Declining Local Media and Local Officials’ Incumbency Advantage

• In Event: Changes in Local News and Their Political Impacts

Abstract

The information available to people is important for democratic political accountability to function as intended. Declining local news and the resulting changes in the way people consume information have wide-ranging consequences for democracy. In this paper, we ask: what is the effect of declining local news on the incumbency advantage among local officials? We utilize the over-time within-county variation in local media access between 2008 and 2020 to analyze the effect of declining local news on voting behavior in local elections for officials like county executives, county legislators, prosecutors, and sheriffs. We find that over the observed time period, the changing media environment generally benefits local incumbent elected officials. The results suggest that declining local news is depriving voters of information about local politics and government, constraining the ability to hold lower level officials accountable at the ballot box. While mostly overshadowed by the partisan nature of the state and federal politics, local officials wield significant power. Understanding systematic and differential effects of the media environment on local elections is consequential for the heath and trajectory of democracy in the United States. 

Authors

• Murat Abus, Syracuse University

• Johanna Dunaway, Syracuse University