This research is aimed at identifying political bias in mainstream media news channels. Specifically, this thesis focuses on political bias portrayed through the media following the inauguration of President Donald Trump. This analysis explores the media’s coverage of the initial travel ban (enforced by executive order) during the first month of the Trump presidency. The content in this research explores specific frames, facts, statistics, wording, phrasing, and overall presentations of two primetime media hosts, Rachel Maddow and Sean Hannity. This research explores several presentations from each host, all pertaining to the Trump Administration’s initial travel ban. Framing theory is used throughout the manuscript to emphasize the manner in which each host presents news and information, while also distinguishing the differences between each host due to their partisan agendas. Through this research, it was found that both media hosts presented news and information on the same issue (the travel ban) through completely different perspectives. Each host varied drastically in tone, phrasing, and facts of emphasis, while also presenting each issue in a manner that aligns with a specific partisan agenda. This research demonstrates that partisan agendas and perceived audience needs take priority over the reporting of objective facts and straightforward coverage on the issue of immigration in the United States.

U.S. politics, media, and citizens are highly polarized, stipulating that society is divided between Democrats and Republicans (Hameleers, 2019). The U.S. has seen an increased political polarization over the past 25 years (Heltzel & Laurin, 2020; Westfall, Van Boven, Chambers, & Judd, 2015). Technological development in the campaign environment has fueled this political polarization (Hong & Kim, 2016). In such a polarized technological society, partisan news media cover political issues and events from their ideological perspective (Arceneaux, Johnson, & Murphy, 2012), which may affect the polarized citizens.The Republican Party is conservative, while the Democratic Party is liberal (Westfall, Van Boven, Chambers, & Judd, 2015). Each party has issue agendas that they prioritize during the campaign. When political campaigns post a message on social media, they not only post just one issue but several related issues. These interlinked issues have a networked effect on the partisan news media and the polarized citizens (McCombs, Shaw, & Weaver, 2014). How political campaigns interlinked different issue agendas during campaigns in a polarized environment has not been investigated. This study intends to see the similarities and dissimilarities between the Democratic and Republican Party issue networks using a network agenda setting theory during the 2020 U.S. presidential campaign and how they build and set networked issue agendas in the partisan news media and the polarized public on Facebook. The study uses a hybrid content analysis and network analysis of issue agendas presented by the Biden and Trump campaigns, partisan media (CNN and Fox News), and the Democratic Party and the Republican Party supporters on Facebook. Facebook posts are collected using Facebook’s CrowdTangle Search option from January 1, 2021, to November 3, 2020. This study uses a hybrid content analysis method which engages with both human coders and computational means to analyze big data sets (Guo et al., 2016). The data analysis involves measuring core-periphery block model, clique analysis, network visualization, and Quadratic Assignment Procedures (QAP). A social networking analysis software, UCINET, is used for measuring core-periphery block model, clique analysis, and QAP correlations(Borgatti, Everett, & Johnson, 2018). The scholarship of political campaign communication needs to reconnect to the ideological positions of political campaigns, partisan news media, and party supporters. This holistic study is significant in terms of better understanding the mechanism of networked agenda-setting activities of presidential campaigns in a polarized environment on Facebook. Methodologically, this study offers new techniques for investigating networked issue agendas of campaigns, news media, and citizens. It uses core-periphery block model and clique analysis as indicators of network agenda building and network agenda-setting influences. Social media practitioners like campaign managers can consider the political polarization, fragmented nature of social media, and polarized audience during political campaigning.

This dissertation comprises of three problems in the area of Political Economy and Industrial Organization. The first chapter concerns how ideologically-opposite media firms report a particular event to maximize their payoffs from advocating their ideology and strengthen reader trust which increases if the report is proximate to their beliefs. I use these facts to develop a Hotelling's linear city model of competition where the two media firms choose their respective locations which signify the impression they want to impart to its readers. I find partisan media provides accurate information while covering topics favorable to its ideology. However, for unfavourable topics, the media never provides an indifferent report, but either defends its own ideology or delivers a partially accurate report. For unfavourable issues, imparting an indifferent impression rewards a media with lowest equilibrium payoffs. I identify sufficiency conditions where readers give better assessment to news of a media located farther away from their ideology than one which is nearer. Increasing competition by the entry of a third firm does not necessarily alleviate the level of bias in the news economy. The second paper studies the pricing schedule of a monopolist while it sells a non-durable product over two time periods. The consumer's experience with the product is correlated with two possible states — good (bad) experience is more probable under a high (low) state. Given this, I study the monopolist's pricing scheme in the two periods when consumers are wishful — overly optimistic about the high state even after a bad experience. I provide a comparative study of prices in each periods when the monopolist announces prices with and without commitment when consumers are either naive or sophisticated. The final chapter provides an understanding of the efficacy of two types of trade sanctions (import and export) using a directed network model. Sanctions are common punitive measures taken by a sender player to discipline a target player. Empirical evidences in the realm of international trade show differences in the effectiveness between import and export sanctions. This paper shows that such differences can be explained by one specific centrality feature of the underlying trading network — betweenness-centrality. This measure lends insights to the trade spill-overs following sanctions underscoring why sanctions are ineffective. I highlight when a higher value of this centrality acts as a sufficient condition towards effective sanction. Based on this analysis, one can conclude whether import or export sanction will be more effective for a given trade network. / Doctor of Philosophy / Three essays spanning across topics of political economy and Industrial Organization has been studied. The first essay `Media bias in the best and worst of times' studies how ideology-motivated (partisan) media firms try to create impressions to its audience about a particular issue to increase its payoffs from either of the two sources — reader trust and advocating its ideology. This trade-off depends on the type of issue at hand which either aggravates or moderates a media's wish to generate bias in its news. I investigate not only the degree of bias for any given event, but also study how profits of media are impacted from doing so. The second chapter `Monopoly pricing under wishful thinking' investigates the pricing strategies of a seller when he sells a non-durable product to a wishful buyer twice, over two time periods. Under two possible states of the world — textit{high} and textit{low} — the buyer can derives either a good or bad experience. It is assumed that a good experience is more likely than a bad one under textit{high} state. Would the buyer re-purchase the product after having a bad experience in the first period? A wishful buyer is overly optimistic about a good experience in the future even after a bad experience in the current period. Such optimism paves the way for pricing strategies in favor of the seller under certain conditions. My aim has been to highlight these conditions and draw comparison with a pricing model with non-wishful buyers. The third chapter investigates the effectiveness of trade sanctions. Such sanctions are imposed by a sender country against a target country when the latter has taken an action which the sender disapproves — initiating domestic war, building nuclear arsenals, etc. The sanctions are enforced until the target. However, only 30% sanctions are effective in disciplining the target. This paper studies if any feature of the trade network can explain why sanctions fail and what type of trade sanction — import or export — will be optimal in any given trade network.

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Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-25T20:22:27Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Erilene Araujo.pdf: 751585 bytes, checksum: 1cfe6577e507a9844ae716266eb893ef (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-10-01 / The magazine Teoria e Debate (TD) is the most traditional communication vehicle of the Worker s Party (PT). It was created in 1987 by the Regional Directorate of the PT in São Paulo and, since 1997 has been published by the Fundação Perseu Abramo, also an organ of the party. The magazine is produced with the voluntary collaboration of intellectuals and organized by a small editorial staff. The objective of the magazine is to go beyond the limits of the partisan media and to be perceived as a space for debate and reflection about Brazilian leftist theories. When the magazine had gained some maturity, TD was faced with a big challenge: how to discuss the political crisis of 2005, which had touched the center of the PT and President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva s government. The present dissertation studies these questions: How did the political crisis of 2005 which was known as the mensalão case enter into the contents of Teoria e Debate? What was said and which individuals were chosen to narrate the case? The research was done by analysis of 38 political articles published in the magazine in 2005 and 2006. As it is an analytical publication elaborated by and addressed to intellectuals, the first chapter of the dissertation relates theoretical reflections about the intellectuals and their politics, utilizing ideas from classic authors such as Antonio Gramsci and Daniel Pécaut. The second chapter discusses the genesis of the Worker s Party analyses and the intellectual participation in the process of its creation and then discusses the loss of political influence of the group since the 1990 s, when the electoral campaigning created a new dimension in the PT. The third chapter is dedicated an analysis of party communication and the impact of that communication during the crises of 2005 caused mainly by the magazine. Based on the analysis of the 38 articles, the last chapter discusses the Teoria e Debate coverage in three periods: before, during and after the political crises of 2005 / A revista Teoria e Debate é o veículo de comunicação mais tradicional do Partido dos Trabalhadores. Ela foi criada em 1987 pelo Diretório Regional do PT São Paulo e, desde 1997, é editada pela Fundação Perseu Abramo, também do partido. A publicação é elaborada a partir da colaboração voluntária de intelectuais e organizada por uma pequena redação. Propõe-se a ultrapassar os limites da mídia partidária, para ser percebida como um espaço reservado ao debate e à reflexão teórica da esquerda brasileira. Quando atingiu a maioridade, a revista enfrentou um grande desafio: discutir a crise política de 2005, que atingia o centro do PT e do governo Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Em que medida a crise política de 2005 que ficou conhecida como o caso mensalão entrou na pauta de Teoria e Debate, o que foi dito e que personagens foram escalados para narrar o caso? A investigação foi feita com base na análise de 38 textos com foco em política, publicados na revista entre 2005 e 2006. Por se tratar de uma publicação analítica elaborada por e destinada a intelectuais, o primeiro capítulo da dissertação traz uma reflexão teórica sobre os intelectuais e a política, à luz de autores clássicos como Antonio Gramsci e Daniel Pécaut. O segundo recupera a gênese do Partido dos Trabalhadores, analisa a participação dos intelectuais no processo de criação do partido e discute a perda da influência política do grupo, a partir da década de 1990, quando a disputa eleitoral ganhou uma nova dimensão dentro do PT. O terceiro capítulo é dedicado a análise da comunicação petista e dos impactos que a crise de 2005 provocou sobre ela e, principalmente, para Teoria e Debate. Com base nos 38 artigos, o último capítulo discorre sobre a cobertura da revista em três momentos: antes, durante e depois da crise política de 2005

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T14:57:16Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Erilene Araujo.pdf: 751585 bytes, checksum: 1cfe6577e507a9844ae716266eb893ef (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-10-01 / The magazine Teoria e Debate (TD) is the most traditional communication vehicle of the Worker s Party (PT). It was created in 1987 by the Regional Directorate of the PT in São Paulo and, since 1997 has been published by the Fundação Perseu Abramo, also an organ of the party. The magazine is produced with the voluntary collaboration of intellectuals and organized by a small editorial staff. The objective of the magazine is to go beyond the limits of the partisan media and to be perceived as a space for debate and reflection about Brazilian leftist theories. When the magazine had gained some maturity, TD was faced with a big challenge: how to discuss the political crisis of 2005, which had touched the center of the PT and President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva s government. The present dissertation studies these questions: How did the political crisis of 2005 which was known as the mensalão case enter into the contents of Teoria e Debate? What was said and which individuals were chosen to narrate the case? The research was done by analysis of 38 political articles published in the magazine in 2005 and 2006. As it is an analytical publication elaborated by and addressed to intellectuals, the first chapter of the dissertation relates theoretical reflections about the intellectuals and their politics, utilizing ideas from classic authors such as Antonio Gramsci and Daniel Pécaut. The second chapter discusses the genesis of the Worker s Party analyses and the intellectual participation in the process of its creation and then discusses the loss of political influence of the group since the 1990 s, when the electoral campaigning created a new dimension in the PT. The third chapter is dedicated an analysis of party communication and the impact of that communication during the crises of 2005 caused mainly by the magazine. Based on the analysis of the 38 articles, the last chapter discusses the Teoria e Debate coverage in three periods: before, during and after the political crises of 2005 / A revista Teoria e Debate é o veículo de comunicação mais tradicional do Partido dos Trabalhadores. Ela foi criada em 1987 pelo Diretório Regional do PT São Paulo e, desde 1997, é editada pela Fundação Perseu Abramo, também do partido. A publicação é elaborada a partir da colaboração voluntária de intelectuais e organizada por uma pequena redação. Propõe-se a ultrapassar os limites da mídia partidária, para ser percebida como um espaço reservado ao debate e à reflexão teórica da esquerda brasileira. Quando atingiu a maioridade, a revista enfrentou um grande desafio: discutir a crise política de 2005, que atingia o centro do PT e do governo Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Em que medida a crise política de 2005 que ficou conhecida como o caso mensalão entrou na pauta de Teoria e Debate, o que foi dito e que personagens foram escalados para narrar o caso? A investigação foi feita com base na análise de 38 textos com foco em política, publicados na revista entre 2005 e 2006. Por se tratar de uma publicação analítica elaborada por e destinada a intelectuais, o primeiro capítulo da dissertação traz uma reflexão teórica sobre os intelectuais e a política, à luz de autores clássicos como Antonio Gramsci e Daniel Pécaut. O segundo recupera a gênese do Partido dos Trabalhadores, analisa a participação dos intelectuais no processo de criação do partido e discute a perda da influência política do grupo, a partir da década de 1990, quando a disputa eleitoral ganhou uma nova dimensão dentro do PT. O terceiro capítulo é dedicado a análise da comunicação petista e dos impactos que a crise de 2005 provocou sobre ela e, principalmente, para Teoria e Debate. Com base nos 38 artigos, o último capítulo discorre sobre a cobertura da revista em três momentos: antes, durante e depois da crise política de 2005

This thesis consists of three essays in the field of information economics. The first essay studies manipulation of information by partisan media. The recent increase in partisan media has generated interest in what drives media outlets to become more partisan. I develop a model to study the role of diffusion of information by word of mouth. In the model, a media outlet designs an information policy, which specifies the level of partisan slant in the outlet’s news reports. The news spread via a communication chain in a population of agents with heterogeneous preferences. The slant has an impact on whether the agents find the news credible and on their incentives to pass the news to others. The analysis elucidates how partisanship of media can be driven by political polarisation of the public and by the tendency of people to interact with people with similar political views. The second essay, co-authored by Jakub Redlicki, investigates falsification of scientific evidence by interest groups. We analyse a game between a biased sender (an interest group) and a decision maker (a policy maker) where the former can falsify scientific evidence at a cost. The sender observes scientific evidence and knows that it will also be observed by the decision maker unless he falsifies it. If he falsifies, then there is a chance that the decision maker observes the falsified evidence rather than the true scientific evidence. First, we investigate the decision maker’s incentives to privately acquire independent evidence, which not only provides additional information to her but can also strengthen or weaken the sender’s falsification effort. Second, we analyse the decision maker’s incentives to acquire information from the sender. The third essay analyses competition between interest groups for access to a policy maker. I study a model of lobbying in which two privately-informed experts (e.g., interest groups) with opposite goals compete for the opportunity to communicate with a policy maker. The main objective is to analyse the benefits which competition for access brings to the policy maker as opposed to hiring an expert in advance. I show that competition for access is advantageous in that it provides the policy maker with some information about the expert who did not gain access and gives the experts an incentive to invest in their communication skills. On the other hand, hiring an expert in advance allows the policy maker to use a monetary reward to incentivise the expert to invest more in his communication skills.