American Economic Review Vol. 109 No. 7 2019

The Political Legacy of Entertainment TV

Ruben Durante¹; Paolo Pinotti²; Andrea Tesei³

¹ ICREA, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, IPEG, Barcelona GSE, and CEPR (email: ) · ² Bocconi University, fRDB, CEPR, IRVAPP, and DONDENA (email: ) · ³ Queen Mary University, CEP (LSE), and CEPR (email: )

Abstract

We study the political impact of commercial television in Italy exploiting the staggered introduction of Berlusconi’s private TV network, Mediaset, in the early 1980s. We find that individuals with early access to Mediaset all-entertainment content were more likely to vote for Berlusconi’s party in 1994, when he first ran for office. The effect persists for five elections and is driven by heavy TV viewers, namely the very young and the elderly. Regarding possible mechanisms, we find that individuals exposed to entertainment TV as children were less cognitively sophisticated and civic-minded as adults, and ultimately more vulnerable to Berlusconi’s populist rhetoric.

DOI

10.1257/aer.20150958

Volume

109

Issue

7

Pages

2497-2530

Language

en

Sources

bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

Cite

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