Constrained listening, audience alignment, and expert communication

Abstract We consider a cheap‐talk setting with two senders and a continuum of receivers with heterogenous preferences. Each receiver is constrained to listen to one of the senders but can choose which sender to listen to. The introduction of a second sender facilitates more informative communication and even enables full communication for a large set of sender preference pairs. We use the model to assess the size and characteristics of sender audiences, the amount of information communicated, and the impact of the senders' biases on the receivers' actions.