The Demand for News: Accuracy Concerns versus Belief Confirmation Motives

Felix Chopra, Ingar Haaland and Christopher Roth

No 1/2023, Discussion Paper Series in Economics from Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics

Abstract: We examine the relative importance of accuracy concerns and belief confirmation motives in driving the demand for news. In experiments with US respondents, we first vary beliefs about whether an outlet reports the news in a right-wing biased, left-wing biased, or unbiased way. We then measure demand for a newsletter covering articles from this outlet. Respondents only reduce their demand for biased news if the bias is inconsistent with their own political beliefs, suggesting a trade-off between accuracy concerns and belief confirmation motives. We quantify this trade-off using a structural model and find a similar quantitative importance of both motives.

Keywords: News Demand; Media Bias; Accuracy Concerns; Belief Confirmation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D83 D91 L82 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 89 pages
Date: 2023-01-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Related works:
Journal Article: The Demand for News: Accuracy Concerns Versus Belief Confirmation Motives (2024)
Working Paper: The Demand for News: Accuracy Concerns versus Belief Confirmation Motives (2024)
Working Paper: The Demand for News: Accuracy Concerns versus Belief Confirmation Motives (2022)
Working Paper: The Demand for News: Accuracy Concerns Versus Belief Confirmation Motives (2022)
Working Paper: The Demand for News: Accuracy Concerns versus Belief Confirmation Motives (2022)
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