Thesis (M.A.)--Georgetown University, 2006 / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on June 13, 2006). Includes bibliographical references (p. 156-161).

<div>Media polarization is a serious issue that can affect someone's views, ranging from a scientific fact to the perceived results of a presidential election. The media outlets in the United States are aligned along political spectrum representing different stances on various issues. Without providing any false information (but usually by omitting some facts), media outlets can report events by deliberately using the words and styles that favor particular political positions. <br></div>This research investigated the U.S. media polarization with authorship attribution approaches, analyzing stylistic differences between the left-leaning and right-leaning media and discovering specific linguistic patterns that made the news articles display biased political attitudes. Several models of authorship attribution were tested while controlling for topic, stance, and style, and were applied to media companies and their identity within a political spectrum. Style features that were compared included semantic and/or sentiment-related information, such as stance taking, with features that seemingly do not capture it, such as part of speech tags. The results demonstrate that a successful classification of articles as left-leaning or right-learning is possible regardless of their stance. Finally, we provide an analysis of the patterns that we found.

Questa tesi è composta di quattro capitoli, aventi come comune denominatore lo studio dell’economia dei media. Il primo capitolo fornisce una rassegna della letteratura teorica riguardante l’economia politica dei media con maggiore enfasi sulle economie emergenti. Il secondo capitolo analizza il ruolo dell’economia politica di “media capture”. È presentato un modello dinamico d’interazione tra media e audience che contempla la possibilità di compensazioni illecite da parte del governo in carica. Il modello sviluppato produce una serie d’intuizioni interessanti circa la relazione tra caratteristiche dell’industria dell’informazione, “media capture”, ed esiti elettorali. Il terzo capitolo studia come il meccanismo d’incentivazione per i potenziali candidati politici è influenzato dall’industria dell’informazione. È presentata un’estensione del modello cittadino-candidato proposto da Osborne e Slivinski (1997) e Besley e Coate (1997) attraverso l’introduzione di costi eterogenei associati alla candidatura elettorale. L’ultimo capitolo esamina la relazione tra i mezzi d’informazione e concentrazione politica guardando all’introduzione e alla diffusione di internet ad alta velocità agli inizi del ventunesimo secolo negli Stati Uniti. L’evidenza di causalità presentata dimostra come la diffusione di internet abbia aumentato fenomeni di estremismo ideologico negli Stati Uniti nella storia recente da parte dei rappresentanti politici. / This thesis consists of four self-contained chapters. The four chapters have the common denominator that they all deal with political economics of media. In the first chapter I review theoretical literature on politics of media with focus on emerging economies. In the second chapter I analyze political economy of media capture. I introduce dynamic model of media and audience relationship with the possibility of side payments from the incumbent government. The model developed here produces a number of interesting insights in the relationship between features of the media industry, media capture, and political outcomes. In the third chapter I study how the incentive mechanism for potential political candidates to emerge and run for the office is shaped by the media environment. I extend the original citizen-candidate model proposed by Osborne and Slivinski (1997) and Besley and Coate (1997) by introducing heterogeneous costs associated with running for the office. The last chapter examines links between media and political polarization by looking at the introduction and diffusion of high speed internet at the onset of the 21st century in the United States. I provide causal evidence that internet diffusion has increased ideological extremism of US representatives in the recent history.

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