Hostile media perception affects news bias, but not news sharing intentions

Hostile media perception (HMP) theory suggests that partisans perceive neutral coverage of news by outlets opposite to their political leaning as biased against their side. We conducted two pre-registered online experiments to assess the effect of HMP on news bias and news sharing intentions regardi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Royal Society open science 2022-04, Vol.9 (4), p.211504-211504
Main Authors: Lo Iacono, Sergio, Daniel Dores Cruz, Terence
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Hostile media perception
news bias
news sharing
Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience
trust
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Summary:Hostile media perception (HMP) theory suggests that partisans perceive neutral coverage of news by outlets opposite to their political leaning as biased against their side. We conducted two pre-registered online experiments to assess the effect of HMP on news bias and news sharing intentions regarding two salient and controversial topics in the US: police conduct (Study 1, = 817) and COVID-19 norms (Study 2, = 819). Results show that partisans perceive neutral coverage of news by outlets opposite to their political leaning as biased, even when we account for their prior beliefs regarding the media outlet and news content. However, HMP seems to be limited in its consequences, as it has little impact on partisans' willingness to share news from outlets of opposite political leaning, even though the news is perceived as biased.
ISSN:2054-5703
2054-5703
DOI:10.1098/rsos.211504