How does the attention economy keep corrupt politicians in power?
Media saturation, money, and incumbency let corrupt leaders turn control of attention into lasting, hidden influence.
Hypotheses.
What the paper argues, written so it can be tested.
- H1
When a corruption scandal is about to break or is breaking, the officials involved put out more ads, announcements, and friendly stories, and the scandal gets a smaller share of the coverage.
- H2
Officials with more undisclosed money behind them and longer time in office see scandal coverage fade faster, and they keep their seats more often after a scandal.
The model.
Three levers feed one loop. Media saturation, dark money, and incumbency crowd public attention, and algorithms amplify whatever is loudest. Scrutiny loses out to scandal fatigue and weaker watchdogs, so the official keeps power, and kept power adds to incumbency.
Partial abstract.
How saturation coverage, dark money, and microtargeting crowd out scrutiny as investigative journalism declines. The paper argues that scandal fatigue and algorithmic amplification let incumbents turn attention into durable influence.
How the Attention Economy Lets Corrupt Politicians Keep Power and Evade Scrutiny
Key sources
- Mayhew, D. R. (1974). Congress: The electoral connection.
- Mayer, J. (2016). Dark money: The hidden history of the billionaires behind the rise of the radical right.
- Boczkowski, P. J. (2021). Abundance: On the experience of living in a world of information plenty.
How we’ll test it.
No results yet. This is the plan: the data, the measure, and what would count as support.
The data
Corruption cases such as the Householder scandal in Ohio, with each official’s ad spending, press releases, and disclosed and undisclosed funding, next to the news coverage before and after the case broke.
The measure
The share of coverage about the scandal against the official’s own messaging, how fast scandal coverage fades, and whether the official keeps office.
What would count as support
Officials who spend more, rely on more hidden money, and have held office longer crowd out scandal coverage faster and keep their seats more often than similar officials without those advantages.
How it connects to Pulp.
Pulp’s digital civics work.
Also in Attention
- Who controls attention once it becomes a currency?
J.L., Princeton
Doing work like this?
Students from any school or field, and mentors from academia or industry: get in touch.