دانلود رایگان مقاله انگلیسی جانبداری رسانه های جمعی انبوه، رسانه های اجتماعی و غیر متعصب ها - الزویر 2017

abstract

This paper builds a simple political agency model to demonstrate that there is a possible collective bias in the reporting of political issues, and suggests that this bias may lead society to a collective failure, in which overall social welfare is harmed. In our model, media outlets aim to build a reputation of high adeptness at policy forecasting, and audiences rely on policy information to make better decisions and update their beliefs regarding the quality of each outlet after the election outcome is revealed. The role of social media is incorporated into our model’s framework; thus, the chance of a non-partisan individual being informed about each political candidate’s proposed agenda depends on the collective mass media coverage of that candidate as well as the number of partisan individuals in favor of that candidate, since it is assumed that partisan voters post politically relevant information on social networks.

3. Conclusion

This study develops a simple game to demonstrate that, regarding political issues, newspapers tend toward the same coverage strategies, which may lead society to a collective failure, in which information regarding the superior policy is excluded from the news, the inferior policy ultimately gets implemented, and, in this way, overall social welfare is harmed. In the game, media outlets are concerned about building a reputation for predicting and reporting winning policies. These policies are decided by non-partisan voters, whose policy choices are jointly determined by mass media’s collective coverage and the proportion of partisan voters who post policy information on social networks. Our results imply that mass media places a very influential role in determining public policies through manipulating the information non-partisans receive. In the scenario where social media is incorporated, newspapers tend to coordinate their coverage strategies, even on an inferior policy, in order to increase their influence among non-partisan audiences.

This work adds insight to studies that aim to answer questions regarding the effects of mass media on public policies, where media bias comes from, and the effects of social media on mass media coverage strategies for political issues. Specifically, this model studies the effects of mass media on non-partisan audiences and public policies, as well as, through incorporating the role of social media, the effects of partisan audiences on mass media coverage. Future research is still required on these three questions, especially the effects of social media on mass media coverage and political outcomes, given the current media and political environment.