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Title: Technology, Media, and Political Change

Citation Type: Dissertation/Thesis

Publication Year: 2020

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Abstract: My dissertation studies the political impacts of media and information technologies in American history. The first chapter employs novel data to examine the electric telegraph’s impacts on political participation and news coverage in the mid-19th century America. I use proximity to daily newspapers with telegraphic connection to Washington to generate plausibly exogenous variation in access to telegraphed news from Washington. I find that access to Washington news with less delay increased presidential election turnout. Text analysis on historical newspapers shows that the improved access to news from Washington led newspapers to cover more national political news, including coverage of Congress, the presidency, and sectional divisions involving slavery. The results suggest that the telegraph made newspapers less parochial, facilitated a national conversation and increased political participation. The second chapter investigates the political impacts of the first populist radio personality in American history. Father Charles Coughlin blended populist demagoguery, antiSemitism, and fascist sympathies to create a hugely popular radio program that attracted tens of millions of listeners throughout the 1930s. I digitized unique data on Father Coughlin’s radio network. Exploiting topography to generate plausibly exogenous variation in radio . . .

Url: http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/39566/20/Tianyi Wang Final ETD.pdf

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Authors: Wang, Tianyi

Institution: University of Pittsburgh

Department: Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences

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Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Other

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