BBS: Ms. Petra Laura Orešković

We invite you to the 28th and at the same time, the 3rd online Brown Bag Seminar which will take place on Thursday, July 16, 2020, at the Faculty of Economics & Business in Zagreb starting at 14:00 via Google Meet application. The cycle of the Brown Bag Seminars will be continued by Ms. Petra Laura Orešković, a doctoral student at the University of Berkeley, who will present the work "Media Bias on Television and Its Determinants".To access the Brown Bag Seminar, you have to click at https://meet.google.com/, then "Join or start a meeting" and enter "brownbagseminar" in the space provided.
 
A brief summary of the presentation:
 
The effects of media bias have been demonstrated to be able to swing elections in favor of a particular party. This paper investigates what factors determine the supply of news stories on the three major U.S. cable news channels — CNN, FOX News, and MSNBC. Using a novel dataset of chyrons, the text at the bottom of the screen, it examines what factors contribute to a story from Reuters, a newswire, being relayed on each of the networks. It introduces a new framework to investigate media slant, which is conceptualized as the omission of important information or stories clashing with the political views of the audience (or the channel). It finds that media bias indeed manifests itself through the omission of stories that have political significance and partisan value. The paper also investigates whether the identified media bias is demand-driven. Using an instrument for a decline in Fox News viewership on a given day — the existence of a NASCAR race, as the sport primarily attracts Republican viewers — it estimates whether a decrease in Fox News’ daily viewership prompts the network to omit stories harmful for the Republican party to a lesser extent. It finds that NASCAR races significantly reduce Fox News’ viewership, but they do not lead to a change in the network’s omissive behavior.
 
Ms. Petra Laura Orešković graduated in applied mathematics at Harvard University and enrolled in a doctoral program in economics at the University of Berkeley. She has collaborated with the world's leading economists such as Albert Alesina, Andrei Schleifer, and Stefania Stantcheva. Her research interests include media economics, political economy, and public sector economics. Her works in the field of media economics are inspired by experiences of direct work in the media industry, including the global CNN Network. The presented work “Media Bias on Television and Its Determinants” was awarded by the Thomas Hoopes Prize ’20.
 
Description of the Brown Bag Seminar concept :
The Brown Bag Seminar (BBS) is an informal one-hour workshop with aim of presenting research in different stages of design (ideas, rounded theoretical framework, conducted empirical research, etc.), promoting discussion and creating a stimulating environment focused on the constructive discussion between exhibitors and the rest of participants of the seminar. The basic idea of the BBS is to create a platform where at least once a month, the FEB ZG employees will have the opportunity to present the ideas and articles they work on within their scientific-research work. We invite you to respond and help with your constructive comments to exhibitors and expose by yourself the topics you are currently working on, unpublished works or present the research ideas you are thinking about.
The idea is that presentations (in English or Croatian - depending on the presenter's preference) last for 30-40 minutes, and is followed by a discussion.