Market Forces and News Media in Muslim Countries

Abstract

In this paper, we analyze media consumption in nine predominantly Muslim countries, drawing on data from the 2002 Gallup Poll of the Islamic World. We first show that news consumers tend to gravitate towards sources with a perspective similar to their own. We then show that consumers with pro-U.S. priors tend to regard CNN as significantly higher quality and Al Jazeera as significantly lower quality, consistent with inferences about quality driving the preference for like-minded sources. Finally, we present evidence on the extent to which firms target news to satisfy the preferences of their consumers.