Maria Petrova (Ph.D. Candidate, Harvard University, Political Economy and Government) has posted Inequality and Media Capture on SSRN.  Here is the abstract:

People’s support of a redistributive policy depends on information they have about the operation of the tax system and the efficiency of public projects. The mass media, being the most important source of information on public affairs for the majority of the population, provides a convenient means for manipulating public opinion. Greater inequality in the economy lowers the income of the median voter, which leads to a higher popular demand for redistribution. This, in turn, increases incentives for those with high income to affect the preferences for public good provision of those with low income. In this paper we develop a model of media capture in which the high-income group can influence information published in a media outlet at a cost. We show that higher inequality and higher accessibility of the media are associated with lower media freedom; but a higher number of media outlets and higher accessibility of an alternative source of information that cannot be subverted, lead to greater media freedom. According to our model, the magnitude of these effects depends positively on the strength of democratic institutions. We find empirical support for our theory in both panel data and cross-country models.