Abstract
We investigate the effects of the rise of the Internet as an additional mass medium on news consumption patterns and political attitudes. We use Swedish survey data from 2002 to 2007, the period during which high-speed Internet (broadband) emerged. We find that broadband access is associated with online media consumption. The crowd out of offline consumption is, however, small. Furthermore, these altered news consumption patterns have no or small effects on political attitudes.
Acknowledgments
We thank Massimo Bordignon, Matz Dahlberg, Mikael Elinder, Eva Mörk, Gisle Natvik, an anonymous referee, and seminar participants at Uppsala University and Ratio for valuable comments and suggestions. The Jan Wallander and Tom Hedelius Foundation, the Swedish Research Council, and the Uppsala Center for Fiscal Studies are acknowledged for their financial support.
References
Adermon, A., and C.Liang. 2010. “Piracy, Music, and Movies: A Natural Experiment.” Working Paper 2010:18, Department of Economics, Uppsala University.Search in Google Scholar
Bhattacharjee, S., R.Gopal, K.Lertwachara, J.Marsden, and R.Telang. 2007. “The Effect of Digital Sharing Technologies on Music Markets: A Survival Analysis of Albums on Ranking Charts.” Management Science53:1359–74.10.1287/mnsc.1070.0699Search in Google Scholar
Bhuller, M., T.Havnes, E.Leuven, and M.Mogstad. 2013. “Broadband Internet: An Information Superhighway to Sex Crime?” Review of Economic Studies forthcoming. doi:10.1093/restud/rdt013.10.1093/restud/rdt013Search in Google Scholar
Campante, F., R.Durante, and F.Sobbrio. 2013. “Politics 2.0: The Multifaceted Effect of Broadband Internet on Political Participation.” NBER Working Paper 19029.10.3386/w19029Search in Google Scholar
Czernich, N. 2012. “Broadband Internet and Political Participation: Evidence for Germany.” Kyklos65:31–52.10.1111/j.1467-6435.2011.00526.xSearch in Google Scholar
DellaVigna, S., and E.Kaplan. 2007. “The Fox News Effect: Media Bias and Voting.” Quarterly Journal of Economics122:1187–234.10.1162/qjec.122.3.1187Search in Google Scholar
Enikolopov, R., M.Petrova, and E.Zhuravskaya. 2011. “Media and Political Persuasion: Evidence from Russia.” American Economic Review101:3253–85.10.1257/aer.101.7.3253Search in Google Scholar
Falck, O., R.Gold, and S.Heblich. 2012. “E-Lections: Voting Behavior and the Internet.” IZA Discussion Paper 6545.10.2139/ssrn.2084062Search in Google Scholar
Filistrucchi, L. 2005. “The Impact of Internet on the Market for Daily Newspapers in Italy.” EUI Working Paper ECO 2005:12.10.2139/ssrn.1290305Search in Google Scholar
Gentzkow, M. 2006. “Television and Voter Turnout.” Quarterly Journal of Economics121:931–72.10.1162/qjec.121.3.931Search in Google Scholar
Gentzkow, M. 2007. “Valuing New Goods in a Model with Complementarity: Online Newspapers.” American Economic Review97:713–43.10.1257/aer.97.3.713Search in Google Scholar
Gentzkow, M., and J.Shapiro. 2011. “Ideological Segregation Online and Offline.” Quarterly Journal of Economics126:1799–839.10.1093/qje/qjr044Search in Google Scholar
Gentzkow, M., J.Shapiro, and M.Sinkinson. 2011. “The Effect of Newspaper Entry and Exit on Electoral Politics.” American Economic Review101:2980–3018.10.1257/aer.101.7.2980Search in Google Scholar
George, L. 2008. “The Internet and the Market for Daily Newspapers.” B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis and Policy (Advances) 1:8.10.2202/1935-1682.1944Search in Google Scholar
George, L., and J.Waldfogel. 2006. “The ‘New York Times’ and the Market for Local Newspapers.” American Economic Review96:435–47.10.1257/000282806776157551Search in Google Scholar
Golde, S., and N.Nie. 2010. “The Effect of Online News on Political Behavior.” Manuscript.Search in Google Scholar
Hong, S. 2013. “Measuring the Effect of Napster on Recorded Music Sales: Difference-in-Differences Estimates Under Compositional Changes.” Journal of Applied Econometrics28:297–324.10.1002/jae.1269Search in Google Scholar
Kaiser, U. 2006. “Magazines and Their Companion Websites: Competing Outlet Channels?” Review of Marketing Science1:4.10.2202/1546-5616.1046Search in Google Scholar
Kaiser, U., and C.Kongstedt. 2012. “Magazine ‘Companion Websites’ and the Demand for Newsstand Sales and Subscriptions.” Journal of Media Economics25:184–97.10.1080/08997764.2012.729545Search in Google Scholar
Larcinese, V., and L.Miner. 2012. “The Political Impact of the Internet on US Presidential Elections.” Manuscript.Search in Google Scholar
Liebowitz, S. 2007. “How Reliable Is the Oberholzer-Gee/Strumpf Paper on File-Sharing?” CAPRI Publication 06-05, Working Paper.10.2139/ssrn.1014399Search in Google Scholar
Liebowitz, S. 2008. “Research Note – Testing File Sharing’s Impact on Music Album Sales in Cities.” Management Science54:852–9.10.1287/mnsc.1070.0833Search in Google Scholar
Liebowitz, S., and A.Zentner. 2012. “Clash of the Titans: Does Internet Use Reduce Television Viewing?.” Review of Economics and Statistics94:234–45.10.1162/REST_a_00148Search in Google Scholar
Miner, L. 2012. “The Unintended Consequences of Internet Diffusion: Evidence from Malaysia.” Manuscript.Search in Google Scholar
Mullainathan, S., and A.Shleifer. 2005. “The Market for News.” American Economic Review95:1031–53.10.1257/0002828054825619Search in Google Scholar
Nie, N., D.Miller, S.Golde, D.Butler, and K.Winneg. 2010. “The World Wide Web and the U.S. Political News Market.” American Journal of Political Science54:428–39.10.1111/j.1540-5907.2010.00439.xSearch in Google Scholar
Oberholzer-Gee, F., and K.Strumpf. 2007. “The Effect of File Sharing on Record Sales: An Empirical Analysis.” Journal of Political Economy115:1–42.10.1086/511995Search in Google Scholar
Oberholzer-Gee, F., and J.Waldfogel. 2009. “Media Markets and Localism: Does News En Espanõl Boost Hispanic Voter Turnout?” American Economic Review99:2120–8.10.1257/aer.99.5.2120Search in Google Scholar
Prat, A., and D.Strömberg. 2005. “Commercial Television and Voter Information.” CEPR Discussion Paper 4989.Search in Google Scholar
Prat, A., and D.Strömberg. 2011. “The Political Economy of Mass Media.” CEPR Discussion Paper 8246.Search in Google Scholar
Rob, R., and J.Waldfogel. 2006. “Piracy on the High C’s: Music Downloading, Sales Displacement, and Social Welfare in a Sample of College Students.” Journal of Law and Economics49:29–62.10.1086/430809Search in Google Scholar
Simon, D., and V.Kadiyali. 2007. “The Effect of a Magazine’s Free Digital Content on Its Print Circulation: Cannibalization or Complementarity?” Information Economics and Policy19:344–61.10.1016/j.infoecopol.2007.06.001Search in Google Scholar
Snyder, J., and D.Strömberg. 2010. “Press Coverage and Political Accountability.” Journal of Political Economy118:355–408.10.1086/652903Search in Google Scholar
Strömberg, D. 2004. “Radio’s Impact on Public Spending.” Quarterly Journal of Economics119:189–221.10.1162/003355304772839560Search in Google Scholar
Zentner, A. 2006. “Measuring the Effect of File Sharing on Music Purchases.” Journal of Law and Economics49:63–90.10.1086/501082Search in Google Scholar
- 1
There is also an extensive literature on the effects of file-sharing of online music and movies on music and movie sales, most of which find considerable crowd out, e.g. Rob and Waldfogel (2006), Zentner (2006), Bhattacharjee et al. (2007), Liebowitz (2008), Adermon and Liang (2010), and Hong (2013). An exception is Oberholzer-Gee and Strumpf (2007) which do not find any effects (see also the comment by Liebowitz, 2007).
- 2
See Mullainathan and Shleifer (2005) for a discussion on how this type of self-selection bias affects the media market.
- 3
Miner (2012) and Larcinese and Miner (2012) instead focus on Internet penetration and its effects on voter turnout and voter behavior.
- 4
This utility function resembles the specification in Gentzkow (2007), and the ux term allows for any patterns of substitutability and complementarity between the different types of media.
- 5
More generally, we cannot identify displacement effects, because there are, as observed in eq. [9],
equations, but unknown and unknown , once the reduced-form parameters have been estimated. - 6
Different from this article, broadband availability is typically not measured at the individual level but rather at the municipal or county levels (broadband coverage) which makes a causal interpretation possible. See also Bhuller et al. (2013) who use such an approach to investigate the relationship between broadband coverage and sex-related crimes.
- 7
Notably, the outcome variables, such as news consumption, are registered regardless of where they are consumed (at home, work, or any other place).
- 8
This variable is not just the sum of the online and offline variables for a given medium, as some individuals consume both the online and the offline versions of that medium.
- 9
The average predicted time spent on tabloid consumption is 8.28 min with broadband and 7.66 min without broadband. Similarly, the predicted share reading tabloids (based on the regression results behind column 4 in Table 2) is 0.357 with broadband and 0.299 without broadband. This implies that the predicted average time reading a tabloid, conditional on reading a tabloid at all, is 23.2 min with broadband and 25.6 min without broadband. Broadband access at home, therefore, decreases average time spent reading a tabloid for tabloid consumers by around 2.4 min.
equations, but 
unknown 
and 
unknown 
, once the reduced-form parameters have been estimated.©2013 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin / Boston
