Who Thinks that Female Journalists Have Sex with their Sources? Testing the Association Between Sexist Beliefs, Journalist Mistrust, and the Perceived Realism of Fictional Female Journalists

ABSTRACT

A troubling trend in television and film is the female reporter who uses sexual temptation to unethically obtain information from male sources. Which viewers are most likely to believe that sexist tropes about female reporters are realistic? A pre-registered online survey (N = 580) revealed that stereotypes about female journalists were the largest predictor of perceived realism, followed by hostile sexism and journalist mistrust. Given that perceived realism is theorized to bolster the impact of media, these results suggest that viewers scoring highly in stereotyping or sexism are the most likely to be impacted by sexualized portrayals of journalism.

KEYWORDS:

• hostile sexism
• journalism
• media trust
• realism
• stereotyping
• media psychology

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).