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Social media news: content bundling and news quality

Author

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  • Alexandre De Cornière

    (TSE-R - Toulouse School of Economics - UT Capitole - Université Toulouse Capitole - UT - Université de Toulouse - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement)

  • Miklos Sarvary

    (Columbia Business School - Columbia University [New York])

Abstract

The growing influence of internet platforms acting as content aggregators is one of the most important challenges facing the media industry. We develop a simple model to understand the impact of third-party content bundling by a social platform that has a monopoly on showing user-generated content to consumers. In our model consumers can access news either directly through a newspaper's website, or indirectly through a platform, which also offers social content. We show that content bundling, when unilaterally implemented by the platform, tends to harm publishers and to increase the dispersion of quality across outlets, with initially high-quality outlets investing more and low-quality ones investing less. With many heterogenous newspapers, the result is robust even if each newspaper can prevent the platform from using its content. When content bundling follows an agreement between the platform and publisher, its effects are reversed, as publishers' profits go up while quality dispersion goes down. In a setup with heterogeneous consumers, we also show that the platform's ability to personalize the mix of content it shows to users induces publishers to invest more in the quality of their content.

Suggested Citation

  • Alexandre De Cornière & Miklos Sarvary, 2023. "Social media news: content bundling and news quality," Post-Print hal-04067655, HAL.
  • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04067655
    DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.2022.4341
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-04067655v1
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Daniel Ershov & Juan S Morales, 2024. "Sharing News Left and Right: Frictions and Misinformation on Twitter," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 134(662), pages 2391-2417.
    2. George, Lisa M. & Hogendorn, Christiaan, 2012. "Aggregators, search and the economics of new media institutions," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 40-51.
    3. Matthew Gentzkow, 2007. "Valuing New Goods in a Model with Complementarity: Online Newspapers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(3), pages 713-744, June.
    4. Susan Athey & Emilio Calvano & Joshua S. Gans, 2018. "The Impact of Consumer Multi-homing on Advertising Markets and Media Competition," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(4), pages 1574-1590, April.
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    Cited by:

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    2. Terry Flew & Agata Stepnik, 2024. "The Value of News: Aligning Economic and Social Value From an Institutional Perspective," Media and Communication, Cogitatio Press, vol. 12.
    3. Leonardo Madio & Martin Quinn, 2024. "Content Moderation and Advertising in Social Media Platforms," CESifo Working Paper Series 11169, CESifo.
    4. Li, Jingyan & Wu, Jie & Zhang, Juzhi & Ji, Xiang, 2024. "Freemium design: Optimal tier differentiation models for content platforms," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).
    5. Jannatul Ferdush & Joarder Kamruzzaman & Gour Karmakar & Iqbal Gondal & Rajkumar Das, 2025. "Cross-Domain Fake News Detection Through Fusion of Evidence from Multiple Social Media Platforms," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 17(2), pages 1-25, February.
    6. Ūsas Antanas & Jasinskas Edmundas & Štreimikienė Dalia, 2024. "Impact of Website Quality and User Satisfaction on Consumer Loyalty in Lithuanian C2C E-Commerce Platforms," Management & Marketing, Sciendo, vol. 19(4), pages 710-724.
    7. Bisceglia, Michele, 2023. "The unbundling of journalism," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Social media; News quality; Platform strategy; Third-party content; Content distribution;
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