Islam (manager of the World Bank Institute’s Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Division) present 12 papers that collectively address the evidence that media reporting affects politics,
economics, and public policy outcomes or the process of policy making; the impact of bias in media reporting; the impact of market and nonmarket factors on news reporting, including sources of
bias; and the objectives of government regulation of the media sector. Specific topics include the influence of media coverage on public expenditures, the influence of technological and cost
factors in the media industry’s production function on media content and political markets, the impact of media targeting of minority groups on voter turnout, the relationship between the cost
of obtaining information and amount of news coverage, the impact of the introduction of Fox News Channel on the Republican vote share in the United States, news consumers as the source of news
bias in the cases of CNN and Al Jazeera, the ability of special interest groups to manipulate public opinion through the media, selective information sharing as a means of manipulating news,
and comparative government regulation of media. Annotation ©2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
