Covering Local Infrastructure Failure: Media Effects on Voting Behavior

• In Event: Information Flows and Policy Priorities in Local Elections

Abstract

As highlighted in national policy discussions around the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, America’s infrastructure is in a state of disrepair. Many dams, bridges, water systems, sewer systems, and other essential infrastructure have aged beyond their useful life and are at risk of failure. Local governments that have responsibility for most of these systems have often failed to invest in repair and replacement at levels adequate to maintain infrastructure performance. Common explanations point to weak support among the mass public for investments that have longer-term and widely dispersed benefits, perhaps because of limited public understanding about the severity and consequences of disrepair.

We study the effects of local news coverage on public support for infrastructure spending and on electoral accountability for infrastructure failure. As part of their role in monitoring and providing information about community conditions, local news organizations sometimes produce investigative reports that uncover infrastructure neglect and warn of possible collapse. Do these journalistic efforts shift preferences in ways that enable higher spending? Understanding the impact of investigative journalism is particularly important in light of recent massive declines in the profitability of local newsrooms, which has forced many to reduce staff or permanently close their doors.

We conduct an online survey experiment in Spring 2022 to test the effects of news coverage of infrastructure decline and failure. In our experiment, we treat respondents with an article from a local paper about an aging dam. We vary both the presence of investigative reporting about the dam’s neglect, and whether a collapse event has occurred. We measure respondents’ support for a municipal bond that would fund repair via a property tax increase, as well as candidate favorability and vote choice between an anti-bond incumbent and a pro-bond challenger for a local elected seat; we are thus able to distinguish shifts in policy preferences from electoral accountability mechanisms. Our findings shed light on value of local investigative journalism for moving public opinion on infrastructure spending and altering electoral incentives on essential public policy.

Authors

• Andrew R.L. Trexler, Duke University

• Megan Mullin, University of California, Los Angeles