Strategic communication: screening and signaling in a freelance journalist - editor game

Abstract

We model strategic communication as a two-period game between an advisor and a decision maker, in which the advisor has private information on a policy-relevant state of the world but does not know the motives of the decision maker. If the advisor has the desire to please the decision maker and there is a positive probability that the decision maker values information, we identify different modes of communication that lead to information disclosure. We discuss our results in the context of a freelance journalist - editor game. Among the results is that if the journalist sufficiently values second period payoff, no information is transmitted in period one and the only equilibria implies information manipulation. Additionally, we show that the quality of the communication process does not depend on who manipulates the information although welfare does.Strategic Communication, Conformity, Screening, Signaling; Mass Media