Open AccessHostile media perception affects news bias, but not news sharing intentions
Author(s) -
Sergio Lo Iacono,
Terence D. Dores Cruz
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
royal society open science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.84
H-Index - 51
ISSN - 2054-5703
DOI - 10.1098/rsos.211504
Subject(s) - news media , media bias , perception , salient , politics , social psychology , psychology , fake news , advertising , media coverage , confirmation bias , political science , sociology , business , media studies , law , neuroscience
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,N = 817) and COVID-19 norms (Study 2,N = 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.