Media Portrayals of Immigration and Refugees in Hard and Fake News and Their Impact on Consumer Attitudes

Abstract

This study examined the effect of media portrayals of immigrants and refugees on participants’ attitudes using an experimental design. Participants included 196 male and female college students who were primed with either negative or positive media portrayals of immigrants and refugees from either hard or fake news sources, or no media portrayals. Participants then answered questions regarding immigrants, immigration policy, and Islamophobia. We hypothesized that there would be differences in participants attitudes based on experimental condition and that information presented from fake news would have a stronger effect on consumers than information presented via hard news. Factors related to participant susceptibility to media portrayals were also examined and included participant race, biological sex, social class, and political and religious affiliation. Significant differences were found based on experimental condition for viewing immigration as an economic, cultural diversity, and humanitarian benefit, as well as cognitive Islamophobia. As predicted, the effect of media portrayals, whether positive or negative, in video clips had a stronger effect on participants if the video clips originated from a fake news source. Additionally, biological sex, race, social class, and political affiliation were found to relate to participant susceptibility to media portrayals from both hard and fake news sources.