Hostile Media and the Campaign Trail: Perceived Media Bias in the Race for Governor

Abstract

Past research on the hostile media effect (HME) indicates that partisans are prone to evaluate media content as relatively biased against their own position. The present study investigates the progression of the HME within the context of a statewide gubernatorial campaign. A 3-wave panel study is used to trace the existence of the HME, as well as the effect’srelationshiptootherkeypublicopinionindicators.Resultsindicatethatalthoughthe HME did exist in termsof respondents’ perceptions of biased media coverage, its subsequent impact on perceived public opinion was minimal when compared with individual biases, such as respondents projecting their own opinions when considering the views of others. Implications are presented and discussed. doi:10.1111/j.1460-2466.2010.01473.x Public trust in the media has been on the decline for many years in the United States, a trend lamented by numerous political and communication scholars (e.g., Cappella & Jamieson, 1997; Putnam, 2000). In a 1972 poll, more than 70% of the American public reported that they could trust the news media to report the news accurately and fairly most of the time, as compared with just 50% in 2005 (Carroll, 2005). With the explosion of available media options, consumers have become more politicized in both their news choices and their perceptions of media credibility. In particular, consumers who identify themselves as Republicans trust far fewer news sources than Democrats, and have turned to more conservative media outlets in increasing numbers (Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, 2004). This decline in media trust, along with the polarization of news audiences (Tsfati &C apella, 2003), provides av astly different picture than was evident in the media landscape less than a half-century ago. Such changes generate questions about media effects on not only perceptions of bias in the news, but also on public opinion. The hostilemediabias,firstrecognizedinthe1980s,hasbeendocumentedinnonrandom