Experimental Design Details
Two types of participants will be recruited, active “Twitter users” and “non-Twitter users”:
- Twitter users. We define a Twitter user to be active if her/his account was activated before June 20, 2019, and if she/he tweeted, retweeted, or answered tweets at least three times in the period from June 20, 2019 through September 20, 2019 (recruitment will start after this date).
- Non-Twitter users. This group includes people that do not have a Twitter account at all.
All participants must be between 18 and 70 years old and must be qualified to vote in the 2019 Argentine presidential elections. Participants will be recruited by our team and by a professional recruitment agency.
Participants will be invited to attend the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella campus (located in Buenos Aires, Argentina) on October 13, 2019 during the first 2019 Argentine presidential debate at 9pm. During recruitment, they are going to be informed that they will have to watch images in screens and that they will be required to provide two saliva samples (they are also going to be informed that all of their data will be handled anonymously). Finally, they are not going to be told explicitly that the experiment will overlap with the presidential debate.
We expect around 540 participants to take part in the experiment but effective turn out is uncertain. Eventually, we might reproduce the experiment at future presidential or mayoral 2019 electoral debates.
Upon arrival, non-Twitter users will be randomly assigned to two different groups:
- Control group. These participants will watch a placebo video, and will be requested not to use their cell phones.
- Treatment group 1: These participants will watch a live stream of the presidential candidates’ debate and will be requested not to use their cell phones.
Upon arrival, Twitter users will be randomly assigned to four different groups:
- Control group. These participants will watch a placebo video, and will be requested not to use their cell phones.
- Treatment group 1: These participants will watch a live stream of the presidential candidates’ debate and will be requested not to use their cell phones.
- Treatment group 2: These participants will watch a live stream of the presidential candidates’ debate and will be allowed to use their cellular phones and Twitter account as they usually do.
- Treatment group 3: These participants will watch a live stream of the presidential candidates’ debate and will be requested to produce content on Twitter in the following way: In addition to the Twitter accounts that they usually follow, they will also be asked to follow a Twitter account managed by us. From that account, we will be sending partisan and neutral messages related to the presidential debate. Users will be asked to interact with these messages by retweeting, liking, or commenting these tweets. Some of these messages will be retweeted from non-anonymous partisan accounts supporting or opposing the presidential candidates, others will be neutral (e.g., a tweet simply saying "I am enjoying this debate" or “This debate is boring”), or retweets from a fact-checker NGO (Chequeado). In addition, the screen in which the debate will be streamed will also contain a Twitter timeline showing the messages the account sends.
As participants arrive to the university facilities, they will first fill out a short questionnaire (which will include questions on sociodemographic characteristics, social network usage, beliefs, and betrayal aversion) and provide a first saliva sample (which we will use to measure base level salivary cortisol).
Then participants will watch their respective videos and, in the case of treatment groups 2 and 3 (Twitter allowed and Twitter encouraged participants), interact with their cellphones.
Once the videos end, participants will fill out a second questionnaire and provide a second saliva sample. This second questionnaire will include questions regarding political polarization, perceptions of politicians, affective polarization, participatory intention, institutional views, and electoral preferences.
Upon answering this questionnaire and providing the second saliva sample, each participant will be awarded a supermarket voucher as a token of gratitude and will leave the University premises.