The Returns to Viral Media: The Case of US Campaign Contributions

Johannes Boken, Mirko Draca, Nicola Mastrorocco and Arianna Ornaghi

No 18337, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: Social media has created new, highly competitive markets for attention. But to what extent does attention on social media generate tangible economic returns and how are these returns characterized? Using a daily dataset of Twitter activity and campaign contributions for US Members of Congress (2019-2020), we show that attention on Twitter, as measured by likes, increases small donations. However, the effect is highly skewed: only a few members benefit substantially, consistent with a winner-takes-all market. These results are confirmed using a geography-based causal design tracking donation patterns across counties, showing that the increase in donations from attention on Twitter comes disproportionately from high Twitter usage areas.

Keywords: Twitter; Campaign contributions; Social media (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 P00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-07
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP18337 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: The Returns to Viral Media: The Case of US Campaign Contributions (2023)
Working Paper: The Returns to Viral Media: The Case of US Campaign Contributions (2023)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:18337

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP18337

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CEPR ().