10.7910/DVN/49LZVL Peisakhin, Leonid Leonid Peisakhin https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2486-2660 New York Univeristy Abu Dhabi Lai, Ruilin Ruilin Lai https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5930-8550 Washington University in St Louis Sheen, Greg Chih-Hsin Greg Chih-Hsin Sheen https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1961-7804 Academia Sinica Harvard Dataverse 2026 Social Sciences Lai, Ruilin Ruilin Lai Washington University in St. Louis 2026-02-07 2026-02-11 29556 159242 474 type/x-r-syntax text/tab-separated-values text/plain 1.0 Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication. Substantive content of reporting in partisan media is believed to be the main source of media bias. In contrast, we demonstrate that brand cues are an alternative, and often overlooked, such source. We show that consumers assume reporting to be biased based solely on their preconceived ideas about news brands and not on the substance of reporting. The evidence comes from a survey experiment in Taiwan where we attribute the same set of articles to leading newspaper brands that are deemed to be partisan. We find that the brand cue effects are driven primarily by partisans, as moderates are not susceptible. This study is the first test of brand cue effects in a non-student sample outside of the United States.