1 Telecracy: Testing for Channels of Persuasion

We consider the long-lived slant towards Berlusconi in political information on Italian TV. We exploit a shock to the slanted exposure of viewers: idiosyncratic deadlines to switch to digital TV from 2008 to 2012, which increased the number of freeview channels tenfold. The switch caused a drop in the vote share of Berlusconi’s coalition by between 5.5 and 7.5 percentage points. The effect was stronger in towns with older and less educated voters. At least 20 percent of digital users changed their voting behavior after the introduction of digital TV. Our evidence is consistent with the existence of persuasion-biased viewers. (JEL D72, D83, J14, L44, L96) There is growing evidence that exposure to slanted information affects decision-makers ’ choices. This is true in several domains, such as political information (DellaVigna and Kaplan, 2007; Enikopolov, Petrova, and Zhuravskaya, 2011), financial analyst forecasts (Malmendier and Shanthikumar, 2007), and product advertisements (Meyers-Levy and Malaviya, 1999). But are slants in information effective in the long run? If so, why do individuals no