Access and Attitudes to the Local News Media in the Digital Economy

There have been significant changes in the provision of news during the past two decades. The rapid spread of digital online media has diminished the relative importance of traditional news providers such as newspapers, television, and radio. The purpose ofthis project is to study how access to and attitudes towards the media shape engagement with local news in the digital economy. Our empirical analysis is based on a new and comprehensive survey of households in the U.S. which was conducted in 2018. Thesurvey data suggest that there are large racial and ethnic gaps in access to digital media and engagement with local news. Blacks and Hispanics are less engaged with digital online media than Whites. However, they are much more engaged with local news. Tounderstand the causes of these differences, we consider a differentiated product model to capture provider choices, time allocations among the providers, and exposure to local news topics. We show that the parameters of the model are identified and can beestimated using maximum likelihood and the detailed survey data that is available to us. Once we have estimated the model, we study changes in engagement with local news media as we equalize the differences in education, income, attitudes, neighborhoodquality, and provider choices among black and white households.