Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP17169
Authors: Felix Chopra; Ingar Haaland; Christopher Roth
Abstract: We examine the relative importance of accuracy concerns and belief confirmation motives in driving the demand for news. In experiments with US respondents, we first vary beliefs about whether an outlet reports the news in a right-wing biased, left-wing biased, or unbiased way. We then measure demand for a newsletter covering articles from this outlet. Respondents only reduce their demand for biased news if the bias is inconsistent with their own political beliefs, suggesting a trade-off between accuracy concerns and belief confirmation motives. We quantify this trade-off using a structural model and find a similar quantitative importance of both motives.
Keywords: news; demand; media bias; accuracy concerns; belief confirmation
JEL Codes: D83; D91; L82
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| respondents reduce their demand for biased news only when the bias is inconsistent with their own political beliefs (D91) | demand for biased news (D72) |
| Trump voters reduce their demand for newsletter when exposed to leftwing bias (D72) | demand for newsletter (J23) |
| Biden voters reduce their demand for newsletter when exposed to rightwing bias (D72) | demand for newsletter (J23) |
| Trump voters show an insignificant increase in demand with rightwing bias treatment (D79) | demand for newsletter (J23) |
| readers prioritize belief confirmation over accuracy when the bias aligns with their political beliefs (D91) | belief confirmation (D80) |
| structural model estimates indicate that both motives have similar quantitative importance (C20) | tradeoff between accuracy concerns and belief confirmation motives (D91) |