Null effects of news exposure: A causal test of the (un)desirable effects of a ‘news vacation’ and ‘news binging’

Abstract

This preregistered project examines the general belief that news has a beneficial impact on society. We test news exposure effects on desirable outcomes, i.e., political knowledge and participation, and detrimental outcomes, i.e., attitude and affective polarization, negative system perceptions, and worsened individual well-being. We rely on two complementary over-time experiments that combine participants' survey self-reports and their behavioral browsing data: one that incentivized participants taking a ‘news vacation’ for a week (N = 797; 30M visits) in the US, the other of 'news binging' for two weeks (N = 828; 17M visits) in Poland. Across both experiments, we demonstrate that reducing or increasing news exposure has little -- if any -- impact on the positive or negative outcomes tested. These robust null effects emerge irrespective of participants' prior levels of news consumption and whether prior news diet was like-minded, and regardless of compliance levels. We argue that these findings reflect the reality of limited news exposure in the real world, with news exposure comprising roughly 3.5\% of citizens' online information diet.

Interventions to reduce partisan animosity

“…It is likely that the factors mentioned above, as well as many yet-to-be-identified processes, all play a role in inducing and perpetuating partisan animosity, although some of these factors are disputed [66][67][68][69][70], and scholars across disciplines continue to explore the causes of partisan animosity. For our purposes, we refrain from drawing firm conclusions about any particular cause of partisan animosity, and instead focus our attention on the interventions designed to reduce it.…”

“…On social media, where signaling outgroup dislike increases engagement, users are incentivized to increase antagonism, facilitate the spread of misinformation, and stoke both tribalism and moral outrage [120,[139][140][141][142][143][144]. Although some emerging evidence questions the causal relationship between the media and political animosity [66,145], interventions could nonetheless improve the design of social media to create a depolarizing experience for users. Political elites (e.g., politicians and media figures) bear some blame for hostile public discourse, in part because their aggressive and dehumanizing behavior serves as a model for others [9,146,147].…”

“…Users could simply deactivate social media[cf. 145,148], but tech isolationism is difficult in an interconnected world [62]. Alternatively, fine-tuning social media platforms to promote content that receives bipartisan support may incentivize good-faith cross-partisan engagement [62].…”