Willingness to pay for online conspiracy theory media content: A case study of Japan○John W. Cheng ジョン W. チェン (津田塾大学), Masaru Nishikawa 西川賢 (津田塾大学), Ikuma
Ogaura 小椋郁馬 (茨城大学), Nicholas A. R. Fraser ニコラス A. R. フレイザー (Harvard University)
Keywords: Conspiracy theory, conspiracy mentality, willingness to pay, uses and gratification
1Objective
In the age of social media, many conspiracy theories, including radical and racist ones, have migrated

from the fringe to the mainstream (Knight, 2000; 秦, 2022). Many studies have examined why some people
believe in conspiracy theories (Uscinski, 2018), yet less known is why individuals choose to consume
conspiracy theory media content on social media. This study aims to fill this gap by examining people’s
willingness to subscribe to and pay for online conspiracy media content.
2Methods
This study uses a dichotomous discrete choice experiment designed based on the willingness to pay

concept from economics (Vock, at al., 2014) and uses and gratification theory from media studies (Sundar &Limperos, 2013). Specifically, we asked 1488 internet users in Japan whether they would subscribe to ahypothetical online video channel with four randomised attributes: Conspiracy theory topic (5 values), numberof views (3 values), endorsers (4 values), and monthly subscription fee (5 values).
3Results
The results show that among the four channel attributes, subscription fee was the main determining

factor of people’s decisions. Even though 68% of the participants reported that they thought that at least oneof the five conspiracy theories in question could be true, on average, only 7.8% were willing to subscribe tothe channel for more content about the theories. Their willingness to subscribe to the channel reduced as thesubscription fee increased. Around 5% of the respondents chose to subscribe to the channel with a non-zero
subscription fee and the average monthly subscription fee they were willing to pay was 324 yen. We also foundthat individuals who relied more on Facebook for news and those who had a higher conspiracy mentality weremore willing to subscribe to the channel.
4Conclusion
Overall, the results indicate that even though conspiracy theory has become a part of popular culture,

the majority of people in Japan do not place a high value on conspiracy theory media content. That said, itshould be noted that there is still a niche of individuals who are willing to pay for such content, which implies
that there are still demands for conspiracy theory content on social media.
References
Knight, P. (2000). Conspiracy culture - From Kennedy to the X Files. Routledge.
Sundar, S. S., & Limperos, A. M. (2013). Uses and Grats 2.0: New Gratifications for New Media. Journal ofBroadcasting & Electronic Media, 57(4), 504-525.
Uscinski, J. E. (2018). What is a conspiracy theory. In J. E. Uscinski (Ed.), Conspiracy theories and the people
who believe them (pp. 47-61). Oxford.
Volk, et al., (2014). Understanding willingness to pay for social network sites. Journal of Service Research,
16(3) 311-325.
秦 正樹 (2022). 陰謀論-民主主義を揺るがすメカニズム. 中央公論新社

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