Data and Code for: Media Competition and News Diets

Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s) Charles Angelucci, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Julia Cage, Sciences-Po Paris; Michael Sinkinson, Yale SOM

Version: View help for Version V1

Name	File Type	Size	Last Modified
Data			09/25/2023 02:10:PM
DoFiles			09/25/2023 02:17:PM
Results			09/25/2023 02:10:PM
Main_do.do	text/plain	4.1 KB	09/25/2023 10:10:AM
README.docx	application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document	31 KB	09/25/2023 10:10:AM
README.pdf	application/pdf	249.7 KB	09/25/2023 10:10:AM

Project Citation:

Angelucci, Charles, Cage, Julia, and Sinkinson, Michael . Data and Code for: Media Competition and News Diets. Nashville, TN: American Economic Association [publisher], 2024. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2024-04-03. https://doi.org/10.3886/E183943V1

Project Description

Summary:
The data and code corresponding to the paper entitled "Media Competition and News Diets" is provided for purposes of replication.

The paper's summary is as follows:

Technological innovations in content delivery, such as the advent of broadcast television or of the Internet, threaten local newspapers' ability to bundle their original local content with third-party content such as wire national news. We examine how the entry of television -- with its initial focus on national news -- affected local newspapers as well as consumer news diets in the United States. We construct a novel dataset of U.S. newspapers' economic performance and content choices from 1944 to 1964 and exploit quasi-random variation in the rollout of television to show that this new technology was a negative shock in both the readership and advertising markets for newspapers. Newspapers responded by providing less content, particularly local news. We tie this change towards increasingly nationalized news diets to an increase in party vote share congruence between Congressional and Presidential elections.

Funding Sources: French National Research Agency (ANR) (ANR-17-CE26-0004-01)

Scope of Project

Subject Terms: Media ; local news; television

JEL Classification:
      D40 Market Structure, Pricing, and Design: General
      D70 Analysis of Collective Decision-Making: General
      L11 Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
      L15 Information and Product Quality; Standardization and Compatibility
      M37 Advertising
      N72 Economic History: Transport, Trade, Energy, Technology, and Other Services: U.S.; Canada: 1913-

Geographic Coverage: USA

Time Period(s): 1/1/1944 – 12/31/1964 (1944-1964 period)

Collection Date(s): 2017 – 2020 (2017-2020)

Universe: US Daily Local Newspapers

Data Type(s): other

Methodology

Response Rate: Not applicable

Sampling: Not Applicable

Data Source: Editor & Publisher International Yearbook
Editor & Publisher International Yearbook Annual Lineage Supplement
www.newspapers.com
www.newspaperarchive.com
Advanced Television Factbooks (1951,1953,1956,1960, 1966), available at https://worldradiohistory.com/Television_Factbook_Page.htm
United States Historical Election Returns, 1824-1968
Historical, Demographic, Economic, and Social Data: The United States, 1790-2002 (ICPSR 2896)

Collection Mode(s): other

Scales: "Ad Lineage" was used to measure advertising.

Unit(s) of Observation: Most information is annual-level information on US daily newspapers.

Geographic Unit: USA

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Published Versions

V1 [2024-04-03]

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