Testing Mechanisms for the Hostile Media Effect
Consider, in a social setting, individuals or groups who have a difference of opinion. In
the democratic process, progress toward a resolution of those differences is often a desirable
goal. How that goal is achieved may depend on many social institutions, but prominent among
them is mass media, and media’s capacity to convey a range of information, ideas and points of
view. Theoretically, such media content can facilitate a sifting and winnowing process by which
people of diverse viewpoints may arrive at better-informed and more compatible perspectives.
However, this constructive function of mass media depends on a receptive audience.
And, problematically, recent research suggests that people with differences of opinion, especially
those who are highly partisan on one side or another of a controversial issue, systematically see
mass media content in precisely the opposite way – as untrustworthy, as biased in favor of the
other side. The result is that each side perceives a media bias unfavorable to its own viewpoint.
This phenomenon, the so-called hostile media effect, has been demonstrated dramatically
in many controversial contexts, including Middle east conflict (Vallone, Ross & Lepper, 1985;
Perloff, 1989), the 1997 UPS strike (Christen, Kannaovakun & Gunther, 2002), the use of
primates in research (Gunther, Christen, Liebhart & Chia, 2001), genetically modified food
(Gunther & Schmitt, 2004), and even sporting events (Arpan & Raney, 2003). In addition,
evidence suggests that this bias is particular to mass media. People see media content as biased
against their own positions, but the identical information presented in a non-media context, such
as a student essay, is seen as neutral or even favorable (Gunther & Schmitt, 2004).
Thus, the hostile media phenomenon appears to be well supported. But is it well
explained? Theoretical questions about this contrast bias abound, and research has only begun to
analyze these queries. Among them: (1) what factors about a partisan audience give rise to the
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