Interesting Article. The Dynamics of the Debate About Gay Rights: Evidence from US Newspapers

Alan Manning , Paolo Masella, The Dynamics of the Debate About Gay Rights: Evidence from US Newspapers, The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Volume 39, Issue 2, July 2023, Pages 456–492, https://doi.org/10.1093/jleo/ewab043

Abstract

Changing attitudes are the result of a battle for hearts and minds in which agents for and against change try to persuade others. We know very little about this process. We develop a methodology for measuring the intensity and the contents of media coverage for and against an idea which we apply to attitudes to gay rights. We uncover several stylized facts: First, the diffusion process of both pro- and anti-gay rights language in the US newspapers follow an S-shaped pattern, characteristic of diffusion processes. Anti-gay rights coverage starts its diffusion process later but then catches up. Second, in the year gay marriages are introduced, we observe a dramatic increase in coverage of both pro- and anti-gay rights language; the increase in the latter is larger. The rise in coverage is still present in the 3 years after the institutional change. Third, there is substantial spatial autocorrelation in media coverage (JEL J15, Z1).

See: https://academic.oup.com/jleo/article-abstract/39/2/456/6511916