Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Politicians, scholars, and young viewers have been paying increased attention to political content in late night comedy over the past decade. Because young viewers report often learning about political issues from late night comedy, and thus, seem to treat the content as a source of news, the current study examined perceptions of bias in comedy content as compared to those for mainstream, broadcast news. A Hostile Media Effect was found for political content across five comedy shows, with Republican participants perceiving more bias across topics than Democratic participants. Additionally, exposure to news content was found to moderate the effect of political partisanship on perceptions of bias in news and comedy, suggesting that the use of a media bias heuristic explained bias ratings for both types of content.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Studies of the hostile media effect have found that those who are highly involved with controversial issues or groups in the news tend to perceive news stories about those issue or groups as biased, even though other uninvolved individuals would label such stories as balanced or neutral. The current study used an experimental design to test exemplification of public opinion as a theoretical explanation for the hostile media effect. Exemplification of public opinion (as manipulated by the ratio of supportive to unsupportive quotes in the article) was found to affect article bias perceptions among all participants, but especially among members of a partisan group. Perceptions of story bias mediated the relationship between exemplification of public opinion and perceptions of how influential the story would be in changing others’ opinions about the partisan group.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The study applies assumptions of the heuristic-systematic model of information processing on the perception of bias in news media. It has been well documented that people perceive media reports as being biased against their own point of view and in favor of the opposite, an effect labelled hostile media perception. It is argued here that assumptions on heuristic and systematic processing can be used for explaining hostile media perceptions. People with little ability and/or motivation are expected to perceive an article based on heuristic cues whereas highly motivated and/or able people should process information more systematically bringing about an effect of attitude.
The assumption for systematic processing could be confirmed while there was no evidence for heuristic processing under low motivation/ability conditions. Results of prior hostile media research are replicated.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Studies of the hostile media effect (HME) have found that partisans, those who are highly involved with controversial issues or groups in the news, tend to perceive news stories about those issue or groups as biased, even though other uninvolved individuals would label such stories as balanced or neutral. A previous study found that the quotes used to exemplify public opinion in a news story predicted partisans’ perceptions of story bias and its influence on others. The current study examined the extent to which anecdotes that exemplified misdeeds committed by members of a partisan group affected group and non-group members’ perceptions of story bias, thus further testing the ability of exemplification theory to explain the HME. The study also added a new variable to the study of the HME: intent to continue to consume news produced by the offending source. Anecdotal exemplification did not predict hostile media judgments. However, hostile media judgments were associated with less intent to read the given paper and stories by the given reporter in the future.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Widespread access to the Internet now provides American voters with a new and vibrant source for political news and discussion. For those who live in geopolitical regions were they are in the political minority, the Internet provides a unique avenue to a host of newly decentralized, loosely affiliated ideological networks of information, action and support. In this paper, I propose and begin to test for a hostile geography effect. Three sets of hypotheses propose that supporting the losing party at the county, congressional district, and state levels will be positively related to use of the Internet for news- and opinion-seeking. Only one significant relationship is found – a negative relationship between county-level hostility and news-seeking – but relationships involving the relative competitiveness of states to Internet use are examined and possible explanations, such as the spiral of silence effect, are explored.