Um interessante estudo feito por pesquisadores suíços mostra o efeito da televisão sobre as expectativas de inflação:

“The Role of Media for Consumers’ Inflation Expectation Formation

This paper analyzes the impact of the media on consumers’ inflation expectations. We distinguish two channels through which media can influence expectations. First, the intensity of news coverage on inflation plays a role (volume channel). Second, the content of these reports matters (tone channel). Employing a unique data set capturing media reports on inflation in Germany comprising 01/1998 - 12/2006 we are able to discriminate between these two effects. We find that the volume effect generally improves the accuracy of consumer forecasts while the tone channel induces a media bias.“

Conclusões:

“(i) the effect of reporting is asymmetric: news on rising inflation induce a media bias whereas news on falling inflation don’t.

(ii) The content of news matters with respect to the time horizon it addresses: the inflation reports that transmit a message related to the present and future significantly improve the quality of expectations, whereas reports dealing with past inflation deteriorate the rationality consumers’ expectations.

(iii) Articles from newspapers narrow the gap especially if they are located in the headers of economics sections.

(iv) TV news induce a relatively strong media bias. Our results even remain if we control for possible endogeneity issues as well as shocks in real inflation figures.”

Tradicionalmente eu fico meio de pé atrás com tentativas de “matar o mensageiro”, mas certamente é bastante intuitivo que o noticiário colabore na formação de expectativas.