Replication Data for: A Closer Look at Reporting Bias in Conflict Event Data

Recent data collections about political violence are frequently based on media-based event reports, which can lead to reporting bias. This is an issue in particular for the emergent literature on communication technology and conflict, since this technology may not only affect violence, but also the reporting about it. Using the effect of cellphones on violence as an example, this article presents a quantitative assessment of reporting bias in a micro-level analysis. Comparing media-based event reports and those from military sources, the results show that the purported violence-increasing effect of cellphone coverage is partly due to higher reporting rates of violence in cellphone-covered areas. A simple diagnostic procedure for this problem is implemented. Applied to the analysis of cellphones and violence in Africa, it produces a pattern that is consistent with reporting bias driving much of the effect found in the Pierskalla and Hollenbach (2013) study about this topic. This dataset underwent an independent verification process that replicated the tables and figures in the main article and those included in supplementary materials on which primary findings are contingent. The verification process was carried out by the Odum Institute for Research in Social Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
The associated article has been awarded Open Materials and Open Data Badges. Learn more about the Open Practice Badges from the Center for Open Science.