently. Finally, we provide some evidence about the effect of the digital introduction on public policies closely related to crime perceptions and on voting behavior.
Subjects: 
information
news media
persuasion
crime perceptions
JEL: 
D72
D83
K42
L82
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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