Binging the Gap: Promoting Cohesion through an Edutainment Web Series on Venezuelan Migrants

Last registered on October 27, 2025
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Binging the Gap: Promoting Cohesion through an Edutainment Web Series on Venezuelan Migrants
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0017096
Initial registration date
October 23, 2025

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
October 27, 2025, 6:29 AM EDT

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

Locations

Country
Colombia
Region

Primary Investigator

Name
Eliana La Ferrara
Affiliation
Harvard Kennedy School
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Andrei Kim
PI Affiliation
Harvard University
Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2025-09-22
End date
2025-12-31
Keywords
Other
Additional Keywords
Migration, social cohesion, edutainment, media
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
Venezuelan migrants in Colombia often encounter xenophobia and exclusion, heightened by misinformation circulated on social media. To help counter these dynamics and improve public perceptions of migrants, the World Bank has partnered with a Colombian audiovisual company to produce a new edutainment intervention –a web series designed to engage and inform through storytelling, seeking to enhance message retention and emotional processing. Produced in Colombia, the series tackles challenges faced by migrants, emphasizing their resilience. Its novel format of short episodes distributed on digital platforms aims to reach audiences prone to misinformation on social media while remaining low-cost and scalable.

To evaluate this intervention, researchers plan to vary the content and format of the web series, as well as compare it with other audiovisual content. Participants will be recruited online and stratified by gender and initial attitudes. The results will inform scalable strategies for fostering cohesion and reducing xenophobia.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Kim, Andrei and Eliana La Ferrara. 2025. "Binging the Gap: Promoting Cohesion through an Edutainment Web Series on Venezuelan Migrants." AEA RCT Registry. October 27. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.17096-1.0
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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Intervention (Hidden)
Intervention Start Date
2025-10-23
Intervention End Date
2025-11-22

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
1. Beliefs and attitudes towards migration and Venezuelan migrants in particular.
2. Behavioral outcomes (e.g., willingness to sign a petition, to share content, to post material, to receive further material, to follow actors on social media and donation to a charity)
3. Data from the platform that streams the video content (e.g., clicks, retention, engagement, the moment of attrition).
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
1. Empathy and perspective taking
2. Inter-personal contact with migrants
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Our project covers adult online participants from Colombia recruited through social media ads. For all participants, we will first administer a survey including socio-demographic questions, as well as information on participants’ attitudes towards immigrants (and Venezuelan immigrants in particular). Then, the participants will be randomly divided into 7 groups, stratifying by their baseline attitudes towards migrants and gender.

Group 1 (~600 subjects) will receive the treatment video (web series) with explicit revelation of the content; Group 2 (~600 subjects) will receive a documentary on Venezuelan migrants with explicit revelation of the format; Group 3 (~600 subjects) will receive the documentary on Venezuelan migrants with explicit revelation of both the format and content. These three groups will only partake in the baseline and will not be invited to complete the endline questionnaire.

Groups 4 to 7 will not receive any information about the content and will be assigned as follows. Group 4 (~1100 subjects) will receive the treatment video (web series); Group 5 (~1100 subjects) will receive an edited version of the treatment video (web series), in which the main protagonist’s identity is made closer to the Colombian population; Group 6 (~1100 subjects) will receive the documentary on Venezuelan migrants; Group 7 (~1100 subjects) will receive a control series unrelated to migration.

After the initial intervention, we will administer the endline survey to participants in Group 4-7. We expect the average time elapsed between receiving the link and taking the endline survey to be approximately three weeks.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Randomization done in office by a computer
Randomization Unit
Individual
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
n.a.
Sample size: planned number of observations
6200
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
600 individuals per arm in groups 1, 2 and 3
1100 individuals per arm in groups 4, 5, 6 and 7
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Harvard University-Area Committee on the Use of Human Subjects
IRB Approval Date
2025-09-29
IRB Approval Number
IRB25-0354
Analysis Plan

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