Media Plurality and the Intensity of Readers' Political Preferences |
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| Authors: | Armando J Garcia Pires |
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| Institution: | Institute for Research in Economics and Business Administration , Bergen , Norway |
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| Abstract: | In this article, the author studied the effect of the intensity of readers' political preferences on the news firms' incentives to choose between a single- and a multi-ideology strategy (i.e., media uniformity vs. media plurality). The author shows that alternative formalizations of the intensity of readers' preferences alter the equilibrium level of media plurality, given that they affect demand for news. In particular, when the readers' disutility of consuming news that differs from their ideal variety is relatively high for politically close news, the media firms choose a multi-ideology strategy, because the increase in demand is large. On the contrary, when the readers' disutility of consuming news that differs from their ideal variety is relatively low for politically close news, media firms choose a single-ideology strategy because a multi-ideology strategy does not significantly increase demand. |
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