IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/27237.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Persuasive Effect of Fox News: Non-Compliance with Social Distancing During the Covid-19 Pandemic

Author

Listed:
  • Andrey Simonov
  • Szymon K. Sacher
  • Jean-Pierre H. Dubé
  • Shirsho Biswas

Abstract

We test for and measure the effects of cable news in the US on regional differences in compliance with recommendations by health experts to practice social distancing during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. We use a quasi-experimental design to estimate the causal effect of Fox News viewership on stay-at-home behavior by using only the incremental local viewership due to the quasi-random assignment of channel positions in a local cable line-up. We find that a 10% increase in Fox News cable viewership (approximately 0:13 higher viewer rating points) leads to a 1.3 percentage point reduction in the propensity to stay at home. We find a persuasion rate of Fox News on non-compliance with stay-at-home behavior during the crisis of about 5:7% - 28:4% across our various social distancing metrics.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrey Simonov & Szymon K. Sacher & Jean-Pierre H. Dubé & Shirsho Biswas, 2020. "The Persuasive Effect of Fox News: Non-Compliance with Social Distancing During the Covid-19 Pandemic," NBER Working Papers 27237, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:27237
    Note: EH IO POL
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w27237.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wright, Austin L. & Sonin, Konstantin & Driscoll, Jesse & Wilson, Jarnickae, 2020. "Poverty and economic dislocation reduce compliance with COVID-19 shelter-in-place protocols," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 544-554.
    2. Martin S Eichenbaum & Sergio Rebelo & Mathias Trabandt, 2021. "The Macroeconomics of Epidemics [Economic activity and the spread of viral diseases: Evidence from high frequency data]," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 34(11), pages 5149-5187.
    3. Yaniv, Ilan & Kleinberger, Eli, 2000. "Advice Taking in Decision Making: Egocentric Discounting and Reputation Formation," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 83(2), pages 260-281, November.
    4. repec:hal:pseose:halshs-01245557 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Maja Adena & Ruben Enikolopov & Maria Petrova & Veronica Santarosa & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, 2015. "Radio and the Rise of The Nazis in Prewar Germany," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 130(4), pages 1885-1939.
    6. Michael Sinkinson & Amanda Starc, 2019. "Ask Your Doctor? Direct-to-Consumer Advertising of Pharmaceuticals," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 86(2), pages 836-881.
    7. David Yanagizawa-Drott, 2014. "Propaganda and Conflict: Evidence from the Rwandan Genocide," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(4), pages 1947-1994.
    8. Renée Birgit Adams & Paola Sapienza & Luigi Zingales, 2012. "A Trust Crisis," International Review of Finance, International Review of Finance Ltd., vol. 12(2), pages 123-131, June.
    9. Bradley Shapiro & Günter J. Hitsch & Anna Tuchman, 2020. "Generalizable and Robust TV Advertising Effects," Working Papers 2020-111, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.
    10. Shapiro, Jesse M., 2016. "Special interests and the media: Theory and an application to climate change," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(C), pages 91-108.
    11. Anna E. Tuchman & Harikesh S. Nair & Pedro M. Gardete, 2018. "Television ad-skipping, consumption complementarities and the consumer demand for advertising," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 16(2), pages 111-174, June.
    12. Egorov, Georgy & Enikolopov, Ruben & Makarin, Alexey & Petrova, Maria, 2021. "Divided we stay home: Social distancing and ethnic diversity," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 194(C).
    13. Bradley T. Shapiro, 2018. "Positive Spillovers and Free Riding in Advertising of Prescription Pharmaceuticals: The Case of Antidepressants," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 126(1), pages 381-437.
    14. Bradley Shapiro & Günter J. Hitsch & Anna Tuchman, 2020. "Generalizable and Robust TV Advertising Effects," NBER Working Papers 27684, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Wattenberg, Martin P. & Brians, Craig Leonard, 1999. "Negative Campaign Advertising: Demobilizer or Mobilizer?," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 93(4), pages 891-899, December.
    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. Maxim Ananyev & Michael Poyker & Yuan Tian, 2021. "The safest time to fly: pandemic response in the era of Fox News," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 34(3), pages 775-802, July.
    2. Carey, Colleen & Lieber, Ethan M.J. & Miller, Sarah, 2021. "Drug firms’ payments and physicians’ prescribing behavior in Medicare Part D," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 197(C).
    3. Mayank Aggarwal & Anindya S. Chakrabarti & Chirantan Chatterjee, 2023. "Movies, stigma and choice: Evidence from the pharmaceutical industry," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(5), pages 1019-1039, May.
    4. Bursztyn, Leonardo & Rao, Akaash & Roth, Christopher & Yanagizawa-Drott, David, 2020. "Misinformation during a Pandemic," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1274, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    5. Andrey Simonov & Szymon Sacher & Jean-Pierre Dubé & Shirsho Biswas, 2022. "Frontiers: The Persuasive Effect of Fox News: Noncompliance with Social Distancing During the COVID-19 Pandemic," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 41(2), pages 230-242, March.
    6. Stefano Gagliarducci & Massimiliano Gaetano Onorato & Francesco Sobbrio & Guido Tabellini, 2020. "War of the Waves: Radio and Resistance during World War II," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(4), pages 1-38, October.
    7. Tähtinen, Tuuli, 2024. "When Facebook Is the Internet: The Role of Social Media in Ethnic Conflict," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).
    8. Brodeur, Abel & Yousaf, Hasin, 2019. "The Economics of Mass Shootings," IZA Discussion Papers 12728, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Bharati, Tushar & Jetter, Michael & Malik, Muhammad Nauman, 2024. "Types of communications technology and civil conflict," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 170(C).
    10. Alpert, Abby & Lakdawalla, Darius & Sood, Neeraj, 2023. "Prescription drug advertising and drug utilization: The role of Medicare Part D," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 221(C).
    11. von Essen, Emma & Jansson, Joakim, 2020. "Misogynistic and Xenophobic Hate Language Online: A Matter of Anonymity," Working Paper Series 1350, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    12. Michael Jetter, 2017. "Mediated Terrorism: US News and Al-Qaeda Attacks," CESifo Working Paper Series 6804, CESifo.
    13. Bjørnskov, Christian & Freytag, Andreas & Gutmann, Jerg, 2022. "Coups and the dynamics of media freedom," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    14. Mauro Caselli & Andrea Fracasso & Sergio Scicchitano, 2022. "From the lockdown to the new normal: individual mobility and local labor market characteristics following the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 35(4), pages 1517-1550, October.
    15. Jetter, Michael, 2019. "The inadvertent consequences of al-Qaeda news coverage," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 391-410.
    16. Dizioli, Allan & Pinheiro, Roberto, 2021. "Information and inequality in the time of a pandemic," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
    17. Bart J. Bronnenberg & Jean-Pierre Dubé & Chad Syverson, 2022. "Marketing Investment and Intangible Brand Capital," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 36(3), pages 53-74, Summer.
    18. Ashani Amarasinghe & Paul A. Raschky, 2022. "Competing for Attention - The Effect of Talk Radio on Elections and Political Polarization in the US," SoDa Laboratories Working Paper Series 2022-02, Monash University, SoDa Laboratories.
    19. George Gui & Harikesh Nair & Fengshi Niu, 2021. "Auction Throttling and Causal Inference of Online Advertising Effects," Papers 2112.15155, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2022.
    20. Chen, Wei-Lin & Lin, Ming-Jen & Yang, Tzu-Ting, 2023. "Curriculum and national identity: Evidence from the 1997 curriculum reform in Taiwan," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • L82 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Entertainment; Media

    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:nbr:nberwo:27237. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.