Hostile Media Effect

Abstract

The hostile media effect (HME), with its emphasis on the power of contemporary perceptions, provides a novel way to view media effects. In a critical examination of the HME more than three decades after its conceptualization, this entry reviews evidence in support of the effect, as well as key moderators, mediators, and consequences. It examines the HME's relevance to a social media era that differs dramatically from the mass media era in which the HME was conceived, but, in its capacity to evoke biased perceptions, bears striking, uncanny similarities to the mass media age of yore.