Social media charity campaigns and pro-social behavior. Evidence from the Ice Bucket Challenge

Andrea Fazio (), Francesco Scervini and Tommaso Reggiani ()

MUNI ECON Working Papers from Masaryk University

Abstract: Social media play a relevant role in shaping social attitudes and economic behaviors of individuals. One of the first very well-known examples of social media campaign is the Ice Bucket Challenge (IBC), a charity campaign that went viral on social networks in August 2014 aiming at collecting money for the research on amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). We rely on UK longitudinal data to investigate the causal impact of the Ice Bucket Challenge on pro-social behaviors. In detail, this study shows that having been exposed to the IBC increases the probability of donating money, and it increases the amount of donating money among those who donate at most £100. We also find that exposure to the IBC has increased the probability of volunteering and the level of interpersonal trust. However, all these results, but the one on the intensive margins of donations, have a short duration, limited to less than one year, supporting the prevalent consensus that social media campaigns may have only short-term effects.

Keywords: Donations; Volunteering; Altruism; Social media campaigns; Ice bucket challenge (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D64 O35 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 22 pages
Date: 2022-07, Revised 2023-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-hea, nep-net, nep-pay and nep-spo
Note: License: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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http://repec.econ.muni.cz/mub/wpaper/wp/econ/WP_MUNI_ECON_2022-09.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Social media charity campaigns and pro-social behaviour. Evidence from the Ice Bucket Challenge (2023)
Working Paper: Social media charity campaigns and pro-social behaviour. Evidence from the Ice Bucket Challenge (2023)
Working Paper: Social Media Charity Campaigns and Pro-social Behaviour. Evidence from the Ice Bucket Challenge (2023)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mub:wpaper:2022-09

DOI: 10.5817/WP_MUNI_ECON_2022-09

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