Newspaper notice as governmental transparency mechanism: Evidence from Florida

This paper studies the role of newspaper notices---legally required announcements published in newspapers to inform citizens about local government activities---on citizen engagement. We examine a recent Florida legislation revoking the requirement that public notices appear in newspapers, and allowing local governments to publish notices on county-operated websites instead. We find that local governments located in counties with a public notice website significantly reduce newspaper notice after the legislation, particularly for topics that tend to encourage citizen engagement, such as public hearings, planning and zoning proposals, or upcoming elections. By contrast, we find no discernible changes in website traffic of counties' public notice websites, suggesting a decrease in citizens' awareness of public notice. Finally, we find a significant increase in the number of commercial zoning permits after the legislation, consistent with the decline in newspaper notice of planning and zoning meetings reducing citizen activism against new construction. Overall, our results suggest that revoking notices from newspapers removes information about local government activities which reduces citizen engagement.