Natural Disasters, Mass Media and

Political Accountability

Brian Albrecht, Giulio Bonazzi, Laura Hopkins

June 13, 2014

Abstract

A growing field has developed that examines the interplay between

natural disaster, politicians, and media. Less work has been done to

examine the role of politicians in influencing the media during times of

natural disasters. The decisions made by politicians can greatly affect

the extent of damage from a disaster. The media can influence the

voters with information about the politician’s actions. This creates

an incentive for the politician to provide support before and after a

disaster. With a simple model, we show that under certain conditions

an equilibrium exists in which an opportunistic politician will (1) exert

effort to help a disaster, (2) bribe the media to cover up the damage,

and (3) do nothing. All three with occur with positive probability.

1

“Whoever controls the media,

controls the mind”

Jim Morrison

1 Introduction

In the summer of 2010 with large parts of Russian forests up in the flames,

the Russian media reportedly failed to provide real-time updates of massive

wildfires (Bovt 2010). Close to 56,000 people in Russia died as a result of the

major heat-wave and wildfires (Guha-Sapir et al. 2011, 15). 35 people died

directly from the wildfires and around 800 homes burned down (Williams

et al. 2011, 6). One estimate puts the damage at 1.5% of Russian GDP

(US$3.6 billion), including roughly 1/3rd of wheat production is included

(Porfiriev 2014, 92). Other estimates, which neglect the loss of crops, put

the estimate at 0.2% of GDP (ibid.).

2010 was not the only time in recent history that major wildfires torched

Russia. In 2003, 2008, and 2012, wildfires covered more area than in 2010

(Shvidenko and Schepaschenko 2013, 685). In these case, there has been no

suggestion of media distortion. However, each year was different and hard to

compare. As Quiroz-Flores and Smith note (2012), disasters never come with

a counter-factual and rarely even have a comparable event. No two events

are the same and- besides earthquakes- there is no universal standard for

measuring the level of a disaster. Even the Richter scale is far from perfect

in comparing earthquakes, as the direction and duration of the tremor are

crucial to understanding their impact. This lack of comparability from one

2

disaster to the next is an obstacle to understanding the impact of govern-

mental effort on disaster mitigation.

The relationship between natural disasters and governments is subtle.

Initial actions of governments can greatly impact the extent of a a disaster.

On the one hand, governments can act to prevent the impact of a disaster,

should one occur (ex-ante). On the other hand, the government can respond

to the situation following a disaster with palliative treatment (ex-post). This

endogeneity creates further complications for researchers attempting to un-

cover the actions of governments.

If the government captures the media to suppress reports of a natural

disaster, evidence will clearly be hard to come by. We have collected some

anecdotal evidence where governments had an interest in changing the flow

of news, through full media capture or modification. Although these present

different contexts and the extent of the media capture changes, they all have

a common pattern: preventing the truth from reaching the citizens.

Bearing in mind the difficulties in comparing one disaster to another,

we consider the differences in the flows of information that Chinese media

passed during the 2003 Sever Acute Respiritory Syndrome (SARS) epidemic

and the Sichuan earthquake in 2008. The Chinese media is assumed to be

heavily captured. In the case of the SARS outbreak, the Chinese government

limited the flow of information to avoid negative economic consequences and

internal instability (Zhang 2003).

In 2008 a massive earthquake hit the region of Sichuan. The Beijing’s Central

Propaganda Department has then decided to transmit only proregime news.

This was mainly because the incompetence of the local government was the

3

cause of schools and buldings collapse (John J. Tkacik 2008) .

In 2011, an earthquake in Japan led to severe nuclear disaster. The

Japanese government quickly moved to prevent journalists from accessing the

area close to the reactor, and raised the legally acceptable level of exposure to

radiation. Further, the government introduced a new law that expanded the

definition of official secrets to cover the nuclear disaster, preventing public

access to information (WashingtonBlog 2013).

Whilst these stories do not provide evidence of collusion between media

and the government in the event of a natural disaster, they do raise ques-

tions. When will the government exert effort to prevent or respond to a

natural disaster? What trade-off does the government face between these

two actions?

This paper develops a model for analyzing such questions. We build on

two areas of research which social scientists have heavily analyzed in the past:

(1) the role of institutions in alleviating the damage of disasters and (2) the

role of media in influencing policies. In the past decade or so, a literature

has started to join these two; explaining the role of media in influencing

policies to deal with a disaster. Political scientists have been the driving

figures behind this analysis of media and disaster policies, often looking at

cross-country surveys. Economists have also contributed with more formal

models. We follow this recent economics work and build a simple model for

understanding the different factors at play between politicians, the media,

and voters before and after a disaster strikes (Besley and Burgess 2002; Besley

and Prat 2006; Choe and Raschky 2011).

4

2 Institutions, Natural Disasters and Media

Going back to Amartya Sen’s work, economists and political scientists have

studied the effect of political institutions on natural disaster relief (Sen 1981).

Political institutions can cut disaster casualties, sometimes greatly (Cavallo

and Noy 2009, 13). “Institutions play a role in shielding the population from

natural-disaster death,” even though countries with better institutions are

not less likely to experience disasters in the first place (Kahn 2005, 283).

There is good reason to believe that governments want to limit the dam-

age from natural disasters. Citizens attempt to hold politicians accountable

when disaster strikes, even for things that are not controlled by the politi-

cians, such as natural disasters or shark attacks (Achen and Bartels 2004).

Cross-country analysis suggests that natural disasters increase instability, es-

pecially among authoritarian regimes (Quiroz-Flores and Smith 2012). Even

political regimes like Russia’s under Putin and Medvedev could feel this pres-

sure. This does not only occur in authoritarian regimes. In the United States,

voters punish elected officials at all levels over natural disasters (Malhotra

and Kuo 2009; Gasper and Reeves 2011).

It is also largely recognized the important role that media play in gov-

ernment accountability. Whether or not the media reports on an event can

have a great impact on the amount of aid spent. For example, disasters that

occur during major newsworthy events, such as the Olympics, receive less

aid in the United States than events that are not competing for news atten-

tion. The causation likely does not come from the Olympics. Clearly, media

brings attention to disasters which directly or indirectly influences politicians

5

(Eisensee and Stromberg 2007).

Besley and Burgess show that governments are more responsive to falls

in food production and flood damage in areas with higher newspaper cir-

culation (2002). In their model, voters learn about politicians through the

media. Since the media can amplify the signal that a politician is sending to

their ultimate target, voters, the media can encourage more support after a

disaster.

An emerging literature has developed theoretical models to investigate

how media influence political outcomes. The mechanism according to which

media influence voters is very simple: if, to vote, people look for information

about politicians, then media, by providing information, might be able to

influence the voting decision (Stromberg 2007). A more informed electorate

leads to a more responsive government (Besley and Burgess 2002).

Clearly, a responsible media encourages politicians to work, help voters,

and limit the disaster damage. However, that is not the only direction of

influence. If politicians cannot easily limit the disaster, maybe they can

limit the amount that people know about it. The most obvious way to limit

knowledge is by restricting media coverage. What the citizens do not know

cannot hurt the politician. A restricted media might be a good thing for a

politician.

The media helps influence policies. This saves lives by procuring resources

after a disaster has struck. While disaster relief does increase with the sever-

ity, other factors, such as media coverage, drive a large part of the relief

efforts (Stromberg 2007, 221). Therefore, when analyzing political actions

related to natural disasters, it is important to recognize the role of media. A

6

restricted media hurts citizens and voters.

For example, Besley and Prat develop a model where politicians can

choose to “capture” the media (2006). If newspapers are simple profit-

maximizers, any bribe equal to the profits a media outlet could earn as a

monopoly will result in the media withholding information. Because any

one firm can break the news, capture is expensive even where it is possible.

In Peru, for example, the media cost roughly 100 times as much as judges

and politicians to bribe (McMillan and Zoido 2004). This capture manipu-

lates the media reports and ensures that bad news about a politician does

not reach voters. Politicians can easily manipulate the news if the media

is not independent. Media capture is not a recent phenomenon. Empirical

evidence show that the relationship between media and government char-

acterizes many countries, such as Italy, Mexico, Thailand (Besley and Prat

2006).

While bribing is the clearest example of media manipulation, politicians

can do more. Using data from fieldwork in Romania, Leeson and Coyne show

the many ways that politicians can manipulate media reports (Leeson and

Coyne 2005). While direct control through ownership is the most obvious

way, Leeson and Coyne point out that the government owns much of the

infrastructure that media outlets rely on. Other forms of pressure include

financial pressure through taxes and ad-revenue and control over entry into

the media market. Clearly, thinking of media manipulation as a result of

only bribes or state-ownership leaves something out. Politicians have many

levers of varying impact to manipulate the information that reaches voters.

Since a politician ultimately cares about voters, it is reasonable to believe he

7

will use those levers if he has incentives too.

When do politicians have the incentive to manipulate the media? This

paper develops a simple model to analyze this relationship between media,

political institutions, and disaster relief.

8

3 Model Setup

We use a retrospective voting model similar to the one used in Besley and

Prat (2006). As in their paper, we develop a model that includes a politician,

P , a media outlet, M , and a homogeneous set of voters, V . Unlike Besley and

Prat, however, the politician in our model is opportunistic and not selected

from a set“good” and “bad” politicians.

Our aim is to discover a setting of complete information in which there

exists an equilibrium whereby the politician mixes across different actions,

sometimes doing the “good” thing and sometimes the “bad”, and sometimes

being “lazy”.

The politician has three actions. He can do nothing about the disaster

(“lazy politician”). He can take costly preemptive actions to reduce the

likelihood of a disaster (“good politician”). He can bribe the media to cover

up a disaster (“bad/ corrupt politician”). The media has two actions. It can

report there has been a natural disaster or not report. The voters also have

two actions. They can reelect the incumbent politician or they can vote in a

challenger.

An extended form representation of the model is included on pages 22

and 23 for reference. The timing is such that:

1. The incumbent takes an action, Ap ∈ {N,E, T}:

• N : the politician does nothing; the cost of N is 0;

• E: the politician exerts effort to reduce the likelihood of a natural

disaster; cost of E is e;

• T : the politician offers a bribe to the media; cost of T is t.

9

2. In the event a bribe is offered, the media chooses to accept or reject it.

3. Nature creates a natural disaster with probability d, unless the politi-

cian took preemptive action. In that case, the probability is s, such

that s < d.

4. The media reports that there has been a natural disaster or does not

report a natural disaster, AM ∈ {θ, ∅}.

5. The voters observe the message of the media and vote for the incumbent

or the challenger, AV ∈ {I, C}.

6. Payoffs are realized.

While we model the politician’s action, E, as reducing the probability of

a disaster, it could easily be interpreted as the probability that any single

person is affected by the disaster. This would be more in line with the

examples from earlier where politicians can reduce the damage of a disaster

and not the actual disaster itself.

Voters receive all of their information from the media. They cannot tell

the difference between no report because the media accepted a bribed and

no report because the natural disaster did not occur. When they see a report

of a disaster, they are not sure that the politician exerted effort to reduce

the likelihood of this or not. We denote the information set of no report as

empty, ∅, and that of the report of a disaster as θ.

The media receives an exogenous benefit from reporting the truth, `. This

could come from future loss of readership, since the truth is revealed when

payoffs are realized. It could also be a loss from an intrinsic motivation for

honest reporting. Either way, we treat it as exogenous.

10

We assume that the accepted bribe is credible. If the media reports

the disaster after accepting the bribe, the bribe is revoked. The reverse

commitment is also true, such that the politician is committed to paying the

bribe if the media withholds reporting the disaster.

The politician gains rents, R, from being in office. Where the challenger is

elected, he receives 0. The media has revenues ` when they print the correct

news story, and 0 otherwise. The voter receives g utility from the incumbent

where he took preemptive action i.e. a ”good” politician; b where he was

”lazy” or ”bad”; and x from a challenger, such that g > x > b. When a

natural disaster occurs, the voter suffers damages D.

Since the setting is retrospective, payoffs are not realized at the time of

the reelection decision. The payoffs are observed in the period following the

end of the game.

The model has two parts. The first is a bargaining game between the

politician and the media. The second part is the voting game. Together,

these two parts determine the equilibrium of the overall game.

Ours is not a game of adverse selection. It is a game of complete but

imperfect information, where the voters are limited in their ability to identify

the actions of the politician.

The full extensive form of the game is included in the Appendix for clarity.

11

4 Finding Equilibria

Elimation of dominated strategies

Proposition 1: The politician never offers a bribe that the media

rejects

The media receives revenue ` from reporting the news of a disaster, and zero

otherwise. The media can choose to accept or reject a bribe when offered.

In equilibrium, the politician induces acceptance by offering a bribe of an

amount to cover the media’s potential revenue ` from reporting. Since the

politician moves first and can choose an amount to bribe, he will either offer

no bribe or the lowest amount possible to capture the media. In our model,

this is simply `. This minimum amount could be endogenous. For example, it

could be a function of the number of media outlets, expected media revenue,

and transactions costs between the media and politician (Besley and Prat

2006).

The transfer is executed ex-post, such that the media has a dominant

strategy to suppress a signal of a natural disaster, once the bribe has been

accepted.

Proposition 2: The media always reports the truth if it has not

been captured.

Since the media always has perfect and complete information, it knows at

which decision node it is. Therefore, the media never has to guess. Since the

media gets utility from reporting the truth from future revenues or prestige,

12

it has a dominant strategy to report when a it observes a signal of the natural

disaster and has not been bribed. As stated above, if the politician offers a

bribe of ` the media will accept it and suppress any report of the disaster.

Taking Proposition 1 and 2 into account, the media has a dominant strategy.

The media should accept the bribe and report nothing if the bribe is at least

as large as its lost revenue (t ≥ `). The media should report the truth if the

bribe is less than its lost revenue t < `. This simple point eliminates many

of the possible branches from any equilibrium strategy.

Pure strategy equilibria

Since the media has a dominant strategy of accepting the bribe if it is at least

as large as `, and otherwise reporting a disaster if it strikes, and reporting

nothing if it does not, the game reduces to play between the voters and the

politician. The media simply adds a noise into the system. Now the voters

don’t know whether a disaster strikes because the politician did nothing or

did something, but there was not a disaster. Similarly, if there is no report,

the voters don’t know if it was because the politician did nothing, exerted

effort, or bribed the media. Thinking about the game in these terms makes

the equilibrium strategies more obvious.

Proposition 3: No equilibrium exist where the politician always

bribes the media.

Contrary to Besley and Pratt (2006), our model does not include an equi-

librium where the politician always bribes the media. If the media is always

13

bribing the media, the voter is best off always voting for the challenger, no

matter what his signal is. Since the politician incurs a cost in bribing, he is

better off doing nothing. The difference between our model and theirs comes

from our assumptions about information. Their game involved incomplete

information where the voters didn’t know the extent of the bribing. Since

voters in our model have complete information, in equilibrium they know the

proportion of the time the media is being bribed.

The real world is somewhere in between our model and theirs. Unless the

required bribe amount is zero, it is unreasonable to believe the media will

always be bribed. Since the voters will know that the media is always bribed,

the politician cannot persuade them with the media. The media provides no

information to the voter and loses its effectiveness. The politician must only

bribe the media up to a certain amount, if he does at all, so that the media

remains credible and useful to the voters.

Proposition 4: No equilibrium exists where the voters always re-

elect the incumbent.

Suppose the cost of the action E is quite low. At first it might seem reason-

able that the politician will always do E and the voters will always vote for

the incumbent. However, if the voters always vote for the incumbent, even

if they receive news of a disaster, the incumbent has an incentive to deviate.

As long as the cost of effort is above zero, the politician will be better off

doing nothing and still winning the election. Therefore, the voters’ potential

strategy {I, I} cannot be part of an equilibrium.

This makes sense. If the voters vote for the incumbent no matter what,

14

they lose their chance to act as a check on the politicians. By sometimes

voting for the challenger, the voters can provide incentives for the politician

to exert effort, assuming the effort is not too costly. Again, this is contrary to

Besley and Pratt (2006). In their model, equilibria exist where the politician

always bribe the media and the voters always reelect the incumbent.

Proposition 5: No equilibrium exists where the politician always

exerts effort.

If the politician is always exerting effort, the voters have an incentive to

vote for him. This exists even if they know a disaster struck. They prefer a

politician who put in effort, even if the disaster struck. This leads the voters

to reelect, no matter what their signal is. However, as we showed above, this

creates an incentive for the politician to do nothing, since the voters vote for

him anyway.

Mixed strategy equilibrium

Although certain pure strategies are ruled out, we look for the possibility of a

mixed strategy equilibrium. Such an equilibrium allows for different actions

to be played from both players. With a certain probability the politician

will do each action a certain probability. Also, the voter will vote for the

incumbent with a certain probability, given his information from the media.

A mix strategy captures some of the

The voter receives information from the media. The voter will receive

information regarding a natural disaster θ, or receive no signal ∅. The voter

15

mixes his strategy for voting in the incumbent politician at each information

set.

The equilibrium conditions for which the voter is indifferent between re-

electing the incumbent politician and voting for the challenger are 1:

πe =x− bg − b

πt =(d− s)(g − x)

d(g − b)

For the voter to play a mixed strategy, it must be that the probability

that the incumbent exerted effort πe, offsets the uncertainty faced by the

voter. Specifically, πe must be equal to the ratio of the reduction in utility

caused by voting in a lazy politician, compared with a challenger or good

politician.

The politician plays a mixed strategy to equate his expected payoffs under

each of his actions.

Let y be the probability a voter votes for the incumbent given a report of

a natural disaster θ, and z be the probability a votes votes for the incumbent

give no report ∅.

Then, the expected utility of the politician from each action:

N : dyR + (1 + d)zR

E : sy(R) + (1− s)z(R)− e

T : zR− t

The equilibrium conditions for which the politician is indifferent between

1Details in the appendix

16

his three possible actions are 2:

y = z − e

R(d− s)

y = z − t

dR

y = z +e− tsR

which yields the following property of an equilibrium in which the politi-

cian plays a mixed strategy:

e

t=d− sd

For a mixed strategy equilibrium to exist for the politician, the ratio of

the relative costs between taking action E and action T ( et) must be equal

to the percentage change in probability of a disaster from taking action E.

In the extreme, where t = e, we see that for a mixed strategy equilibrium to

exist, action E must lead to a 0 probability of disaster.

In this mixed strategy equilibrium, voters provide a check so that politi-

cians sometimes do effort. However, their imperfect information prevents

the voters from always pressuring the politician. This equilibrium allows for

voters who know that the media is sometimes untruthful, yet nevertheless

still sometimes vote for the incumbent.

2Details in the appendix

17

5 Extensions

Our simple model highlights some important parts that are not included in

others. Since we have a mixed strategy equilibrium, our model allows for

probabilistic actions from voters and politicians. This is not an option in

other models (Besley and Prat 2006).

However, our simple model is lacking in some ways and could be improved

with further extensions. For example, we assume that all voters receive all

of their information through the media. While this is possible for people

who are unaffected by a natural disaster, it is unrealistic for those people

who are affected. The affected people experience the damage first-hand. A

possible simple extension would be to include two groups of voters: affected

who observe the disaster directly and unaffected who rely on the media.

This would be to follow the model in Besley and Burgess (2002). Our game,

however, concerns only the unaffected group, or those who learn about the

disaster through the media.

Also, we treat the loss from reporting the incorrect news as exogenous.

A possible extension would be to endogenize the loss, as in Besley and Prat

(2006). In their paper, t is a function of the number of other media outlets

that must be bribed, the media’s outside option from reporting, and trans-

actions costs between the politician and the media. This simple extension

would fit easily into our model.

Finally, our system of voting is not ideal. The voters vote based on what

the politician did last period. Ideally, voters would decide based on expec-

tations about next period. A simple extension would turn our model into

18

an adverse selection model. Different types of politicians will take different

actions, but the voters only know about the outcomes.

These simple extensions would provide a more realistic exposition of the

situation between politicians, media, and voters around a natural disaster.

19

Appendix

Finding equilibrium conditions, voter.

The voter plays a mixed strategy between voting for the incumbent and

voting for the challenger at each information set.

Let y be the probability that the voter selects the incumbent where he

receives a report of a disaster.

Let z be the probability that the voter selects the incumbent where he

does not receive a report of a disaster.

At ∅: Where the voter does not receive a report of a natural diaster, his

expected utility from voting in the incumbent is:

EU∅I = (1− πe − πt)(1− d)(b) + πe(1− s)(g) + πt(b−D)

and from the challenger:

EU∅C(1− πe − πt)(1− d)(x) + πe(1− s)(x) + πt(x−D)

Equating these expected utilities yields:

(1− πe − πt)(1− d)(b− x) + πe(1− s)(g − x) + πt(b− x) = 0

(V equilibrium condition 1)

At θ: Where the voter receives a report of a natural disaster, his expected

utility from voting in the incumbent is:

20

EU θI = (1− πe− πt)d(b−D) + πes(g −D)

and from the challenger:

EU θC = (1− πe − πt)d(x−D) + πes(x−D)

This yields the equality condition:

(1− πe − πt)d(b− x) + πes(g − x) = 0 (V equilibrium condition 2)

Equating these two conditions yields:

(1− πe − πt)(b− x) + πe(g − x) + πt(b− x) = 0

Rearranging

(b− x) = b− πeg

Solving for πe

πe =b− xb− g

Substituting πe into the condition at ∅ solves for πt

πt =(d− s)(g − x)

d(g − b)

21

Finding equilibrium conditions, politician.

The politician plays a mixed strategy, equating the expected utility from

each of each three actions, Ap ∈ N,E,R.

EUPN = dy(R) + (1− d)z(R) (Expected utility from playing N)

EUPE = sy(R) + (1− s)z(R)− e (Expected utility from playing E)

EUPT = z(R)− t (Expected utility from playing T )

Equating EUPN and EUP

E yields:

dy(R) + (1− d)z(R) = sy(R) + (1− s)z(R)− e

dyR + (1− d)zR = Rsy + rZ − szR− e

dyR− syR = dzR− szR− e (P equilibrium condition 1)

yR(d− s) = zR(d− s)− e

y = z − e

R(d− s)

Equating EUPN and EUP

T yields:

22

dyR + (1− d)zR = zR− t

dR(z − y) = t (P equilibrium condition 2)

y = z − t

dR

Equating EUPE and EUP

T yields:

sy(R) + (1− s)z(R)− e = z(R)− t

syR = e− t+ szR (P equilibrium condition 3)

y = z +e− tsR

Substiting the result from P equilibrium condition 1 into that for P equi-

librium 2, we have:

e

t=d− sd

23

N  

N  

M

M

M

M

V

V

V

V

V

V

V

V

Nothing  

Effort   Disaster^  

Report*  

Report*  

Report*  

Report*  

Incumbent**  

Incumbent**  

Incumbent**  

Incumbent**  

Incumbent  

P  

Transfer  

Incumbent**  

Incumbent  

Incumbent  

R , l, b-D

0 , l, x-D

R-e , 0, g -e , 0, x

R-e , l, g

-e , l, x

R, 0, b-D

0, 0, x-D

R , 0, b

0, 0, x

0, l, x

R , l, b

R-e , l, g-D -e , l, x-D

-e , 0, x-D

R-e , 0, g-D

Extensive  form  game  

ConAnued  on  the  following  page  

22,23

24

N  

M

N  

VReport*  

Incumbent**  

M

V

VIncumbent**  

M

V

Report*  

Incumbent**  

Incumbent**  

M

V

V

Report*  

Incumbent**  

Incumbent**  

Incumbent**  

M

V

V

Transfer  

Incumbent**  

R, l, x-D 0 , l, b-D

R-t , t, b-D

-t , t, x-D

R , 0, x

0 , 0, b

R-t , t, x

-t , t, b

R , l, b-D

0 , l, x-D

R , 0, b-D 0 , 0, x-D

R , 0, b

0 , 0, x

R , l, b 0 , l, x

^  the  complementary  acAon  is  no  disaster  *complementary  acAon  is  no  report  **  complementary  acAon  is  voAng  for  a  challenger  

P:  PoliAcian  M:  Media  N:  Nature  V:  Voter  

22,23

25

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