Cross‐media synergies between TV news media and social media in charitable crowdfunding

Abstract

Current methods of creating awareness about charitable crowdfunding campaigns are mostly within online platforms (e.g., social media). However, TV news media continue to feature causes calling for donations, raising the question of whether TV media contribute to the success of charitable crowdfunding. This research measures the effect of TV news media alongside social media on charitable crowdfunding campaigns using secondary data scraped from a popular crowdfunding site. We find that campaigns shared on TV and social media (vs. social media alone) generate more funding and have more donors but take a significantly larger time to reach their target. Thus, in the context of charitable crowdfunding, there may be a tradeoff between volume of donations and donors and the speed at which campaigns conclude.