Biased Press or Biased Public? Attitudes Toward Media Coverage of Social Groups

Abstract

Mass media credibility has been defined and studied largely as an attribute of message sources. This article argues that trust in media can be better understood as a relational variable-an audience response to media content. In addition, audience assessments of credibility are commonly explained as the result of each individual's skeptical disposition, either toward mass media in particular or as a general trait. The author dissents from this view as well, proposing that distrust is more likely to be a situational response, stemming from involvement with issues and groups. Using data from a national probability sample, the hypothesis was tested by analyzing the effect of numerous independent variables on respondent ratings of newspaper and television news coverage of social groups. As hypothesized, a respondent's own group identification proved to be the strongest predictor. The evidence was strengthened by replication across social groups, which provided built-in controls and demonstrated that an important part of the variance in trust of mass media news is within persons rather than between persons.

Alles eine Frage hoher Reichweite? Eine experimentelle Untersuchung zur Ursache der Entstehung von Hostile-Media-Effekten

“…Dieser Zusammenhang wird in der Kommunikationswissenschaft mit dem so genannten Hostile-Media-Effekt (vgl. Vallone et al, 1985;Gunther, 1992) beschrieben und erklärt. In einer Vielzahl an Studien wurde der HostileMedia-Effekt bereits nachgewiesen (für eine Übersicht: Doty, 2005).…”

Politización y confianza en los medios de comunicación: Argentina durante el kirchnerismo

“…El punto de partida es que los receptores no son sujetos pasivos, aislados e imparciales, sino destinatarios "sociales" que evalúan al emisor e interpretan los mensajes según sus propios valores, actitudes y experiencias (Gunther 1992;Metzger et al 2003). A diferencia de la interpretación anterior, la credibilidad es entendida como el resultado de un juicio subjetivo y contextual de quienes reciben el mensaje (Tsfati 2003).…”

News With an Attitude: Assessing the Mechanisms Underlying the Effects of Opinionated News

“…The current literature provides abundant evidence for a so-called "Hostile Media Phenomenon" (Hansen & Kim, 2011;Vallone et al, 1985). Multiple studies have shown that people subjectively assess the degree of bias in news relative to their own political preferences: Liberals perceive a conservative bias in objective news, whereas conservatives perceive a liberal bias in the same news coverage (Gunther, 1992;Morris, 2007). This happens because people consider their own opinion as the outcome of objective analysis and, at the same time, find it is easy to believe that other opinions must be biased or simply wrong (Feldman, 2011b;Giner-Sorolla & Chaiken, 1994) in order to protect their self-esteem and reduce cognitive dissonance (Richardson, Huddy, & Morgan, 2008).…”