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Demand for Online News, Inertia, and Misperceptions

Last registered on September 25, 2024
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Demand for Online News, Inertia, and Misperceptions
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0014392
Initial registration date
September 19, 2024

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
September 25, 2024, 11:47 AM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Country
United States of America
Region

Primary Investigator

Name
Luca Braghieri
Affiliation
Bocconi University
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2024-09-19
End date
2024-12-31
Keywords
Behavior
Additional Keywords
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
We plan a large-scale field experiment to investigates the degree to which the consumption of partisan and low-quality news on Facebook depends on behavioral factors such inertia in decision making and misperceptions about news outlet slant and quality. The experiment is designed to test whether interventions targeting these factors can improve the quality and reduce the partisanship of news consumed on Facebook.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Braghieri, Luca. 2024. "Demand for Online News, Inertia, and Misperceptions." AEA RCT Registry. September 25. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.14392-1.0
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Intervention (Hidden)
Intervention Start Date
2024-09-19
Intervention End Date
2024-11-01

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
The primary outcomes are described in detail in the attached pre-analysis-plan document.

In short, we will consider the following primary outcomes.
- The participants’ incentivized perceptions of the slant and quality of various news outlets, including those they follow on Facebook.
- The set of news pages that participants follow on Facebook at various points in the experiment.
- Each participant's bliss point in a two dimensional space where one dimension captures the average slant of the participant's news consumption portfolio on Facebook, measured using the scale from Bakshy, Messing, and Adamic (2015), and the other dimension captures the average quality of the portfolio, measured using the NewsGuard reliability ratings.
We will also calculate, for each participant and for both slant and quality, the distance between the participant's bliss point and the actual average slant or quality of the portfolio of news pages that the participant follows on Facebook.
News consumption data from the subset of participants who agreed to let the research team track their browsing behaviors on news websites.
News exposure using self reports. Specifically, we will ask participants about the average quality and slant of the news they saw on their Facebook feeds over the last four weeks.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
See pre-analysis plan document

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
I filled out the "Experimental Design (Hidden)" category. I will make that category available after the end of the experiment.
Experimental Design Details
The intervention is described in detail in the attached pre-analysis-plan document.

In short, participants will be block-randomized into a control group and four primary treatment groups. The social media behavior of participants in the control group will not be interfered with. Members of the passive-choice-quality-info treatment group will only be given information about the quality of the various outlets that they follow on Facebook, as measured by the NewsGuard reliability ratings. The remaining three treatment groups will be asked to make an active choice about the news pages they follow on Facebook using a simple and user-friendly interface built into the survey. Specifically, participants in those treatment groups will be shown a set of news outlets, some of which they currently follow on Facebook and some of which they currently do not follow on Facebook, and will be asked which of them they would like to follow going forward. The outlets offered will span the spectrum of slant and quality. In the active-choice-no-info treatment, the re-optimization exercise will not be accompanied by any information; in the active-choice-slant-info treatment, participants will be given information about the slant of all the news outlets in the re-optimization task, along with slant information about the outlets they currently follow, using the measure from Baksy, Messing, and Adamic (2015); in the active-choice-quality-info treatment, participants will be given information about quality according to the NewsGuard ratings rather than slant. Our survey will interface automatically with Facebook so that, if a participant follows (unfollows) an outlet within the context of our survey, the participant will automatically follow (unfollow) that outlet also on Facebook.
Randomization Method
Randomization done by Qualtrics
Randomization Unit
Individual
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
3100
Sample size: planned number of observations
3100 individuals
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
850 in control, 450 per treatment arm
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Bocconi IRB
IRB Approval Date
2024-06-12
IRB Approval Number
EA000764
Analysis Plan

Analysis Plan Documents

PAP.pdf

MD5: 31401fe534cde2f7d1f5886e41c58ba9

SHA1: 4631a7d0a9134dc5a930a0429ca1c58dd54d9bde

Uploaded At: September 19, 2024

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials