Toward an Understanding of the Economics of Misinformation: Evidence from a Demand Side Field Experiment on Critical Thinking

John List, Lina Ramirez, Julia Seither, Jaime Unda and Beatriz Vallejo

Framed Field Experiments from The Field Experiments Website

Abstract: Misinformation represents a vital threat to the societal fabric of modern economies. While the supply side of the misinformation market has begun to receive increased scrutiny, the demand side has received scant attention. We explore the demand for misinformation through the lens of augmenting critical thinking skills in a field experiment during the 2022 Presidential election in Colombia. Data from roughly 2.000 individual suggest that our treatments enhance critical thinking, causing subjects to more carefully consider the truthfulness of potential misinformation. We furthermore provide evidence that reducing the demand of fake news can deliver on the dual goal of reducing the spread of fake news by encouraging reporting of misinformation.

Date: 2024
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp and nep-pke
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://s3.amazonaws.com/fieldexperiments-papers2/papers/00786.pdf

Related works:
Working Paper: Toward an Understanding of the Economics of Misinformation: Evidence from a Demand Side Field Experiment on Critical Thinking (2024)
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:feb:framed:00786

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Framed Field Experiments from The Field Experiments Website
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Francesca Pagnotta (fpagnotta@uchicago.edu).