Working Paper: NBER ID: w23089
Authors: Hunt Allcott; Matthew Gentzkow
Abstract: Following the 2016 U.S. presidential election, many have expressed concern about the effects of false stories (“fake news”), circulated largely through social media. We discuss the economics of fake news and present new data on its consumption prior to the election. Drawing on web browsing data, archives of fact-checking websites, and results from a new online survey, we find: (i) social media was an important but not dominant source of election news, with 14 percent of Americans calling social media their “most important” source; (ii) of the known false news stories that appeared in the three months before the election, those favoring Trump were shared a total of 30 million times on Facebook, while those favoring Clinton were shared 8 million times; (iii) the average American adult saw on the order of one or perhaps several fake news stories in the months around the election, with just over half of those who recalled seeing them believing them; and (iv) people are much more likely to believe stories that favor their preferred candidate, especially if they have ideologically segregated social media networks.
Keywords: social media; fake news; 2016 election; political behavior; media consumption
JEL Codes: C52; C53; D7; H0; J60
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| social media presence (Z13) | news consumption patterns (D10) |
| partisan nature of fake news (D72) | its spread (I14) |
| exposure to fake news (C91) | belief formation (D83) |
| social media network composition (D85) | belief in partisan news (D72) |