Biased Gatekeepers? Partisan Perceptions of Media Attention in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election

Perryman, Mallory

doi:10.1080/1461670x.2019.1598888

Cited by 6 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 33 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The accuracy of journalists estimations of public opinion is important, as their judgments influence the news they produce (e.g. Hoewe, 2016;King & Schudson, 1995;Matthews & Al Habsi, 2018;Perryman, 2019). If journalists systematically misperceive public opinion, this may have unwanted effects on the content of the news.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is often connected to discussions about media bias and the democratic role of the news media. Recently, the debate was fueled again as the media were blamed for being too liberal and distant from ordinary citizens thus failing to predict political outcomes such as Brexit and the election of Trump (Beckett, 2016;Boydstun & Van Aelst, 2018;Perryman, 2019;Smarsh, 2016;Zelizer, 2018). A large body of research investigates the partisan leanings of journalists across countries and media contexts.…”

Section: Journalists' Political Leaning and Their Perception Of Their...mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Right-wing Bias in Journalists’ Perceptions of Public Opinion

Beckers

Walgrave

Wolf

et al. 2019

Journalism Practice

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

How journalists perceive public opinion is important in democracies. These perceptions help journalists to construct meaningful stories and might influence news content. However, little is known about how accurate journalists' perceptions of public opinion actually are. Using a survey with Belgian (Flemish) political journalists, we analyze their perceptions of public opinion on concrete policy proposals, next to their general political leaning. We combine the estimates from journalists with evidence about 'real' public opinion, collected through a parallel citizen survey. Further, our quantitative survey results are complemented with qualitative explanations offered by journalists themselves. We find that the surveyed political journalists perceive their outlets' audiences' political leaning as more right-wing than their own. Regarding specific policy issues, the political journalists perceive the public almost consistently as being more right-wing than they actually are. Right-wing journalists are better at correctly assessing public opinion. Moreover, the more experienced journalists are, the smaller the right-wing bias in their estimations. Journalists seem to be well aware of their own center-left leaning and overcompensate for, rather than project, their own leaning in their assessment of public opinion. In all, our study shows that looking into journalists' public opinion perceptions is a relevant and promising research track.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Journalists' Political Leaning and Their Perception Of Their...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Right-wing Bias in Journalists’ Perceptions of Public Opinion

Beckers

Walgrave

Wolf

et al. 2019

Journalism Practice

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The rise of blogs and social media has further enabled critiques of mainstream coverage; consistent with this, tendencies toward partisan selective exposure are related to a belief that the media is biased ( 32 ). Perceptions of bias have a rich history in studies of exposure to media content ( 33 – 35 ). The well-known hostile media phenomenon was demonstrated in scenarios modeled on the broadcast era, with ostensibly neutral or balanced stimuli.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The consequences of online partisan media

Guess

Barberá

Munzert

et al. 2021

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

What role do ideologically extreme media play in the polarization of society? Here we report results from a randomized longitudinal field experiment embedded in a nationally representative online panel survey (N = 1,037) in which participants were incentivized to change their browser default settings and social media following patterns, boosting the likelihood of encountering news with either a left-leaning (HuffPost) or right-leaning (Fox News) slant during the 2018 US midterm election campaign. Data on ≈ 19 million web visits by respondents indicate that resulting changes in news consumption persisted for at least 8 wk. Greater exposure to partisan news can cause immediate but short-lived increases in website visits and knowledge of recent events. After adjusting for multiple comparisons, however, we find little evidence of a direct impact on opinions or affect. Still, results from later survey waves suggest that both treatments produce a lasting and meaningful decrease in trust in the mainstream media up to 1 y later. Consistent with the minimal-effects tradition, direct consequences of online partisan media are limited, although our findings raise questions about the possibility of subtle, cumulative dynamics. The combination of experimentation and computational social science techniques illustrates a powerful approach for studying the long-term consequences of exposure to partisan news.

show abstract

“…In this situation, legacy news media may serve as way-finders that guide users to valuable content and help people make sense of the information clutter online (Pearson and Kosicki 2017). Although gatekeeping studies with a specific audience outlook are limited (Perryman 2019), some research concludes that journalistic gatekeeping is still largely appreciated by audiences and that user-generated news content is regarded with skepticism (Karlsson et al 2018). We can summarize this as two distinct positions regarding the relevance of news media's gatekeeper role in the digital media sphere.…”

Section: The Role Of Legacy News Media As Gatekeepers In the Digital ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Media 2022, 3 183 A substantial body of research has aimed to understand gatekeeping and how news media allocate attention. However, little is known about how citizens perceive news media's gatekeeping (Perryman 2019), let alone in times of heightened insecurity. The present study contributes theoretically and empirically to the research literature on journalism and gatekeeping by applying an audience perspective on news media gatekeeping during a crisis.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gatekeepers as Safekeepers—Mapping Audiences’ Attitudes towards News Media’s Editorial Oversight Functions during the COVID-19 Crisis

Olsen

Solvoll

Futsæter³

2022

Journalism and Media

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This study investigates people’s attitudes towards news media’s role as gatekeepers during the coronavirus pandemic. Specifically, this concerns news media’s quality control and the selection of the most important news about the pandemic, as well as the provision of useful information and knowledge about the virus and its implications. Challenging research that has questioned the very idea of journalistic gatekeeping in hybrid media systems, we set out to explore people’s attitudes towards news media’s gatekeeper functions during a crisis, when the need for reliable and relevant information is extraordinarily high and the information environment is flooded with disinformation. In this situation, news media gatekeepers could serve as safekeepers that protect the population. Based on a national survey in Norway (N = 1024), a country characterized by high levels of trust in social institutions, including the national press, the study finds that people were generally supportive of news media’s gatekeeper functions amid the pandemic. However, there were noteworthy demographic differences. Older people, women, and those who were more highly educated showed more positive attitudes towards news media’s gatekeeping. Moreover, we found lower support for news media’s gatekeeping in the group who trusted alternative, right-wing news media.

show abstract

Biased Gatekeepers? Partisan Perceptions of Media Attention in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election

Cited by 6 publications

References 33 publications

Right-wing Bias in Journalists’ Perceptions of Public Opinion

Right-wing Bias in Journalists’ Perceptions of Public Opinion

The consequences of online partisan media

Gatekeepers as Safekeepers—Mapping Audiences’ Attitudes towards News Media’s Editorial Oversight Functions during the COVID-19 Crisis

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About