13.3.5.4 Target Group Bias
It seems likely that advertising biases increase the coverage of interest to groups valuable
to advertisers and that, consequently, this biases policy in favor of these groups. However,
there is less supporting evidence. The literature is still struggling to uncover the first stage
of this effect: that media coverage is shaped to target the interest of this group. For exam-
ple,
Hamilton (2005) correlates the number of news stories on 20 issues on each of the
networks with the share of different demographic groups that consider that the issue
should be the president’s top priority. He finds that the news selection correlates most
with the interests of young viewers. He notes that this might be because advertisers target