conclusions drawn by Leeson (2008) is that low media freedom is associated with low political participation and poor political knowledge. And countries with less-regulated and more privately-owned media have larger politically active and knowledgeable population.

Furthermore, existing media research pays particular attention to the power of media to encourage political accountability. For instance, Voltmer (2009) discusses how the role played by media in both recently established and older democracies can be an indicator of a democracy’s strength, especially with regards to encouraging government accountability and public awareness. Results of this research demonstrate that although media is often criticized for having close ties to governments, it can serve as an effective watchdog for political accountability and good governance. Similarly, Francken et al. (2009) study the relationship between media and capture of public expenditures on education, using 2002-2003 survey data on the level of reach of the public spending on education to local schools. The study demonstrates that media – conditional on the population characteristics and their levels of literacy – can have an effect on the extent of corruption in a country. In turn, Olper and Swinnen (2013) focus on the influence of mass media competition on agricultural policy. These researchers find a significant relationship between the increase in the media diffusion and the changes in agricultural policies in both developed and less developed economies. Furthermore, the authors demonstrate that the larger the share of an economy’s population that is affected by a certain policy, the larger is the mass media coverage of this policy.

Notably, substantial research explores the theme of media ownership and free press. Particular attention to this subject is drawn by the research of Djankov et al. (2001), investigating the relationship between media ownership and press freedom focusing on political, economic and social outcomes. The authors find that countries where more media is state-owned have less free press, lower level of governance and market development as well as fewer political rights for citizens and substantially lower outcomes in the areas of education and health. Moreover, the authors argue that newspapers bear even stronger adverse effects on political freedom than television. Furthermore, Brunetti and Weder (2003) demonstrate a negative association between free press and levels of corruption, describing media as a “platform for the private sector to voice complaints” about detrimental effects of extortive corruption on business.

Media is a powerful channel of information and influence with an ability to impact political decisions and shape public opinion. By drawing attention to the most important and contentious issues, media fosters government accountability and facilitates better regulation, essential for economic growth and private sector development. However, the degree of its influence on regulatory processes in an economy is conditional on factors such as strength of democratic institutions, freedom of speech, independence of media, geographical coverage of press and access to information. Furthermore, both the breadth of media attention and its impact on policy making often depend on strategic interests of political actors.

In the past decades, there has been a growing interest in the analysis of the role of media in policy-making processes. And numerous studies assessed the impact of media on politics and governance. However, limited research has been carried out on media’s potential influence on business regulatory reforms. Furthermore, media’s impact (if any) on the private sector development and growth has not yet been explored. This paper aims to contribute to the existing body of media research with the primary goal of analyzing the relationship between media coverage of _Doing Business_ and implementation of regulatory reforms.

5