Measuring Social Benefits of Media Coverage: How Coverage of Climate Change Affects Behaviour

Abstract

It has been well-documented that beliefs and actions can be affected by media coverage. In this paper, I study the effect of newspaper coverage of climate change on individual driving behaviour. I construct a measure of the tone of coverage based on comparisons between environmental and sceptical texts. I then use this measure, along with detailed information about driving patterns, to test whether households’ travel decisions are affected by the coverage that they have recently received. I find that coverage of climate change that uses an environmental tone causes households to make environmentally friendly travel decisions, particularly when good substitutes are available. Since driving is a major source of carbon emissions, these results illustrate a potential externality of media coverage.