EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

The Streisand effect: Signaling and partial sophistication

Jeanne Hagenbach () and Frederic Koessler
Additional contact information
Jeanne Hagenbach: X - École polytechnique - IP Paris - Institut Polytechnique de Paris

PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint) from HAL

Abstract: This paper models the Streisand effect in a signaling game. A picture featuring a Star has been exogenously released. The Star privately knows whether the picture is embarrassing or neutral and can decide to censor it, with the aim of having it unseen. Receivers observe the Star's action and make efforts to see the picture, that depend on how embarrassing they expect it to be. Censorship reduces the Receivers' chances to see the picture but also serves as a motivating signal to search for it. When players are fully rational, we show that censorship cannot occur if the picture has little chances to be found when believed neutral. Next, we consider that players may not fully understand the signaling effect of censorship and study how it affects the equilibrium outcome. We model such partial sophistication of players using analogical reasoning à la Jehiel (2005). We explain that partially sophisticated Receivers are less responsive to the Star's action, which makes censorship more likely. We also show that a partially sophisticated Star can censor in equilibrium while it gives the picture higher chances to be found than without censorship. The Streisand effect is at play, in the sense that censorship creates interest which is unexpected by the Star.

Keywords: Analogy-based expectations; Signaling; Streisand effect (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-11
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Published in Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 2017, 143, pp.1-8. ⟨10.1016/j.jebo.2017.09.001⟩

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
Journal Article: The Streisand effect: Signaling and partial sophistication (2017) Downloads
Working Paper: The Streisand effect: Signaling and partial sophistication (2017)
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:hal:pseptp:hal-01629301

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2017.09.001

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint) from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Caroline Bauer ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-22
Handle: RePEc:hal:pseptp:hal-01629301