Ananthakrishnan, Basavaraj, Karmegam, Sen, and Smith on Book Bans in American Libraries: Impact of Politics on Inclusive Content Consumption @uttara_a @Ananya_Sen_ @CarnegieMellon @UW @GeorgeMasonU

Uttara M. Ananthakrishnan, University of Washington School of Business, Naveen Basavaraj, Carnegie Mellon University School of Public Policy and Management, Sabari Rajan Karmegam, George Mason University, Ananya Sen, Carnegie Mellon University, and Michael D. Smith, Carnegie Mellon University School of Public Policy Management, have published Book Bans in American Libraries: Impact of Politics on Inclusive Content Consumption. Here is the abstract.

Book bans have become increasingly prevalent and politically polarizing in the United States. Still, their impact on book consumption is unclear – political consumerism is usually a response to corporations and not policies put forward by officials and legislators specifically to restrict consumption in specific geographical areas. Additionally, given the polarizing nature of these book bans, little is known about their broader political impact. Although the decision to ban books is made at the local level, these events receive extensive media coverage at the national level and on social media, which could impact readership and impact at a broader scale. A priori, the impact of these book bans on the consumption of such (inclusive) content is ambiguous. On the one hand, books banned in select locations garner national attention, which can increase the readership of these books (a phenomenon popularly known as the “Streisand effect”). On the other hand, the sensitive nature of these book bans could have a chilling effect on the consumption of these books for parents or teachers to limit controversy in a polarized environment. In this study, we use a novel, large-scale dataset of US library book circulations and evaluate the effect of book bans on the consumption of banned books. Using a staggered difference-in-differences design, we find that the circulation of banned books increased by 12% compared to comparable non-banned titles after the ban. We also find that the consumption of books increases in states which don’t enact any bans. Our results demonstrate that books that are talked about more on Twitter after the ban experience higher consumption, suggesting a link between social media chatter and political consumerism. Further, books from lesser-known authors experienced increased consumption after the ban compared to well-known authors, potentially due to increased information about these new authors in the conversations around the bans. We also find that book bans have a tangible political impact through campaign donations – Democratic Party candidates in Blue states attract significantly more donations following the ban events than Democratic Party candidates in Red states. However, Republican Party candidates don’t see any increase in donations. Our results are robust across several demanding specifications. We use alternate data from Goodreads to show that book bans increase the number of reviews, ratings, and reviews mentioning ban-related terms in the period after the ban, further demonstrating the robustness of our results.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.