Local Newspaper Decline and Political Polarization - Evidence from a Multi-Party Setting

Abstract

Shifting media diets are increasingly viewed as a key driver of political polarization. In particular, prior research has focused on greater choice between partisan outlets and the rise of online news. This paper sheds light on a heretofore understudied yet equally salient development: the decline of local news. We argue that local news exits can induce polarization by increasing exposure to news about national politics, where partisan and ideological differences are more salient than at the local level. To test our argument, we draw on a novel panel data set of the coverage areas of all German news- papers between 1980 and 2009. Using a difference-in-differences design, we demonstrate that local news exits increase electoral polarization. Consistent with our theoretical argument, we also find that local news exits lead to increased consumption of national news, higher degrees of partisan identification, and increased political engagement at the individual level.

Repeated Exposure and Protest Outcomes: How Fridays for Future Protests Influenced Voters

“…While the treatment allocation varies at this level, there are no distinct local media markets at this level in Germany. In fact, the number of local media markets has been steadily decreasing (Ellger et al 2021). As such, it is unlikely that the effects reported here are entirely driven by different local media outlets reporting on local protests.…”

“…Finally, it could be the case that even though the media is not reporting particularly positively about the Greens, that voters learn about the protests in the media but distrust it as a source -thus still being positively affected by the media reports about protests. Ellger et al (2021) show that a very high number of survey respondents trusts that the media has no particular biases, making this explanation also unlikely. Put together, the fact that national media would influence the entire German territory, that there are less local media markets than units of analysis, and that the media markets less on environment and slightly less positively on the Greens suggest that the effects reported in this paper are unlikely to be confounded by media reports.…”

“…As such, it is unlikely that the effects reported here are entirely driven by different local media outlets reporting on local protests. In this vein, local newspapers in Germany are distinctively less partisan and polarised than national outlets, making this sort of reporting less likely as well (Ellger et al 2021). Section D.13 uses data from GLES (2014) to show that local newspapers are less likely to report on environmental topics, when compared to national outlets and D.14 shows that if anything German media report with more negative tone about the Green Parties than other parties, making the media having a positive effect on the Greens' electoral result less likely.…”

“…In the text, I argued that it is unlikely that the study's results are mainly driven by local or national media. One of the reasons for that is that local media is less polarized (Ellger et al 2021) and speaks of different topics than the national media. This section tests this second idea, by using data from (GLES 2014).…”

More than News! Mapping the Deliberative Potential of a Political Online Ecosystem with Digital Trace Data

“…However, on an interesting side note, Ellger et al (2021) find that the decline of local newspapers can be related to an increase in political polarization, a relationship that could be given more atten tion in the study of online politics. While digital technology does lets information flows transcend physical constraints, people still live in specific local contexts.…”