Economics Seminar（2013-28）

Topic: Market Shocks and Newspaper Ideology: Evidence from Taiwan

Speaker: Chun-Fang Chiang

Affiliation: National Taiwan University

Time: Tuesday, 17 Dec. 14:00-15:30pm
Location: Room217, Guanghua Building 2

Abstract：
This paper investigates the influence of market forces on newspaper ideologies and readers’ choices in Taiwan. We measure a newspaper’s political position by counting a newspaper’s relative frequency of use of the terms “China” and “Mainland”. This captures a newspaper’s position on Taiwanese Independence, a major issue in Taiwanese politics. We find that Liberty Times had significantly changed its newspaper political position in 2003, when a tabloid newspaper owned by a Hong-Kong media firm entered the newspaper market in Taiwan. Using survey data, we estimate consumer preferences for newspaper consumption and examine the newspapers’ best strategies on choosing political positions. We find that the ideological change made by Liberty Times was necessary to maintain its market share in the face of competition. Finally, we analyze changes in newspaper ideologies in 2008 when China Times was sold to Want Want Group.

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