Television and Voter Turnout*
Top Cited Papers
- 1 August 2006
- journal article
- Published by Oxford University Press (OUP) in The Quarterly Journal of Economics
- Vol. 121 (3), 931-972
- https://doi.org/10.1162/qjec.121.3.931
Abstract
I use variation across markets in the timing of television's introduction to identify its impact on voter turnout. The estimated effect is significantly negative, accounting for between a quarter and a half of the total decline in turnout since the 1950s. I argue that substitution away from other media with more political coverage provides a plausible mechanism linking television to voting. As evidence for this, I show that the entry of television in a market coincided with sharp drops in consumption of newspapers and radio, and in political knowledge as measured by election surveys. I also show that both the information and turnout effects were largest in off-year congressional elections, which receive extensive coverage in newspapers but little or no coverage on television.Keywords
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