Universität zu Köln

Kerkhof, Anna and Münster, Johannes (2019). Detecting coverage bias in user-generated content. J. Media Econ., 32 (3-4). S. 99 - 131. ABINGDON: ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD. ISSN 1532-7736

Full text not available from this repository.

Abstract

The importance of user-generated content is growing as media consumption is moving online; yet, investigations of media bias on user-generated content platforms are rare. We develop a novel procedure to detect coverage bias - i.e., bias in the amount of coverage certain topics or issues receive - on user-generated content platforms. We proceed in two steps. First, we focus on a sample of homogeneous observations and control for observable differences. Second, we compare the coverage of our observations between different language versions of the same platform in a difference-in-differences framework, which allows us to disentangle coverage bias from unobserved heterogeneity between observations. We apply our procedure to Wikipedia and examine whether it has a coverage bias in its biographies of German (and French) Members of Parliament (MPs). Our analysis reveals a small to medium size coverage bias against MPs from the center-left parties in Germany and in France. A plausible explanation are partisan contributions to the Wikipedia biographies, as we show by analyzing patterns of authorship and Wikipedia's talk pages for the German case. Practical implications of our results include raising users' awareness of coverage bias when searching for and processing information obtained on user-generated content platforms.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID ORCID Put Code Kerkhof, Anna UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Münster, Johannes UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED
URN:	urn:nbn:de:hbz:38-586735
DOI:	10.1080/08997764.2021.1903168
Journal or Publication Title:	J. Media Econ.
Volume:	32
Number:	3-4
Page Range:	S. 99 - 131
Date:	2019
Publisher:	ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD
Place of Publication:	ABINGDON
ISSN:	1532-7736
Language:	English
Faculty:	Faculty of Management, Economy and Social Sciences
Divisions:	Center of Excellence C-SEB Faculty of Management, Economics and Social Sciences > Economics > Microeconomics, Institutions and markets > Professorship 5 for Economics
Subjects:	Economics
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Keywords Language NEWS Multiple languages Communication; Economics Multiple languages
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	http://kups.ub.uni-koeln.de/id/eprint/58673