ANANYA SEN

I am an Assistant Professor at Carnegie Mellon University (Heinz College).

My research centers around two broad themes: (1) platforms in the changing digital landscape and (2)  the impact of platforms and digitization in education markets. The primary theme analyzes the impact of digital technologies on firms, with a particular focus on media markets and society. I am especially interested in strategies adopted by platforms and users in the wake of the digital disruption over the past two decades. Linked to this primary theme, I explore a tertiary strand investigating the potential of digital personalization enabled by email messaging campaigns. This allows me to analyze the role of personalization in product adoption and in turn helps uncover motivations of innovative entrepreneurs.  The second theme of my research deals with the intersection of platforms, digitization, and education, where I focus on the availability of information for children on various, often sensitive topics, such as recent book bans. 

A key feature of my research is to analyze those questions and contexts where managerial and policy questions are two sides of the same coin. This allows me to focus on research that sheds light on the impact of digital technologies on firm profitability and broader impacts on society, often the subject of policy debates. 

Curriculum Vitae

Platforms and Digitization: Media Markets

1.  The Role of Advertisers and Platforms in Monetizing Misinformation: Descriptive and Experimental Evidence (with Wajeeha Ahmad, Chuck Eesely, and Erik Brynjolfsson), Forthcoming at Nature

2. New Technologies and Political Competition: The Impact of Social Media Communication on Political Contributions (with Maria Petrova and Pinar Yildirim), Political Economy of Social Media CEPR Ebook, November 2023 (Invited Submission)

3. (How) Does UGC Impact Professionals? Evidence from Local News (with Pedro Ferreira,  Tom Grad, and Jorg Claussen), Forthcoming at Management Science

4. The Editor and the Algorithm: Recommendation Technology in Online News  (with  Christian Peukert and Jorg Claussen), Forthcoming at Management Science 

5. Social Media and Political Donations: New Technology and the Incumbency Advantage in the United States  (with Maria Petrova and Pinar Yildirim),  Management Science (May 2021)

6. Advertising Spending and Media Bias: Evidence from Coverage of Car Safety Recalls  (with  Graham Beattie, Ruben Durante and Brian Knight),  Management Science (February 2021)  ( Featured Article)

7. Profits and Profitability of News Media, International Encyclopedia of Journalism Studies (2019) (Invited Submission)

8. The Value of External Data for Digital Platforms: Evidence from a Field Experiment on Search Suggestions (with Yixing Chen and Xiaoxia Lei), Revise and Resubmit at Management Science

Coverage: United Nations Commission on Science and Technology

9. Information Frictions and Heterogeneity in Valuations of Personal Data (with Avi Collis, Alex Moehring, and Alessandro Acquisti), Under Review

10. Algorithmic Recommendations and Earned Media: Investigating Product Echo Chambers on YouTube (with Anja Lambrecht, Catherine Tucker, and Caroline Wiertz), Working Paper

11. Notifications, Infinite Scrolling, and Social Media Addiction (with Saharsh Agarwal and Alp Sungu), Work in Progress

12. Clicks and Editorial Decisions: How Does Popularity Shape Online News Coverage?  (with Pinar Yildirim),  Revise and Resubmit at MISQ, (Older Working Paper)

13. Statistical Externalities and Online Markets  (with Paul Seabright), (Older Working Paper)

Platforms and  Digitization: Digital Personalization Technologies

14. Climate Change Framing and Innovator Attention: Evidence from an Email Field Experiment (with Jorge Guzman and Jean Oh),  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) (January 2023)

15. What Motivates Innovative Entrepreneurs? Evidence from a Global Field Experiment  (with Jorge Guzman and Jean Oh),  Management Science (October 2020)

Platforms and Digitization: Education Markets

16. Anti-Racist Curriculum and Digital Platforms: Evidence from Black Lives Matter (with Saharsh Agarwal), Management Science (April 2022)

17. Product Quality and Performance in the Internet Age: Evidence from Creationist Friendly Curriculum (with Catherine Tucker), Journal of Marketing Research (February 2022)

18. Book Bans in American Libraries: Impact of Politics on Inclusive Content Consumption (with Naveen Basavaraj, Uttara Ananthkrishnan, Sabari Rajan, and Mike Smith), Under Review

Coverage: USA Today, Axios, KMOX Radio

19. Digital Disruption in Schooling and the Pandemic: Documenting the Digital Infrastructure Divide Among School Children  (with Catherine Tucker), Societal Experts Action (2022) Network