News With an Attitude: Assessing the Mechanisms Underlying the Effects of Opinionated News

Abstract

Opinionated news targets communities of likeminded viewers, relies on dramaturgical storytelling techniques, and shares characteristics with political satire. Accordingly, opinionated news should be understood as a specific form of political entertainment. We have investigated the mechanisms underlying the effects of opinionated news on political attitudes using an experimental design that employed manipulated television news items. Findings confirm that opinionated news positively affects policy attitudes via its presumed influence on others and subsequent perceptions of the opinion climate. However, opinionated news also negatively affects attitudes via hostile media perceptions and evoked anger, especially for people with incongruent political preferences. Due to these opposing processes, we found no total effect of opinionated news on policy attitudes. Conditions are discussed under which either the positive or the negative indirect effect is likely to dominate.

Notes

¹A control condition was also part of the experimental design but due to space limitations is not included in this article.

²We used the contrast coding scheme as shown in Table 1.

Note. Cells contain unstandardized (B) regression weights with standard errors (SE) in parentheses, standardized estimates (B*) and probabilities (p). The indirect effect and total effect estimates are based on 10,000 bias corrected bootstraps. CFI = comparative fit index; SRMR = standardized root mean square residual; RMSEA = root mean square error of approximation.

³We thank Professor Dr. Paul Dekker (Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau) for providing the recent Citizens' Outlooks Barometer I and II of 2013, which provides data confirming that a substantial proportion of PowNews viewers are moderates and left-wing voters.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mark Boukes

Mark Boukes (MSc., University of Amsterdam, 2011) is a Ph.D. candidate in the Amsterdam School of Communication Research at University of Amsterdam. His research interests include the societal and political consequences of new political media formats, such as infotainment and soft news.

Hajo G. Boomgaarden

Hajo G. Boomgaarden (Ph.D., University of Amsterdam, 2007) is an Associate Professor in the Amsterdam School of Communication Research at University of Amsterdam. His research interests include media portrayals of politics and media effects, focusing on issues such as European integration, populism, and election campaigns.

Marjolein Moorman

Marjolein Moorman (Ph.D., University of Amsterdam, 2003) is an Associate Professor in the Amsterdam School of Communication Research at University of Amsterdam. Her research interests include political advertising and branding, media strategy and context effects, consumer and voter psychology, and advertising effect measurement.

Claes H. De Vreese

Claes H. De Vreese (Ph.D., University of Amsterdam, 2003) is a Professor and Chair of political communication in the Amsterdam School of Communication Research at University of Amsterdam. His research interests include political journalism, media effects, and public opinion and electoral behavior in Europe.