Opinion Trumps Fact: Entry and Competition in Online Political News
working-paper
Management Science, Forthcoming.
Dror Shvadron 
Abstract
This paper examines how new entrants influenced content strategies in the U.S. online political news business from 2014 to 2021. Using a novel measure of article opinionation that captures the extent to which an article displays editorializing and persuasive language, we provide correlational evidence that new entrants produce articles that are more opinionated than those of incumbents, even when reporting on the same event. We then show that there is an economic rationale for this content strategy: opinionated articles receive more engagement on Twitter, and this engagement translates to increased webpage visits, crucial for advertising revenue. Consistent with these incentives, we provide evidence that news providers increase the average opinion level in their articles in response to competition and advertiser pressure. These shifts are accompanied by a possibly unintended consequence: opinionated content is associated with greater anger and hate speech in social media engagement.
Management Science, Forthcoming
Citation
@unpublished{ChatterjiEtAl2024Opinion,
title={Opinion Trumps Fact: Entry and Competition in Online Political News},
author={Aaron Chatterji and Sharique Hasan and William D. Miles and Dror Shvadron},
year={2024},
url={https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5121585}
}