3
In a different stream of literature, there is a vast amount of academic attention devoted
to understanding how the public responds to the media, and more generally the role of the
media in elections. Several studies show that people are not perfectly rational consumers,
and that they use heuristics and systematically succumb to biases [17] [21] [13]. Though
while these studies often examine the affect to the consumer, rarely do they investigate the
incentives for the news organization. These broadcasts and coverage are often taken as a
given.
Although it is crucial to understanding some political phenomena, an investigation into
the supply-side of the media is typically found in economics. However as we mentioned,
the traditional economic approach uses a very different set of assumptions. Reasoning from
these assumptions leads one to believe that there should be homogeneous coverage.
In his An Economic Theory of Democracy, Downs points out however, that the cost of
acquiring information will lead an individual to use some selection of data from the vast
amount available to him. Thus there could exist a bias from the very selection process
alone.[7] Moreover, any report one observes also has the ability to be biased, because the
reporter acquiring the information faces the same data selection issue. In his report, the
reporter must drop some pieces of information from the total available to him.
The potential for an inaccurate report becomes amplified when one considers the (oppor-
tunity) cost of evaluating the data. It is reasonable to think that the individual must rely
on some process or thing to help him bear the costs involved with becoming informed. Later
work by Popkin suggests that people use informational shortcuts to aid in this process.
A prime example of such an informational shortcut is an elite’s interpretation, or com-
mentary. As Popkin points out, a key source of such commentary is television: “Television
news provides commentary on speeches, proposals, and crises from a variety of well-known
Convention