2nd Economics of Media Bias Workshop

The 2017 edition of the workshop took place at the University of Lausanne, exploring topics related to media bias, exposure, and influence. The workshop featured two keynote speeches. First, Brian Knight focused on the limits of propaganda, drawing on evidence from Venezuela. Second, David Strömberg discussed protests, surveillance, and propaganda in Chinese social media.

In addition, the workshop consisted of seven sessions in which researchers presented theory papers, as well as experimental and observational studies. For example, on Day 1, presentations explored the effects of media coverage on corruption perceptions, the role of advertising bias in news media, media slant in television news, and the causes and consequences of media coverage of interpersonal violence.

Day two commenced with discussions of coverage bias on Wikipedia, the impact of celebrity news on the utilization of tax amnesty programs, and the effects of BBC radio in Germany towards the end of WWII. The workshop was supported by the German Research Foundation, the University of Lausanne, Hamburg Media School, and the University of Hamburg.