Topic: Strategic Thinking and Media Bias: Evidence from Chinese Microblog Users

Speaker：Professor Juanjuan Meng 

Time：April 21, 2022 14：30

Location：Tencent meeting number：769 646 057

Abstract：It has been shown that media bias contributes to belief polarization from the supply side. This paper provides a novel perspective from the demand side by testing whether news consumers are strategic enough to detect media bias. We propose a theoretical framework which shows that the tendency of reposting news with political inclination inconsistent with the media outlet’s general ideology is an indicator of strategic thinking. Combining both field data from Chinese Microblog users and an online experiment that exogenously varies whether news sources are revealed, we show both observational and causal evidence that Microblog users are more likely to repost inconsistent news, an indication of general strategic reaction. We also show that simply reminding people of media bias can make their decisions more strategic.

Introduction of the speaker：Juanjuan Meng, Professor of Guanghua School of Management, Peking University. She was awarded the National Natural Science Foundation of China Outstanding Youth Program in 2018. Currently, she is the associate editor of Management Science. Her current research includes behavioral economics and behavioral finance. Her papers have been published in top international academic journals, such as American Economic Review, Management Science, Journal of Public Economics, International Economic Review, Journal of Development Economics, Games and Economic Behavior, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization.