Do people demand fact-checked news? Evidence from US Democrats
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- Working Paper
Other version, 1.98 MB, PDF document
In a large-scale online experiment with U.S. Democrats, we examine how the demand for a newsletter about an economic relief plan changes when the newsletter content is fact-checked. We first document an overall muted demand for fact-checking when the newsletter features stories from an ideologically aligned source, even though fact-checking increases the perceived accuracy of the newsletter. The aver-age impact of fact-checking masks substantial heterogeneity by ideology: fact-checking reduces demand among Democrats with strong ideological views and increases demand among ideologically moderate Democrats. Furthermore, fact-checking increases demand among all Democrats when the newsletter features stories from an ideologically non-aligned source.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 104549 |
Journal | Journal of Public Economics |
Volume | 205 |
Number of pages | 10 |
ISSN | 0047-2727 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Jan 2022 |
- Fact-checking, News demand, Information, Media bias, Belief polarization
Research areas
ID: 321653299