Competing Identity Cues in the Hostile Media Phenomenon: Source, Nationalism, and Perceived Bias in News Coverage of Foreign Affairs

ABSTRACT

The global media ecology offers news audiences a wide variety of sources for international news and interpretation of foreign affairs, and this kind of news coverage may increase the salience of both domestic and national partisan identity cues. Based upon the recognition that individuals hold multiple partisan identities that can be more or less salient in different situations, the current study draws upon self-categorization and social identity theory to design a set of studies that pit competing partisan identities against one another. The results of two experiments indicate that both national and domestic partisan identities are directly related to perceived media bias regarding the coverage of U.S-Chinese relations from both domestic and foreign media sources.Results varied based on the dimension of media bias considered, with perceived favorability towards the United States impacted more consistently by source origin than perceived favorability toward personal worldview.Results are discussed in terms of how they advance theory about perceived media bias, specifically in light of the implications of the global media environment for our understanding of partisanship.

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Notes on contributors

Guy J. Golan

Guy J. Golan is an associate professor in the Strategic Communication Department in the Bob Schieffer College of Communication at Texas Christian University. Golan’s research examines the intersection of social media, international relations, and public opinion.

T. Franklin Waddell

T. Franklin Waddell (Ph.D., Pennsylvania State University) is an assistant professor in the Department of Journalism at the College of Journalism and Communications at the University of Florida. His research examines emerging technological trends in journalism such as automated news and online comments.

Matthew Barnidge

Matthew Barnidge (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison) is an assistant professor in the Department of Journalism & Creative Media at the University of Alabama. His research specializes in political communication, news audiences, and media technologies, and he studies these topics in comparative and multiple national contexts.