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Free University of Bozen-Bolzano

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Event type Hybrid Event

LocationRoom BZ E3.20 | Universitätsplatz 1 - piazza Università, 1
Bozen
Location Information

Departments ECO Faculty

Contact Sonia Candura
Sonia.Candura@unibz.it

20 Mar 2025 12:30-13:30

The Returns to Viral Media: The Case of US Campaign Contributions

Prof. Mastrorocco Nicola (UNIBO) explores how social media impacts political donations, finding Twitter attention boosts small donations with concentrated returns.

Event type Hybrid Event

LocationRoom BZ E3.20 | Universitätsplatz 1 - piazza Università, 1
Bozen
Location Information

Departments ECO Faculty

Contact Sonia Candura
Sonia.Candura@unibz.it

Social media has changed the structure of mass communication. In this paper we explore its role in influencing political donations. Using a daily dataset of campaign contributions and Twitter activity for US Members of Congress 2019-2020, we find that attention on Twitter (as measured by likes) is positively correlated with the amount of daily small donations received. However, this is not true for everybody: the impact on campaign donations is highly skewed, indicating very concentrated returns to attention that are in line with a ‘winner-takes-all’ market. Our results are confirmed in a geography-based causal design linking member’s donations across states.

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