Persuasive Propaganda during the 2015 Argentine Ballotage

46 Pages Posted: 27 Sep 2019 Last revised: 21 Apr 2021

See all articles by Rafael Di Tella

Rafael Di Tella

Harvard Business School - Business, Government and the International Economy Unit; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Sebastian Galiani

University of Maryland - Department of Economics

Ernesto Schargrodsky

Universidad Torcuato Di Tella

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Date Written: September 18, 2019

Abstract

We study a propaganda campaign sponsored by the government against the main political challenger in the days preceding the 2015 Argentine runoff presidential election. Subjects in the treatment group watched an “ad” initially aired during soccer transmissions that was part of this campaign and were then asked about their political views. Relative to subjects in the control group, their declared preference for the challenger drops by 6.5 percentage points. We find no effects of the three types of defenses employed by the challenger (a positive message unrelated to the “ad”, an answer to the accusations in the “ad”, and a counter-attack). The propaganda effect is driven by women.

Keywords: Propaganda, Persuasion, Voting

JEL Classification: D72, P48

Suggested Citation

Di Tella, Rafael and Galiani, Sebastian and Schargrodsky, Ernesto, Persuasive Propaganda during the 2015 Argentine Ballotage (September 18, 2019). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3455859 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3455859

Rafael Di Tella

Harvard Business School - Business, Government and the International Economy Unit ( email )

Cambridge, MA
United States
617-495-5048 (Phone)
617-496-5985 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://www.people.hbs.edu/rditella/

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
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Sebastian Galiani (Contact Author)

University of Maryland - Department of Economics ( email )

College Park, MD 20742
United States

Ernesto Schargrodsky

Universidad Torcuato Di Tella ( email )

Minones 2159
1428 Buenos Aires, 1428
Argentina
+54 11 4784 0080 (Phone)
+54 11 4783 3220 (Fax)

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