The Production and Consumption of Social Media

Apostolos Filippas and John Horton

No 28666, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We model social media as collections of users producing and consuming content. Users value consuming content, but doing so uses up their scarce attention, and hence they prefer content produced by more able users. Users also value receiving attention, creating the incentive to attract an audience by producing valuable content, but also through attention bartering—users agree to become each others’ audience. Attention bartering can profoundly affect the patterns of production and consumption on social media, explains key features of social media behavior and platform decision-making, and yields sharp predictions that are consistent with data we collect from #EconTwitter.

JEL-codes: D51 D71 D85 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-04
Note: PR
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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