No Media, No Voters? The Relationship between News Deserts and Voting Abstention

Abstract

Local journalism has suffered major transformations as traditional business models collapse and habits of news consumption change. A lack of funding and successive economic crises have brought about, on a global scale, the shutdown of many news outlets in smaller territories. These areas are becoming “news deserts”, a phenomenon that has been mapped in Brazil and Portugal. Territories without news could see an uptick in social problems such as disinformation, populism, and democratic crises, especially because of voting abstention. Background: This paper aims to analyze the relationship between news deserts and democracy, focusing on how news deserts correlate with voting abstention rates in Brazil and Portugal. Methods: A literature review was carried out including data from news deserts in both countries. The abstention rates in this analysis concern national elections held in 2022. A correlation analysis using binary logistic regression was deployed comparing municipalities with the highest and the lowest abstention rates. Results: In both countries, it was not possible to assess whether there was a correlation between abstention rates and the existence of news deserts. Conclusions: While the absence of media outlets is not correlated with the mobilization of citizens to vote, other variables may be affecting voters’ abstention behaviors.

Keywords

• news deserts
• journalism crisis
• local journalism
• democracy
• abstention rates