Monday 23 March 2020

Hostile Media Perceptions of Friendly Media Do Reinforce Partisanship

an article by Jan Kleinnijenhuis, Tilo Hartmann, Martin Tanis and Anita M. J. van Hoof (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands) published in Communication Research Volume 47 Issue 2 (March 2020)

Abstract

The hostile media effect (HME) entails that partisanship incites hostile perceptions of media content. However, other research underscores that partisans selectively turn to like-minded media, resulting in a friendly media phenomenon (FMP).

The present study suggests that the HME and FMP co-exist, and, furthermore, jointly affect people’s voting behaviour. More specifically, based on a media content analysis and a long-term panel survey surrounding the 2014 election for the European Parliament in the Netherlands, we find that people selectively turn to like-minded friendly media (FMP), but perceive coverage about the EU (European Union) in these media as relatively unsupportive of their own position (HME).

In this context, the FMP and HME appear to jointly influence voting behaviour. People cast votes in line with the objectively partisan-friendly media tone of their self-selected media. However, to a certain extent they do so, because they seem motivated to counteract the seemingly unfair or insufficient coverage about the EU.

Full text (PDF 23pp)

Labels:
hostile_media, media_effects, EU_elections, content_analysis, survey_research,


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