When Social Media Become Hostile Media: An Experimental Examination of News Sharing, Partisanship, and Follower Count

Abstract

This study examines whether the characteristics of those who share news articles on social media influence the hostile media effect. In an experiment, participants read a news article shared by 1 of 4 Twitter users, 2 (Republican vs. Democrat) × 2 (21 vs. 503,000 followers). Consistent with the hostile media effect, both Republicans and Democrats believed that a news article shared by a Twitter user from an opposing political party was more biased than one shared by a Twitter user from the same political party. As the Twitter account had more followers, however, this effect was more prominent among Republicans and less prominent among Democrats.

Notes

¹ Participants’ awareness of follower count was not associated with their political party, χ²(1, N = 265) = .79, p = .37; their race/ethnicity, χ²(4, N = 265) = 6.31, p = .18; Twitter account’s political party, χ²(1, N = 265) = .01, p = .91; Twitter account’s follower count, χ²(1, N = 265) = 2.27, p = .13; or whether the participants’ and Twitter account’s political party matched, χ²(1, N = 265) = 1.74, p = .19. However, participants’ awareness of follower count was significantly associated with their gender, χ²(1, N = 265) = 4.95, p = .03: Of all female participants, 68.3% correctly recognized the Twitter follower count, but only 54.8% of male participants did.

² We ran an additional three-way ANOVA, Twitter account’s political party (Republican vs. Democrat) by whether the Twitter account’s political party matched the participants’ (matched vs. not matched) by the Twitter follower count (21 vs. 503,000), for all participants, including those who correctly indicated the Twitter follower count and those who did not. The results were consistent with those having only participants who correctly recognized the Twitter follower count on all but one measurement: Among Republicans, the interaction between the Twitter account’s political party and follower count became nonsignificant, F(1, 119) = 1.17, p = .28.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tae Kyoung Lee

Tae Kyoung Lee (Ph.D., Cornell University, 2016) is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Utah. Her research interests include media psychology and health communication.

Youngju Kim

Youngju Kim (Ph.D., University of Alabama, 2016) is an assistant professor in the Department of Mass Communication at Konkuk University. Her research interests include media psychology, media effects, and political communication.

Kevin Coe

Kevin Coe (Ph.D., University of Illinois, 2008) is an associate professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Utah. His research interests include political discourse, news media, and public opinion.