ABSTRACT

Urbanization has led to the centralization of many important functions, including the media sector. In the case of Sweden, 53% of journalists now live in the capital region of Stockholm. The number of local editorial offices has shrunk from 668 to 273 in 28 years. What impact does this media centralization have? A recent report from the U.S. by the PEW Institute shows that rural communities experience a sense of being disconnected from what is being reported by the media. In this paper, we hypothesize that the lack of a local editorial office can lead to a lower consumption of local news (either in print form or online). Similarly, we also test if local news consumption decreases due to having fewer local journalists. Based on fine level data for Sweden in 2006 and in 2013, the results of our analysis suggest that the existence of an editorial office in a municipality is not significantly related to the consumption of local newspapers, but that accessibility to employed journalists who live in the municipality is.

摘要

城市化导致包括媒体部门在内的许多重要职能的集中化。以瑞典为例，现在有53％的记者居住在首都斯德哥尔摩。在过去的28年中，当地编辑部的数量从668家减少到273家。这种媒体集中化有什么影响？PEW Institute在美国的最新报告显示，农村社区与媒体所报道的事物有脱节的感觉。在本文中，我们假设缺少本地编辑部会导致本地新闻（印刷形式或在线形式）的消费量降低。同样，我们还测试了本地新闻消费量是否由于本地记者人数减少而减少。根据2006年和2013年瑞典的详细数据，