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Do social media ads matter for political behavior? A field experiment

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  • Beknazar-Yuzbashev, George
  • Stalinski, Mateusz

Abstract

We exploit Facebook’s introduction of a filter hiding ads from the feed as a unique opportunity to study the effects of online ads on political behavior. In a pre-registered experiment, we randomly assigned participants to hide political ads (treatment) or alcohol ads (control) for several weeks preceding the 2020 US elections. We report an insignificant intent-to-treat effect of political ads on turnout (2.3 pp.), but we cannot rule out a sizable positive effect, with 95% confidence interval of [-2.8,7.4]. The result may mask important heterogeneity, with political ads making Democrats slightly more motivated to vote and Republicans – substantially less. We explore the reasons for this effect, such as natural variation in ad content: the majority of Facebook ads on users’ feeds skewed Democratic. Lastly, the effect on measures of affective polarization and informedness was negligible.

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  • Beknazar-Yuzbashev, George & Stalinski, Mateusz, 2022. "Do social media ads matter for political behavior? A field experiment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 214(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:214:y:2022:i:c:s0047272722001372
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2022.104735
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