Mood Swings, Media Coverage, and Elections

Abstract

Can public mood swings that make all voters undergo an ideological shift towards a policy, hurt the electoral performance of that policy? The answer depends interestingly on the operations of an apolitical, viewership-maximizing dominant media. The media chooses news quality about fundamental uncertainties. Ex-ante preferences and news quality affect the voters' ex-ante value for information and viewership, and ex-post policy preferences and votes. Public mood swings in a policy's favor can reduce the expected vote share and the probability of winning by affecting the news quality, crowding out the mass ideological gain that initiates the change.