HSE Seminar on Political Economy: Michael Rochlitz (NRU HSE) about the effect of independent mass media on election turnout

Due to the ability to influence people’s sentiments, mass media is often called the fourth power. Because of this, government usually tries to establish some sort of censure in order to control information provided to the population. However, what is the effect of mass media in political sphere without such control? Particularly, how does it affect turnout? In course of experiments it was revealed that in Russia the presence of independent TV in a region increases turnout in it. The professor of NRU HSE Michael Rochlitz spoke about this and other results on the presentation of an article «Does Independent Media Matter in a Non-Democratic Election? Experimental Evidence from Russia».

joint seminar of Higher School of Economics on political economy, International Center for the Study of Institutions and Development (ICSID) and NES Center for the Study of Diversity and Social Interaction was held February 14.

Moderators of HSE seminar on political economy: Alexei Zakharov (HSE), Konstantin Sonin (HSE)