Be careful what you read - Evidence of demand-driven media bias

Hang Dong, Jie Ren, Jeffrey V. Nickerson

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

This paper provides empirical evidence for demand-driven media bias. Social media allows mass media professionals to first discover what readers want to read and then please these readers with news articles tailored to reader's desires. To study this phenomenon, a large Chinese dataset involving 4.27 million pieces of stock news and with 43.17 million stock-related microblogs that span two years was examined. Specifically, social media facilitates the generation of homogenous reader beliefs. It also provides a tool to monitor reader beliefs and to help publishers to slant the news items to cater to the readers' aggregate beliefs.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationAmericas Conference on Information Systems 2018
Subtitle of host publicationDigital Disruption, AMCIS 2018
StatePublished - 2018
Event24th Americas Conference on Information Systems 2018: Digital Disruption, AMCIS 2018 - New Orleans, United States
Duration: 16 Aug 201818 Aug 2018

Publication series

NameAmericas Conference on Information Systems 2018: Digital Disruption, AMCIS 2018

Conference

Conference24th Americas Conference on Information Systems 2018: Digital Disruption, AMCIS 2018
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityNew Orleans
Period16/08/1818/08/18

Keywords

  • Confirmation bias
  • Mass media
  • Media bias
  • Social media

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Be careful what you read - Evidence of demand-driven media bias'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this