Lunch Seminar Economics (LSE) - 2021/2022
Interviene: Federico Innocenti, University of Mannheim
Title: Can Media Pluralism Be Harmful to News Quality?
Authors: F. Innocenti
Abstract: Two stylized facts characterize the Internet: a great diversity of news sources and the proliferation of disinformation. I study a model of information design that connects these observations. I show that competition between news sources with opposite biases reduces information quality when news consumers have limited attention. The reason is the endogenous formation of echo chambers. The standard narrative is that echo chambers arise because news consumers exhibit confirmation bias. I show that even unbiased and rational news consumers devote their limited attention to like-minded news sources in equilibrium. Confirmation bias thus arises endogenously because news sources have no incentive to provide valuable information. I show that the presence of many news sources and the widespread existence of misleading news are concurrent.