Broadcasting Solar Power: 
Understanding Media Effects on Renewable Development Success in Virginia
 

Abstract

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​Media coverage shapes renewable energy development, yet quantitative evidence linking media framing to project outcomes remains limited, especially in local contexts. This study examines how supportive media coverage and organized stakeholder engagement affect the success of utility-scale solar projects, using data from 182 projects proposed in Virginia between 2016 and 2025. Virginia is an ideal location for this investigation since it is a politically diverse state with a range of supportive and oppositional local mandates, especially for renewable energy. It is exemplified by restrictive solar ordinances in over 30 counties. Using logistic regression with controls for project characteristics and county political context, this paper explores whether media coverage significantly affects solar project outcomes, and investigates whether such impacts are universal or conditional on project scale, stakeholder-specific factors, and local regulatory environment. The analysis found that supportive media coverage indeed influences project success, and this relationship is strengthened substantially when the model controls for confounding factors, suggesting that media matters most for projects. Second, medium-sized solar projects achieve notably lower success rates than small and large projects, while attracting disproportionate negative attention. Third, projects with both organized support and opposition achieve higher success rates than projects with only positive media coverage, suggesting that stakeholder engagement improves rather than impedes outcomes. These findings expand on common narratives about media influence and opposition, in turn providing a more complex understanding of the media’s impact on renewable success that can be useful for policymaking, regulation, and the overall sustainable development process.