IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2410.19557.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Information Sharing with Social Image Concerns and the Spread of Fake News

Author

Listed:
  • Dana Sisak
  • Philipp Denter

Abstract

We study how social image concerns affect information sharing patterns between peers. An individual receives a signal ("news") about the state of the world and can either share it with a peer or not. This signal has two attributes: a headline -- e.g., arguing for or against human-induced climate change -- and a veracity status, indicating if the signal is based on facts or made-up. The headline is observable at no cost by everyone, while observing the veracity status is costly and the cost depends on an individual's type. We study the sharing patterns induced by two different types of social image concern: wanting to be perceived as talented, which implies being able to distinguish proper from fake news, and wanting to signal one's worldview. Our model can rationalize the empirical finding that fake news may be shared with a higher propensity than proper news (e.g., Vosoughi et al., 2018). We show that both a veracity and a worldview concern may rationalize this finding, though sharing patterns are empirically distinguishable and welfare implications differ.

Suggested Citation

  • Dana Sisak & Philipp Denter, 2024. "Information Sharing with Social Image Concerns and the Spread of Fake News," Papers 2410.19557, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2024.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2410.19557
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2410.19557
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Yeon-Koo Che & Navin Kartik, 2009. "Opinions as Incentives," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 117(5), pages 815-860, October.
    2. Philipp Denter & Martin Dumav & Boris Ginzburg, 2021. "Social Connectivity, Media Bias, and Correlation Neglect," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 131(637), pages 2033-2057.
    3. Barrera, Oscar & Guriev, Sergei & Henry, Emeric & Zhuravskaya, Ekaterina, 2020. "Facts, alternative facts, and fact checking in times of post-truth politics," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 182(C).
    4. Grossman, Gene M. & Helpman, Elhanan, 2023. "Electoral competition with fake news," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    5. Acemoglu, Daron & Ozdaglar, Asuman & ParandehGheibi, Ali, 2010. "Spread of (mis)information in social networks," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 70(2), pages 194-227, November.
    6. T Renee Bowen & Danil Dmitriev & Simone Galperti, 2023. "Learning from Shared News: When Abundant Information Leads to Belief Polarization," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 138(2), pages 955-1000.
    7. Alonso, Ricardo & Câmara, Odilon, 2016. "Bayesian persuasion with heterogeneous priors," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 672-706.
    8. Duggan, John & Martinelli, Cesar, 2001. "A Bayesian Model of Voting in Juries," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 259-294, November.
    9. Emeric Henry & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya & Sergei Guriev, 2022. "Checking and Sharing Alt-Facts," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 55-86, August.
    10. Abhijit Banerjee & Arun G Chandrasekhar & Esther Duflo & Matthew O Jackson, 2019. "Using Gossips to Spread Information: Theory and Evidence from Two Randomized Controlled Trials," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 86(6), pages 2453-2490.
    11. Hunt Allcott & Matthew Gentzkow, 2017. "Social Media and Fake News in the 2016 Election," NBER Working Papers 23089, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Prendergast, Canice & Stole, Lars, 1996. "Impetuous Youngsters and Jaded Old-Timers: Acquiring a Reputation for Learning," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(6), pages 1105-1134, December.
    13. Rachel Kranton & David McAdams, 2024. "Social Connectedness and Information Markets," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 16(1), pages 33-62, February.
    14. Pogorelskiy, Kirill & Shum, Matthew, 2019. "News We Like to Share: How News Sharing on Social Networks Influences Voting Outcomes," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 427, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    15. Emeric Henry & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya & Sergei Guriev, 2022. "Checking and Sharing Alt-Facts," PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint) halshs-03342759, HAL.
    16. Pogorelskiy. Kirill & Shum, Matthew, 2019. "News We Like to Share : How News Sharing on Social Networks Influences Voting Outcomes," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1199, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    17. Hunt Allcott & Matthew Gentzkow, 2017. "Social Media and Fake News in the 2016 Election," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 31(2), pages 211-236, Spring.
    18. Gordon Pennycook & Ziv Epstein & Mohsen Mosleh & Antonio A. Arechar & Dean Eckles & David G. Rand, 2021. "Shifting attention to accuracy can reduce misinformation online," Nature, Nature, vol. 592(7855), pages 590-595, April.
    19. Yiangos Papanastasiou, 2020. "Fake News Propagation and Detection: A Sequential Model," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(5), pages 1826-1846, May.
    20. Emeric Henry & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya & Sergei Guriev, 2022. "Checking and Sharing Alt-Facts," Post-Print halshs-03342759, HAL.
    21. Callander, Steven, 2008. "Majority rule when voters like to win," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 393-420, November.
    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. Ali, Ayesha & Qazi, Ihsan Ayyub, 2023. "Countering misinformation on social media through educational interventions: Evidence from a randomized experiment in Pakistan," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    2. Jiménez Durán, Rafael & Muller, Karsten & Schwarz, Carlo, 2024. "The Effect of Content Moderation on Online and Offline Hate: Evidence from Germany’s NetzDG," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 701, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    3. Cariolle, Joël & Elkhateeb, Yasmine & Maurel, Mathilde, 2024. "Misinformation technology: Internet use and political misperceptions in Africa," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 400-433.
    4. Denter, Philipp & Ginzburg, Boris, 2021. "Troll Farms and Voter Disinformation," MPRA Paper 109634, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Tuval Danenberg & Drew Fudenberg, 2024. "Endogenous Attention and the Spread of False News," Papers 2406.11024, arXiv.org.
    6. Thomas Renault & David Restrepo Amariles & Aurore Troussel, 2024. "Collaboratively adding context to social media posts reduces the sharing of false news," Papers 2404.02803, arXiv.org.
    7. Aridor, Guy & Jiménez-Durán, Rafael & Levy, Ro'ee & Song, Lena, 2024. "The Economics of Social Media," CEPR Discussion Papers 18821, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. Felix Chopra & Ingar K. Haaland & Christopher Roth, 2019. "Do People Value More Informative News?," CESifo Working Paper Series 8026, CESifo.
    9. Assenza, Tiziana, 2021. "The Ability to 'Distill the Truth'," TSE Working Papers 21-1280, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE), revised Mar 2022.
    10. Bowen, T. Renee & Galperti, Simone & Dmitriev, Danil, 2021. "Learning from Shared News: When Abundant Information Leads to Belief Polarization," CEPR Discussion Papers 15789, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. Gonzalo Cisternas & Jorge Vásquez, 2022. "Misinformation in Social Media: The Role of Verification Incentives," Staff Reports 1028, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    12. Assenza, Tiziana & Cardaci, Alberto & Huber, Stefanie, 2024. "Fake News: Susceptibility, Awareness and Solutions," TSE Working Papers 24-1519, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE), revised Nov 2024.
    13. Mohamed Mostagir & James Siderius, 2022. "Learning in a Post-Truth World," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(4), pages 2860-2868, April.
    14. Bertin Martens & Luis Aguiar & Estrella Gomez Herrera & Frank Muller, 2018. "The digital transformation of news media and the rise of disinformation and fake news," JRC Working Papers on Digital Economy 2018-02, Joint Research Centre.
    15. Andrea Mattozzi & Samuel Nocito & Francesco Sobbrio, 2022. "Fact-Checking Politicians," CESifo Working Paper Series 10122, CESifo.
    16. Samuel S. Santos & Marcelo C. Griebeler, 2022. "Can fact-checkers discipline the government?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 42(3), pages 1498-1509.
    17. Dugar, Subhasish & Shahriar, Quazi, 2023. "Lying for votes," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 46-72.
    18. Boyer, Pierre & Delemotte, Thomas & Gauthier, Germain & Rollet, Vincent & Schmutz, Benoit, 2020. "The Gilets jaunes: Offline and Online," CEPR Discussion Papers 14780, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    19. Choi, Syngjoo & Choi, Chung-Yoon & Kim, Seonghoon, 2023. "Tackling misperceptions about immigrants with fact-checking interventions: A randomized survey experiment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    20. Ayesha Ali & Ihsan Ayyub Qazi, 2021. "Countering Misinformation on Social Media Through Educational Interventions: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment in Pakistan," Papers 2107.02775, arXiv.org.

    More about this item

    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:arx:papers:2410.19557. 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: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    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.