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Séminaire 

Nicolas Herault

(BSE)

Persuading voters with partisan TV news: a natural experiment using spatial reception data

In September 2018 Sky News Australia – a 24-hour news channel widely considered strongly partisan in favour of the conservative party – was made available as a free-to-air service to almost 8 million Australians. We estimate the effect of the introduction of Sky News on the vote swing between the 2016 and 2019 national elections. We employ a difference-in-differences approach using poll results at over 7,000 polling places and the share of voters at each polling place whose residence received the Sky News broadcast signal. Australia’s system of compulsory voting allows us to estimate how partisan TV news can persuade voters to switch party, an effect which has proved difficult if not impossible to identify in other contexts where voters’ turnout can be endogenous. We find consistent evidence that access to Sky News resulted in reduced support for the Australian Labour Party (ALP) and an increase in support for the Liberal Party.