Partisan Evaluation of Partisan Information

Abstract

One recent and conspicuous change in the U.S. media landscape has been the shift toward more markedly partisan news content. At the same time, data suggest that the media audience has become more polarized across a wide array of controversial and politicized issues. Recruiting from a group of highly polarized opponents of childhood vaccinations, this study employed a 3 (content bias) × 2 (partisan vs. neutral participants) × 2 (information source) experimental design to examine audience perceptions of information bias. The data supported an expected hostile media perception in the case of "fair and balanced" information, but different patterns in the other bias conditions suggest that content variables can sometimes disarm defensive processing. Keywordshostile media effect, partisanship, partisan media, contrast effects, vaccinations Partisans, people with strong opinions and/or high involvement in a contested issue, are prone to perceive news coverage of that issue as biased, and biased in a disagreeable direction. This so-called hostile media effect has been demonstrated in scores of studies of "neutral" news: Partisans of all stripes perceive an unfavorable slant in the same content that disinterested observers see as fair and balanced.When this hostile media perception was first empirically tested more than 25 years ago (Vallone, Ross, & Lepper, 1985), balanced news was arguably the norm. From the thud of the morning newspaper on the front porch to Walter Cronkite's closing words on the CBS 440 Communication Research 39(4) evening news, people had subsisted over many decades on a relatively homogeneous diet of what the news industry called a "fair and objective" representation of events.But the traditional news monolith has undergone profound changes, including a shift away from the posture of objective or balanced journalism toward a markedly partisan press. Democrats describe the most popular cable news channel, Fox News, as a ". . . communications arm of the Republican party" (CBSNews, 2009) while MSNBC is seen as "awash in progressive politics" (Kornacki, 2011). Even traditional mainstream media are less staunchly committed to the ideal of objectivity and observations of "the rise in media polarization" have become commonplace (Harwood, 2009).In addition to changes in content are changes in choice. The proliferation of cable and later online news and information sources has given the media audience a vastly increased selection from which to choose. One reflection of increased news media choice is the general decline of broadcast news viewership while cable and online news continue to gain viewers (PEW, 2010). With the relative ease of a TV remote or computer mouse people can access information from a very broad array of sources (Prior, 2007).Alongside these shifts in content and access are signs that the media audience is becoming increasingly partisan (Abramowitz & Saunders, 2006). Empirical evidence, for example, demonstrates that exposure to opinionated news content promotes greater perceived distance ...

Effective Messages in Vaccine Promotion: A Randomized Trial

“…This finding suggests respondents brought to mind other concerns about vaccines to defend their anti-vaccine attitudes, a response that is broadly consistent with the literature on motivated reasoning about politics and vaccines. [25][26][27][28] In addition, our data provide little evidence that messages emphasizing the risks of vaccine-preventable diseases were effective in promoting vaccination intent. This finding is consistent with previous studies finding mixed effects of lossframed messages and fear appeals on vaccination and other preventive health behaviors.…”

“…[22][23][24] The problem is that people often interpret evidence in a biased fashion. [25][26][27][28] As a result, corrective information about controversial issues may fail to change factual beliefs or opinions among respondents who are most likely to be misinformed. 22,29 In some cases, corrections can even make misperceptions worse.…”

Selective Use of News Cues: A Multiple-Motive Perspective on Information Selection in Social Media Environments

“…Two-sided messages may be more difficult to process because readers have to deal with conflicting arguments (Hale, Mongeau, & Thomas, 1991). Also, readers' evaluation of the presented headlines may not always be objective: Research on the hostile media effect (Vallone, Ross, & Lepper, 1985) showed that partisans perceive balanced articles as biased against their point of view (e.g., Gunther, Edgerly, Akin, & Broesch, 2012), which would decrease the likelihood of selection. In fact, in a study in which participants were able to choose between articles with conservative, liberal, or neutral headlines (Jang, 2014), neutral articles were selected less frequently than articles that were in line with readers' political views.…”

News With an Attitude: Assessing the Mechanisms Underlying the Effects of Opinionated News

“…Findings point toward a "relative hostile media effect": Perceptions of bias in opinionated news are strongest among those with incongruent political preferences, whereas those who hold views in line with the source, perceive less bias in such opinionated news or fail to see a bias at all (Arceneaux et al, 2012;Coe et al, 2008;Feldman, 2011b;Gunther, Edgerly, Akin, & Broesch, 2012). Hence, we expect the following: H 2a : Opinionated news evokes stronger bias perceptions than objective news, especially among people with incongruent political preferences.…”