Egalitarian media? Internet access and demand for redistribution in the U.S.

我的博士目标是研究新媒体，互联网的使用是否改变了美国对再分配政策的需求。不可否认，互联网的引入改变了人们与信息互动的方式：从仅仅是被动的参与者到9/13信息的生产者。历史证据表明，将投票权扩大到所有公民会改变公共政策的受益者：从精英到新获得选举权的选民[Larcinese（2014），Lindert（2004），Husted（1997）]。尽管投票权在美国几乎是普遍的，互联网可以作为一种选举权的形式，因为它给公民和思想提供了传统媒体所不关注的声音。第一篇可靠地衡量这种新媒体对美国总统选举的因果影响的论文是拉森塞特。（2017）.他们发现，互联网普及率对选民投票率有很强的积极影响，对民主党的竞选捐款和投票份额的影响较弱。不幸的是，互联网扩散对政治参与的证据是混合的[Gavazza et.等人（2018），法尔克等人（2018），al.（2014），Campante et.（2018）]。关于偏好的再分配，Alesina et. al.（2004）指出了对再分配需求的潜在解释：贫困人口的比例、政治制度的特点、文化和态度。对再分配需求的实验证据发现，其主要驱动力是自我利益，保险动机和社会关注不平等[Durante et.（2014）]。与此同时，Alesina et.（2005）强调，对政治行为者的偏好可能反映了选民自己对经济状况和不平等决定因素的看法。更多的信息可能会教育选民，影响政治责任和公共政策选择[Avis et.等人（2018），普拉等人（2018），（2013），Snyder et.尽管如此，尽管互联网无疑以相对较低的金钱成本增加了个人可获得的信息量，但它也可能增加了处理这些巨大信息的认知和时间成本。首先，有证据表明，媒体像议程制定者一样，即通过覆盖某些主题，他们影响了消费者对该主题的相对重要性[Larcinese et.（2011），McCombs（2004）]。密切相关的这一事实是，如Durante等。（2018），更多地接触娱乐电视的人更容易受到民粹主义信息的影响。可以想象，这一证据不仅与传统媒体有关，因为互联网也增加了娱乐机会。因此，这种新媒体的真实的威胁是它可能充当回声室[Garret（2009），Gentzkow（2011）]，为了衡量对再分配的需求，我将构建一个变量，支持再分配的候选人得到的选票为此，我将使用两个数据集。第一个是由美国总统选举地图集提供的数据集，该数据集提供了1912- 2016年期间举行的美国县级总统选举的选举结果。政党在许多其他方面都存在差异，而不仅仅是他们倾向于重新分配。这就是为什么关注左翼或右翼政党的投票份额会成为重新分配需求的一个不好的代理人。为了克服这个问题，我建议根据每个政治候选人关于再分配的话语强度对他们进行单独分类。美国总统项目提供了一个丰富的选举演讲和评论数据库，为每个候选人竞选。

My goal in the PhD is to study whether access to new media,the Internet, has changed the demand for redistributivepolicies in the United States. The introduction of Internetundeniably has changed the way in which people interact withinformation: from merely passive actors to producers of9 / 13information. Historical evidence shows that expanding votingrights to all citizens changes the beneficiaries of publicpolicies: from the elites to the newly enfranchised voters[Larcinese (2014), Lindert (2004), Husted (1997)]. Althoughthe right to vote is virtually universal in the U.S., the Internetmay act as a form of enfranchisement, forasmuch as it givesvoice to citizens and ideas which were not paid attention bythe traditional media.The first paper in measuring reliably the causal effect of thisnew medium on the U.S. presidential elections was Larcineseet. al. (2017). They found that Internet penetration has astrong positive impact on voter turnout, with a weaker effecton campaign contributions and vote shares to Democrats.Unfortunately, evidence of Internet diffusion on politicalparticipation is mixed [Gavazza et. al. (2018), Falck et. al.(2014), Campante et. al. (2018)]. With regard to preferencestowards redistribution, Alesina et. al. (2004) pointed topotential explanations of demand for redistribution: theshare of poor population, the characteristics of the politicalsystem, culture and attitudes. Experimental evidence on thedemand for redistribution have found that its main driversare self-interest, insurance motives and social concernsrelating to inequality [Durante et. al. (2014)]. In line with this,Alesina et. al. (2005) stressed that preferences over politicalactors may reflect voters' own perceptions on the state ofthe economy and the determinants of inequality. This is themechanism in which I want to focus on.A higher amount of information may educate voters,affecting political accountability and public policy choices[Avis et. al. (2018), Prat et. al. (2013), Snyder et. al. (2010)].Nonetheless, even though the Internet undoubtedly hasincreased the amount of information accessible to individualsat a relatively low monetary cost, it might as well increasedthe cognitive and time cost of processing this huge amountof information. First of all, there is evidence that media actlike agenda setters, i.e. by covering certain topics they affectthe relative importance that consumers give to that topic[Larcinese et. al. (2011), McCombs (2004)]. Closely relatedto this fact is that, as found in Durante et. al. (2018), peoplewho is more exposed to entertainment TV are morevulnerable to populist messages. Conceivably, this evidencewill not only relate to traditional media, since the Internet hasalso increased the number of entertainment opportunities.Hence, the real threat of this new media is that it may act asecho chambers [Garret (2009), Gentzkow (2011)], amplifyingthe effects of agenda setting and vulnerability to populism.In order to measure demand for redistribution I will constructa variable capturing the share of votes that a proredistribution candidate got. To do so I will use two datasets.The first is the one provided by the Atlas of U.S. PresidentialElections, which provides electoral results for the U.S.presidential elections at the county level elections held in theperiod 1912-2016.Political parties differ on many other aspects than just theirleaning towards redistribution. That is why focusing on theshare of voting to the left or right-wing parties would be anoisy proxy for demand for redistribution. In order toovercome this problem, I propose to individually classify eachpolitical candidate based on the intensity of their discoursewith regard to redistribution. The American PresidencyProject gives access to a rich database of election speechesand remarks for each candidate running for election.