Handbook of Media Economics, vol 1B

authoritarian regime. In particular, they conducted a field experiment which provided

information about the legislative performance of randomly chosen members of parlia-

ment in an online newspaper. Their results indicate that, on average, provision of such

information did not affect the performance of the delegates, but representatives of the

regions with higher Internet penetration decreased their participation in legislative activ-

ities that could embarrass regime leaders. Moreover, an increase in the amount of infor-

mation available about politicians made these politicians less likely to be nominated by the

party in the future.

In Colombia, media scandals made targeted politicians more likely to engage in

coercion during the elections to offset ...