Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Media Persuasion And Voter Welfare, Saptarshi P. Ghosh, Jaideep Roy, Peter Postl

Saptarshi P Ghosh

We study information transmission where an informed media, whose interests are partially in conflict with a finite group of rational voters, transmits news items in an attempt to manipulate democratic decisions. In a common-interest two-alternative voting model where due to reputation concerns the media can credibly commit to send any news reliably, we show that even if voters welcome the news when it arrives, media's presence can hurt their ex-ante welfare in both large and small constituencies.