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  5. Independent Media, Propaganda, and Religiosity: Evidence from Poland

American Economic Journal:
Applied Economics

ISSN 1945-7782 (Print) | ISSN 1945-7790 (Online)

Independent Media, Propaganda, and Religiosity: Evidence from Poland

  • Irena Grosfeld
  • Etienne Madinier
  • Seyhun Orcan Sakalli
  • Ekaterina Zhuravskaya
American Economic Journal: Applied Economics (Forthcoming)

Abstract

Exploring a drastic change in media landscape in Poland, we show that mainstream media can significantly affect religious participation. After nationalist populist party PiS came to power in 2015, news on state and private independent TV diverged due to propaganda on state TV, resulting in a switch of some of its audience to independent TV. Municipalities with access to independent TV continued to follow a long-term secularization trend, while municipalities with access only to state TV experienced a reversal of this trend. An online experiment sheds light on the mechanisms underlying the effect of exposure to independent news on religiosity.

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