IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/kud/kucebi/2407.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Demand for News: Accuracy Concerns versus Belief Confirmation Motives

Author

Listed:
  • Felix Chopra

    (Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen)

  • Ingar Haaland

    (NHH Norwegian School of Economics)

  • Christopher Roth

    (University of Cologne)

Abstract

We examine the relative importance of accuracy concerns and belief confirmation motives in driving the demand for news. In experiments with US voters, we first vary beliefs about whether an outlet reports thenews in a right-wing biased, left-wing biased, or unbiased way. We then measure demand for a newsletter covering articles from this outlet. Right-wing voters strongly reduce their demand for left-wing biased news, but not for right-wing biased news. The reverse patterns hold for left-wing voters. These results suggest 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.

Suggested Citation

  • Felix Chopra & Ingar Haaland & Christopher Roth, 2024. "The Demand for News: Accuracy Concerns versus Belief Confirmation Motives," CEBI working paper series 07-24, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. The Center for Economic Behavior and Inequality (CEBI).
    • Handle: RePEc:kud:kucebi:2407
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econ.ku.dk/cebi/publikationer/working-papers/CEBI_WP_07-24.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stefano DellaVigna & John A. List & Ulrike Malmendier & Gautam Rao, 2022. "Estimating Social Preferences and Gift Exchange at Work," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(3), pages 1038-1074, March.
    2. Demsetz, Harold & Lehn, Kenneth, 1985. "The Structure of Corporate Ownership: Causes and Consequences," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 93(6), pages 1155-1177, December.
    3. Felix Chopra & Ingar K. Haaland & Christopher Roth, 2019. "Do People Value More Informative News?," CESifo Working Paper Series 8026, CESifo.
    4. Salvatore Nunnari & Giovanni Montari, 2019. "Audi Alteram Partem: An Experiment on Selective Exposure to Information," Working Papers 650, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    5. Jonathan de Quidt & Johannes Haushofer & Christopher Roth, 2018. "Measuring and Bounding Experimenter Demand," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(11), pages 3266-3302, November.
    6. Jacopo Perego & Sevgi Yuksel, 2022. "Media Competition and Social Disagreement," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 90(1), pages 223-265, January.
    7. Ro'ee Levy, 2021. "Social Media, News Consumption, and Polarization: Evidence from a Field Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 111(3), pages 831-870, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Francesco Capozza & Ingar Haaland & Christopher Roth & Johannes Wohlfart, 2021. "Studying Information Acquisition in the Field: A Practical Guide and Review," CEBI working paper series 21-15, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. The Center for Economic Behavior and Inequality (CEBI).
    2. Ingar Haaland & Christopher Roth & Johannes Wohlfart, 2023. "Designing Information Provision Experiments," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 61(1), pages 3-40, March.
    3. Chopra, Felix & Haaland, Ingar & Roth, Christopher, 2022. "Do people demand fact-checked news? Evidence from U.S. Democrats," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 205(C).
    4. Chopra, Felix & Haaland, Ingar & Roth, Christopher, 2021. "The Demand for FactChecking," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 563, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    5. Eszter Czibor & David Jimenez‐Gomez & John A. List, 2019. "The Dozen Things Experimental Economists Should Do (More of)," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 86(2), pages 371-432, October.
    6. Pikulina, Elena S. & Tergiman, Chloe, 2020. "Preferences for power," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 185(C).
    7. Peter Andre & Ingar Haaland & Christopher Roth & Johannes Wohlfart, 2021. "Narratives about the Macroeconomy," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 127, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    8. Francesco Capozza & Ingar Haaland & Christopher Roth & Johannes Wohlfart, 2022. "Recent Advances in Studies of News Consumption," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 204, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    9. Ximeng Fang & Sven Heuser & Lasse S. Stötzer, 2023. "How In-Person Conversations Shape Political Polarization: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from a Nationwide Initiative," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 270, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    10. Dylong, Patrick & Koenings, Fabian, 2023. "Framing of economic news and policy support during a pandemic: Evidence from a survey experiment," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    11. Faia, Ester & Pezone, Vincenzo & Zafar, Basit, 2021. "Biases in Information Selection and Processing: Survey Evidence from the Pandemic," CEPR Discussion Papers 15774, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. Castagnetti, Alessandro & Schmacker, Renke, 2022. "Protecting the ego: Motivated information selection and updating," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).
    13. Garz, Marcel & Sood, Gaurav & Stone, Daniel F. & Wallace, Justin, 2020. "The supply of media slant across outlets and demand for slant within outlets: Evidence from US presidential campaign news," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    14. Patrick Bareinz & Fabian Koenings, 2021. "Framing of Economic News and Policy Support During a Pandemic: Evidence from an Information Experiment," Jena Economics Research Papers 2021-004, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    15. Nicodano, Giovanna & Regis, Luca, 2019. "A trade-off theory of ownership and capital structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(3), pages 715-735.
    16. Renneboog, L.D.R. & Simons, T., 2005. "Public-to-Private Transactions : LBOs, MBOs, MBIs and IBOs," Other publications TiSEM 3b76799c-591c-4d22-b126-a, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    17. Elijah Brewer III & Thomas H. Mondschean & Philip Strahan, 1996. "The Role of Monitoring in Reducing the Moral Hazard Problem Associated with Government Guarantees: Evidence from the Life Insurance Industry," Center for Financial Institutions Working Papers 96-15, Wharton School Center for Financial Institutions, University of Pennsylvania.
    18. Adrian Bruhin & Ernst Fehr & Daniel Schunk, 2019. "The many Faces of Human Sociality: Uncovering the Distribution and Stability of Social Preferences," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 17(4), pages 1025-1069.
    19. David Hillier & Patrick McColgan, 2008. "An analysis of majority owner‐managed companies in the UK," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 48(4), pages 603-623, December.
    20. Derek Jones & Panu Kalmi & Niels Mygind, 2005. "Choice of Ownership Structure and Firm Performance: Evidence from Estonia," Post-Communist Economies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(1), pages 83-107.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    News Demand; Media Bias; Accuracy Concerns; Belief Confirmation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • L82 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Entertainment; Media
    • P00 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - General - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kud:kucebi:2407. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Therese Moeller (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cebkudk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.