Media bias in women's magazines: Do advertisements influence editorial content?

Existing theoretical and empirical studies on Media Bias are subjects of controversial discussions in the literature. However, scientific literatures on Media Bias establish empirical evidence for a positive impact of advertising volume on media coverage. To get in line with the debated literature about whether biases occur, this economic paper presents an empirical analysis of a possible (commercial) Media Bias influenced by advertising expenditure in monthly women´s magazines. The results of a linear panel model regression, a panel poisson regression, as well as those of a panel negative binomial regression model show that there is a positive correlation with the amount of advertising expenditure on the coverage of a company that purchased advertisements on the women's magazines in Germany. A positive correlation between advertising volume and the nomination as well as prize winning of (cosmetic) products could also be found.