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

George Beknazar-Yuzbashev and Mateusz Stalinski

Journal of Public Economics, 2022, vol. 214, issue C

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.

Keywords: Political advertisement; Microtargeting; Social media; Facebook; Voter turnout; Political polarization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:214:y:2022:i:c:s0047272722001372

DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2022.104735

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