Young Voters' Responses to the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election: Social Identity, Perceived Media Influence, and Behavioral Outcomes

Abstract

Hostile news perceptions, perceived media influence, and behavioral outcomes among Republicans and Democrats were examined before and after the 2004 U.S. presidential election. Predictions were grounded in social identity/self-categorization theories, and influence of presumed influence. Hostile news perceptions were greater among Republicans, especially Fox News viewers. Third-person perceptions (TPPs) for ingroup and outgroup (own party, other party) varied based on media message (debates, news, spin, polls, comedy) and party affiliation. TPPs were larger for the outgroup than the ingroup, but only for Republicans. Following the election, changes in media perceptions were related to the election outcome and interpersonal discussion. Greater perceived influence on outgroup voters was associated with stronger support for censorship, and a lower voting likelihood among Democrats.

Progressive and Conservative “Freedom” Through the Lens of FOX and MSNBC

“…Although this may boost ratings, scholars have found that viewers are more likely to distrust political institutions after watching conflict-ridden programming (Forgette & Morris, 2006) and that Republican FOX News viewers are more likely to perceive the media as hostile than Democratic viewers (Hoffner & Rehkoff, 2011). In research conducted on outrage discourse, Sobieraj and Berry (2011) found that conservative media was much more likely than liberal media to use outrage tactics and elicit a "visceral response from the audience" (p. 19).…”

The Influence of Media Type on the Third Person Effect

“…Other cognitive factors that can explain self-other discrepancies are: ego involvement (Perloff, 1989) or self-perceived knowledge (Atwood 1994;Peiser & Peter 2000. Age, gender and group identity (Hoffner & Rehkoff 2011) or education (Paul, Salwen, & Dupagne 2000), can also be good predictor variables of TPE.…”

Online Gambling Advertising and the Third-Person Effect

“…Some of the suggested psychological processes underlying TPE are optimistic bias (Gunther and Mundy, 1993;Salwen and Dupagne, 2003), ego involvement (Perloff, 1989), and social comparison (Atwood, 1994). Social distance (Brosius and Engel, 1996), education (Paul et al, 2000), age, gender, racial group, and group identity (Hoffner and Rehkoff, 2011) have been shown as factors that impact on the TPE discrepancy.…”

“…In this sense, studies of the TPE behavioural component have mainly focused on the support to ban or censor controversial content, such as explicit sexual content (Gunther, 1995), misogynistic songs (McLeod et al, 1997), unfair and misleading political messages (Hoffner and Rehkoff, 2011), and trash talk-shows (GuerreroSolé et al, 2014). Even though censorship is associated with authoritarian societies, citizens in democratic societies express their willingness to censor specific controversial media content if it is perceived as socially harmful (McLeod et al, 2001).…”