Which News Outlets Have The Most Power? Columbia Business School Research Spotlights Information Inequality In 18 Countries And Identifies Top News Outlets

NEW YORK, Feb. 28, 2018 /PRNewswire/ — Amid the increased prevalence of disinformation in recent elections, there is a growing focus on news sources and the information they provide. In many countries, a number of sources produce high-quality, fact-based information and make it available on the internet at zero or low cost. However, is this information actually consumed? If not, where do people get their news?

The latest research from Columbia Business School analyzes news consumption in 18 countries and found that television news is by far the most dominant and influential news source and the number of news sources that people rely upon and trust has a direct correlation with their income levels. The research also quantifies the media power of some of the most powerful news organizations in the world, including Fox News, CNN, the BBC, Sky News and TF1. Andrea Prat, the Richard Paul Richman Professor of Business at Columbia Business School, and researcher Patrick Kennedy reviewed survey data from Pew, Reuters, and the Simmons National Consumption Survey.

“Countries around the world are experiencing information inequality, with a distinct subset of the population depending on just one or two sources for news,” said Prat, who is also the co-director of the Centre for Economic Policy Research’s Industrial Organization program. “In turn, this makes a certain set of large news organizations particularly powerful.”

Prat and Kennedy reached a number of important conclusions about how viewers consume information, particularly as they make electoral decisions:

• Television-based organizations are the most powerful commercial news organizations. Data indicates that media power – a measurement formed by determining how many people turn to a news outlet and how survey respondents allocate their news consumption – is concentrated in a relatively small number of news outlets, especially in television companies. In the United States, the three most powerful news organizations – Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC/NBC. [Section 4.2]

• News sources that cater to information-poor audiences have greater ‘media power.’ Prat and Kennedy find that in many countries, large swathes of the population rely heavily on just a few outlets for news, making those news outlets highly influential. Because these outlets have a monopoly on their viewers’ information access, the outlets are capable of exhorting heavy influence because they reach consumers who rarely obtain news from other sources.
• News consumption appears to be highly unequal. In the 18-country sample, the average number of sources that respondents access increases according to their income and education level. Young people and people with low income and lower levels of education have fewer sources. Prat and Kennedy find that there are vast segments of the population that get their news from very few sources. The researchers find a pattern where countries with high income inequality also suffer from high information inequality.
• There is no evidence that public service broadcasting reduces information inequality. Data indicates that people who watch public broadcasting are, on average, wealthier and more highly-educated. But Prat and Kennedy conclude that public broadcasting could be an important tool in reducing information inequality.

With television networks continuing to dominate as a news source, the researchers believe regulators should continue to closely monitor large television organizations and consider collecting much more in-depth information about where citizens get their news.

The study, Where Do People Get Their News?, is available online at: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2989719.

To learn more about the cutting-edge research taking place at Columbia Business School, please visit www.gsb.columbia.edu. More information on Professor Andrea Prat is available here.

About Columbia Business School
Columbia Business School is the only world-class, Ivy League business school that delivers a learning experience where academic excellence meets with real-time exposure to the pulse of global business. Led by Dean Glenn Hubbard, the School’s transformative curriculum bridges academic theory with unparalleled exposure to real-world business practice, equipping students with an entrepreneurial mindset that allows them to recognize, capture, and create opportunity in any business environment. The thought leadership of the School’s faculty and staff members, combined with the accomplishments of its distinguished alumni and position in the center of global business, means that the School’s efforts have an immediate, measurable impact on the forces shaping business every day. To learn more about Columbia Business School’s position at the very center of business, please visit www.gsb.columbia.edu.

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SOURCE Columbia Business School

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