Claudia Marangon (Alesina Seminar)
Date and Time
Location
Speaker & Title
Claudia Marangon (Harvard), "Identity in Journalism: Evidence from News Reporting of Violence Against Women"
Abstract
Does the identity of journalists shape the news, and through it, readers' behavior? I study this question in the context of reporting on violence against women in Italy. Using the universe of murders with female victims from 2006 to 2022 matched to newspaper articles, I construct indexes for two reporting narratives: victim-centered narratives, which contextualize the crime and point to support resources, and perpetrator-centered narratives, which focus on motives such as jealousy or a fit of rage. I show that female journalists use more victim-centered and fewer perpetrator-centered narratives, exploiting the conditionally random assignment of reporters to crimes within newsrooms to account for selection in the stories and topics covered. Combining reporter assignment with province-level readership in a staggered difference-in-differences design, I show that greater exposure to female reporters after a murder raises calls to the national helpline for violence against women. An online experiment identifies the mechanism: victim-centered narratives shift norms around help-seeking. It also reveals potential engagement costs, as these narratives decrease engagement among men but help retain female readers. Reporter identity is thus a consequential supply-side determinant of both news content and reader behavior.
Co-sponsored by FAS and IQSS, the Alberto Alesina Seminar on Political Economy supports research-related activities that integrate the study of economics and politics, whether by studying economic behavior in the political process or political behavior in the marketplace. In general, positive political economy is concerned with showing how observed differences among institutions affect political and economic outcomes in various social, economic, and political systems and how the institutions themselves change and develop in response to individual and collective beliefs, preferences, and strategies.
All interested faculty and students are invited to attend.