Measuring Social Benefits of Media Coverage : How Coverage of Climate Change Affects Behavior

It has been well-documented that beliefs and actions can be affected by media coverage. In this paper, I investigate a case of this phenomenon where coverage of a large social problem – climate change – could create a potentially large social benefit – reduction of carbon emissions. Specifically, I study the effect of newspaper coverage of climate change on individual driving behaviors, which are a major source of carbon emissions. I first construct a measure of the tone of newspaper coverage about climate change based on comparisons of environmental and skeptical texts. I then use this measure, along with detailed information about driving patterns, to test whether households’ travel decisions are affected by the coverage that they received recently. I find that recently receiving environmental coverage leads households to make environmentally friendly travel decisions. In cases where there is a good substitute available, the effect of an article can be as much as a third of a gallon of gasoline per day per household