Local Media and the Shaping of Social Norms: Evidence from the Ebola outbreak

TL;DR

This study investigates how local media, especially community radio, influences social norms and health behaviors during the Ebola outbreak in Guinea, demonstrating that local media access significantly reduced Ebola cases by promoting coordinated social actions.

Contribution

It provides empirical evidence that local media impacts social norms and health outcomes, highlighting the importance of geographically targeted media in epidemic control.

Findings

Access to local community radio reduced Ebola cases by 13%.

Local media effects are driven by geographic proximity, not ethnic boundaries.

Coordination of social behaviors through local media contributed to epidemic mitigation.

Abstract

Media around the world is disseminated at the national level as well as at the local level. While the capacity of media to shape preferences and behavior has been widely recognized, less is known about the differential impacts of local media. Local media may have particularly important effects on social norms due to the provision of locally relevant information that becomes common knowledge in a community. I examine this possibility in a high-stakes context: the Ebola epidemic in Guinea. I exploit quasi-random variation in access to distinct media outlets and the timing of a public-health campaign on community radio. I find that 13% of Ebola cases would have been prevented if places with access to neighboring community radio stations had instead their own. This is driven by radio stations' locality, not ethno-linguistic boundaries, and by coordination in social behaviors sanctioned locally.