Who thinks the media is hostile?! An examination of individual differences predicting the hostile media effect concerning news media coverage of individuals with a migratory background in Germany

Abstract

AbstractThe present study explores individual differences related to the perception of the media coverage of immigrants as biased. Building on previous research, relations with the extremity in preexisting attitudes toward immigrants and in affective ratings of non-immigrants versus immigrants are examined. Additionally, the present study extends previous work by investigating dogmatism and intellectual humility, including their potential moderating roles on the relations of extremity in attitudes and affective ratings with perceived media bias. A sample of N = 212 (59% men) individuals from the general German population completed self-reports on their preexisting attitudes and affective ratings, as well as dogmatism and intellectual humility online. Moreover, participants rated their perception of news media coverage of immigrants as biased against their views. Results indicate that particularly more extreme negative attitudes toward immigrants and affective ratings favoring non-immigrants relative to immigrants are positively associated with perceiving the media coverage of immigrants as biased. No robust relations of dogmatism, intellectual humility, or their interactions with the extremity scores with perceived media bias were found. These findings underline the importance of negative extremity in (out) group-related attitudes and affect in perceiving the media coverage as biased. New approaches investigating media perceptions from a group-related perspective are discussed.