ABSTRACT
That the media exert a disproportionate influence on the self-perception of society and its economic conditions is commonly taken as a given. It comes as little surprise, then, that text-mining analyses of media content have proliferated in recent years. However, journalistic content should not be confused with pure information. As the media themselves operate under a set of incentives deriving from specific economic objectives and restrictions, they introduce their own biases. This chapter explores how journalistic media transform information into news. To this end, it draws from disciplines such as journalism studies, communication science, and media economics, and relates their findings to the concept of the narrative that has gained considerable attention in economics. By putting a selection of economic news into a narrative context, a nexus between causes and effects is being purported. On this basis, economic agents form anticipations of future occurrences. The media perform an influential role in coordinating economic expectations, while introducing their own biases.
