#jeea

“Mass media plays a powerful role in democracies […] It reaches an immense audience, and its content can affect a wide range of outcomes, including political behavior such as voting. However, the ability of the media to perform its prescribed role as the “watchdog” of democracy has come under question, as observers point to an increasing number of instances when media content is distorted by the government.”

Can a democratic government systematically distort news coverage from independently owned outlets? Nancy Qian and David Yanagizawa-Drott assess the extent of government distortion of the news in the United States.

“Naïve procrastinators do not act today because they plan to act tomorrow, but when tomorrow arrives, they delay again. Deadlines seem to offer a simple solution to the procrastination problem, as they remove the possibility of further delay. Together, limited memory and present bias can explain why individuals do not set up reminders despite large gains to doing so, and thus why deadlines may not be effective at ensuring tasks are completed.”

Why do procrastinators procrastinate?

“Deliberate avoidance of evidence about the social impact of one's decisions, or “willful ignorance”, has an important impact on prosocial behavior. For example, Niehaus (2014) argues that donors to charitable causes remain willfully ignorant of the effectiveness of the charity in order to maintain a feeling of warm glow about their contributions. Another example relates to the phenomenon of climate change. Despite the longstanding claim by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that the scientific evidence for anthropogenic climate change is “unequivocal” (IPCC, 2007), substantial minorities in many countries do not believe that climate change is man-made, or even real.”

The consequences of willful ignorance in social decisions.