This paper analyzes the relationship between the amount of political information and the flow of individual campaign contributions in the United States. Intuitively, individual citizens are more likely to give money to campaigns if they possess enough information about the political process, or at least about the potential recipients of donations. In this sense, the availability of different options in the media diet of citizens could affect the pattern of contributions, as it would shape the spectrum of information they can rely on. This paper studies this neglected source of variation for campaign contributions, called the informational channel. In theory, substantial volume of political news from the media has the potential to create an informed group of relatively small donors that could balance the influence of interest groups and large contributors.
First, I show that the media coverage of members of Congress from local press influences the share of in-district donations they received from individuals. Then, I collect evidence from other media channel, such as cable TV and high-speed internet, all pointing in the same direction of a causal effect of political knowledge on individual donations. Finally, I tentatively define the scope conditions for a change in the media landscape to have an impact on individual donations, as well as attempting to distinguish between the potential effect of “ideological” (e.g., cable TV) and “neutral” (e.g., local press) media channels.