Essays on Information, Politics, and Digital Media

Digital technologies are transforming how individuals access and engage with information, with consequences that can be beneficial or detrimental to society. While broader access to information offers clear advantages, substantial evidence also documents negative side effects, including the spread of misinformation, increased distraction, and the decline of traditional information media. These developments have wide-ranging implications for individuals' opinions and behavior, from voters selecting competent representatives to researchers identifying relevant scientific questions. Given the pace and scope of these transformations, many important questions about the societal effects of digital media remain unanswered. This dissertation contains three chapters that empirically examine distinct settings in which contemporary digital media shape individuals' opinions and behavior. In the first chapter, I show that the introduction of paywalls on US newspaper websites reduced political knowledge and electoral participation. By restricting access to information, paywalls pushed individuals who were unwilling or unable to pay for subscriptions away from traditional news, lowering their engagement with politics. The second chapter develops a novel instrumental variable to demonstrate that economists' usage of Twitter (now X) increased the number of publications and citations. The platform facilitated professional networking and encouraged the selection of research topics with greater relevance, both within academia and among the broader public. In the third chapter, I show that disruptive protests by a German environmental activist group failed to shift public opinion on climate policy despite generating substantial media coverage, suggesting limits to the persuasive power of media attention alone.