2014/03/28 by Piero Stanig · 3 citations
Social Sciences · #Media Influence and Politics #Corruption and Economic Development #Gender Politics and Representation
paper · doi:10.1111/ajps.12110
Restrictions to media freedom, in the form of repressive defamation legislation, are thought to affect the amount of information about corruption that the media report. Exploiting variation in regulation of speech across states in a federal country, Mexico, and using a novel data set based on content analysis of the local press, I estimate the effect of lack of freedom on the coverage devoted to acts of malfeasance by public officials. Corruption receives significantly less attention in states with a more repressive defamation law. Instrumental variable models corroborate the interpretation of the negative association between regulation and coverage as a causal “chilling effect.”