演講摘要 : Economists disagree about whether competition between media outlets makes their ideologies converge or diverge. This paper analyzes the effect of media competition on the political ideologies of media outlets as well as the news consumption of general public. Using the National Annenberg Election Surveys in 2000 and 2004, the empirical results show that moderate voters are more likely to read a local newspaper than those at the extremes. However, newspaper competition has a larger positive effect on newspaper reading for people at the extremes. The results also show that newspaper competition reduces the incentive among those with extreme ideologies to access political information online. These results suggest that readers prefer a newspaper with an ideology that is closer to their own and that newspaper competition will make newspapers specialize in different ideologies.
