IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2403.09155.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

News Media as Suppliers of Narratives (and Information)

Author

Listed:
  • Kfir Eliaz
  • Ran Spiegler

Abstract

We present a model of news media that shape consumer beliefs by providing information (signals about an exogenous state) and narratives (models of what determines outcomes). To amplify consumers' engagement, media maximize consumers' anticipatory utility. Focusing on a class of separable consumer preferences, we show that a monopolistic media platform facing homogenous consumers provides a false "empowering" narrative coupled with an optimistically biased signal. Consumer heterogeneity gives rise to a novel menu-design problem due to a "data externality" among consumers. The optimal menu features multiple narratives and creates polarized beliefs. These effects also arise in a competitive media market model.

Suggested Citation

  • Kfir Eliaz & Ran Spiegler, 2024. "News Media as Suppliers of Narratives (and Information)," Papers 2403.09155, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2403.09155
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2403.09155
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ignacio Esponda & Demian Pouzo, 2016. "Berk–Nash Equilibrium: A Framework for Modeling Agents With Misspecified Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 84, pages 1093-1130, May.
    2. Bergemann, Dirk & Morris, Stephen, 2016. "Bayes correlated equilibrium and the comparison of information structures in games," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 11(2), May.
    3. Gilat Levy & Ronny Razin & Alwyn Young, 2022. "Misspecified Politics and the Recurrence of Populism," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(3), pages 928-962, March.
    4. Dirk Bergemann & Stephen Morris, 2019. "Information Design: A Unified Perspective," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 57(1), pages 44-95, March.
    5. Ran Spiegler, 2016. "Bayesian Networks and Boundedly Rational Expectations," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(3), pages 1243-1290.
    6. Geoffroy de Clippel & Xu Zhang, 2022. "Non-Bayesian Persuasion," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 130(10), pages 2594-2642.
    7. Elliot Lipnowski & Laurent Mathevet, 2018. "Disclosure to a Psychological Audience," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(4), pages 67-93, November.
    8. Felix Chopra & Ingar K. Haaland & Christopher Roth, 2022. "The Demand for News: Accuracy Concerns Versus Belief Confirmation Motives," CESifo Working Paper Series 9673, CESifo.
    9. Joshua Schwartzstein & Adi Sunderam, 2021. "Using Models to Persuade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 111(1), pages 276-323, January.
    10. Kfir Eliaz & Simone Galperti & Ran Spiegler, 2022. "False Narratives and Political Mobilization," Papers 2206.12621, arXiv.org.
    11. Gilat Levy & Inés Moreno de Barreda & Ronny Razin, 2022. "Persuasion with Correlation Neglect: A Full Manipulation Result," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 4(1), pages 123-138, March.
    12. Matthew Gentzkow & Jesse M. Shapiro, 2010. "What Drives Media Slant? Evidence From U.S. Daily Newspapers," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 78(1), pages 35-71, January.
    13. Charles S. Taber & Milton Lodge, 2006. "Motivated Skepticism in the Evaluation of Political Beliefs," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 50(3), pages 755-769, July.
    14. Roth, Christopher & Haaland, Ingar & Wohlfart, Johannes, 2021. "Inflation Narratives," CEPR Discussion Papers 16758, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    15. Kfir Eliaz & Ran Spiegler, 2020. "A Model of Competing Narratives," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(12), pages 3786-3816, December.
    16. Eliaz, Kfir & Spiegler, Ran, 2006. "Can anticipatory feelings explain anomalous choices of information sources?," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 87-104, July.
    17. Ran Spiegler, 2020. "Behavioral Implications of Causal Misperceptions," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 12(1), pages 81-106, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ran Spiegler, 2023. "Behavioral Causal Inference," Papers 2305.18916, arXiv.org.
    2. Philippe Jehiel, 2022. "Analogy-Based Expectation Equilibrium and Related Concepts:Theory, Applications, and Beyond," Working Papers halshs-03735680, HAL.
    3. Philippe Jehiel & Konrad Mierendorff, 2021. "Auction Design with Data-Driven Misspecifications," Papers 2107.00640, arXiv.org.
    4. Macaulay, Alistair & Song, Wenting, 2022. "Narrative-Driven Fluctuations in Sentiment: Evidence Linking Traditional and Social Media," MPRA Paper 113620, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. J. Aislinn Bohren & Daniel N. Hauser, 2023. "Behavioral Foundations of Model Misspecification," PIER Working Paper Archive 23-007, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
    6. Jerry Anunrojwong & Krishnamurthy Iyer & David Lingenbrink, 2024. "Persuading Risk-Conscious Agents: A Geometric Approach," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 72(1), pages 151-166, January.
    7. Spiegler, Ran, 2022. "On the behavioral consequences of reverse causality," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    8. Makoto Shimoji, 2022. "Bayesian persuasion in unlinked games," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 51(3), pages 451-481, November.
    9. Olivier Compte, 2023. "Belief formation and the persistence of biased beliefs," Papers 2310.08466, arXiv.org.
    10. Andrew Ellis & Ran Spiegler, 2024. "Identifying Assumptions and Research Dynamics," Papers 2402.18713, arXiv.org.
    11. Li, Fei & Song, Yangbo & Zhao, Mofei, 2023. "Global manipulation by local obfuscation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 207(C).
    12. Kai Barron & Heike Harmgart & Steffen Huck & Sebastian O. Schneider & Matthias Sutter, 2023. "Discrimination, Narratives, and Family History: An Experiment with Jordanian Host and Syrian Refugee Children," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 105(4), pages 1008-1016, July.
    13. Faia, Ester & Fuster, Andreas & Pezone, Vincenzo & Zafar, Basit, 2021. "Biases in information selection and processing: Survey evidence from the pandemic," SAFE Working Paper Series 307, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE.
    14. Yingkai Li & Aleksandrs Slivkins, 2022. "Exploration and Incentivizing Participation in Clinical Trials," Papers 2202.06191, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2024.
    15. Eduardo Perez‐Richet & Vasiliki Skreta, 2022. "Test Design Under Falsification," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 90(3), pages 1109-1142, May.
    16. Miltiadis Makris & Ludovic Renou, 2018. "Information design in multi-stage games," Working Papers 861, Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance.
    17. Jeanne Hagenbach & Frédéric Koessler, 2019. "Partial Language Competence," Working Papers hal-03393108, HAL.
    18. Liu, Yixuan & Whinston, Andrew B., 2019. "Efficient real-time routing for autonomous vehicles through Bayes correlated equilibrium: An information design framework," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 14-26.
    19. Chan, Jimmy & Gupta, Seher & Li, Fei & Wang, Yun, 2019. "Pivotal persuasion," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 178-202.
      • Jimmy Chan & Seher Gupta & Fei Li & Yun Wang, 2018. "Pivotal Persuasion," Working Papers 2018-11-03, Wang Yanan Institute for Studies in Economics (WISE), Xiamen University.
    20. Caroline Le Pennec & Vincent Pons, 2019. "How Do Campaigns Shape Vote Choice? Multi-Country Evidence from 62 Elections and 56 TV Debates," NBER Working Papers 26572, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2403.09155. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.