Do Even Journalists Support Media Restrictions? Presumed Political Media Influences and the Consequences

Abstract

How journalists perceive the influence of different types of media and how this perception affects the journalists’ attitude toward supporting censorship was explored by conducting a survey among German journalists ( N = 1,688). As predicted, the stronger journalists perceive the political influence of the media to be on the public, the more they approve of, for example, demands for restricting this influence. At the same time, behavioral intentions regarding censorship depend less on the perception of the media influences directly, and more on attitude toward these restrictions.