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Mass Administrative Reorganization, Media Attention, and the Paradox of Information
Author(s) -
Bertelli Anthony M.,
Sinclair J. Andrew
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
public administration review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.721
H-Index - 139
eISSN - 1540-6210
pISSN - 0033-3352
DOI - 10.1111/puar.12396
Subject(s) - salience (neuroscience) , newspaper , government (linguistics) , probit model , agency (philosophy) , argument (complex analysis) , context (archaeology) , salient , variance (accounting) , mass media , political science , heteroscedasticity , public relations , economics , econometrics , psychology , sociology , law , accounting , history , social science , linguistics , philosophy , biochemistry , chemistry , archaeology , cognitive psychology
How does media attention influence government decisions about whether to terminate independent administrative agencies? The authors argue that an agency's salience with partisan audiences has a direct effect, but a high media profile can disrupt normal government monitoring processes and obfuscate termination decisions. This argument is evaluated in the context of a recent mass administrative reorganization by the British coalition government using probit and heteroscedastic probit regression models. The evidence suggests that termination is less likely for agencies salient in newspapers popular with the government's core supporters but not those read by its minority coalition partner. We also find that agencies with greater overall newspaper salience as well as younger agencies have a higher error variance .