This Column Will Probably Change Your Mind
May 12, 2018 in Economics
By Alexander Coppock, Emily Ekins, David Kirby
Alexander Coppock, Emily Ekins, and David Kirby
Will this essay — or the op-eds nearby — change your
mind?
The traditional op-ed may seem quaint compared with tweetstorms,
tell-all interviews and cable news shouting sessions. Skeptics may
be forgiven for dismissing this medium as old-fashioned and
ineffective. We have new evidence, however, that should persuade
even a determined skeptic.
Even in today’s allegedly
post-fact world, people are capable of considering new evidence and
reaching new conclusions.
In a peer-reviewed study we published this month, we find op-eds do
change minds. After reading opinion pieces, we found people were
far more likely to agree with the author’s point of view.
Even in today’s allegedly post-fact world, people are capable
of considering new evidence and reaching new conclusions.
The op-ed is an experiment only 50 years
old
In 1970, when the New York Times debuted the modern
“opposite the Editorial Page,” or op-ed,
then-editor John B. Oakes announced grand ambitions. This opinion page
was to be designed to an intellectual arena, designed to provoke
new ideas and discussion on public policies among regular readers
and political insiders alike.
Was Oakes’s optimism misplaced? Op-eds might fail to persuade
for a number of reasons. People might be unwilling to consider
alternative points of view. Even if they are, the arguments might
be too complex for people not versed in intricate policy details.
Those familiar with the topics — journalists, political
pundits, policy wonks and Capitol Hill staff — may already
have strongly held opinions. Or op-eds might simply preach to the
choir or flatter authors’ egos, putting their names in print.
Our evidence suggests not. We find not only can op-eds change
the minds among general readers, but also among Washington policy
professionals as well.
Here is how we did our research:
In our study, we assessed how about 3,500 Americans reacted to
reading op-eds. We obtained our sample on Mechanical Turk, a
service for obtaining online convenience samples that are not
representative of the public at large (though see recent evidence that Mechanical Turk produces
generalizable inferences in studies like ours). We randomly
assigned participants to read one of five op-eds, or no op-ed at
all. Afterward, they took a survey on the topics discussed in the
op-eds, to measure how much readers agreed with the authors. We
then compared the survey answers among those who had read the
op-eds with answers from those who had not.
Strikingly, respondents became substantially more likely to
agree with the author whose op-ed they read.
For example, some subjects were assigned to read “The Other Veterans Scandal” by Michael F.
Cannon and Christopher …read more
Source: OP-EDS
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