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Management Science Vol. 59 No. 12 2013

User-Generated Content and Bias in News Media

Pınar Yıldırım1; Esther Gal-Or2; Tansev Geylani2

1 The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104 · 2 Katz Graduate School of Business, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260

Abstract

In this study, we investigate newspapers' decision to expand their product lines by adding online editions that incorporate user-generated content. We demonstrate that such product line extensions mitigate the extent of slanting in print media. The results also show that as the extent of discretion of users to generate online content increases, print versions of newspapers become more polarized. Furthermore, adding online editions results in reduced profits for newspapers as the additional product variants increase the intensity of competition in the market and the discretion awarded to users limits the ability of newspapers to extract rents from consumers. Data, as supplemental material, are available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2013.1746 .

DOI
10.1287/mnsc.2013.1746
Volume
59
Issue
12
Pages
2655-2666
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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