Exploring anger in the hostile media process: Effects on news preferences and source evaluation

Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly

Volumn 88, Issue 1, 2011, Pages 5-22

  Arpan, Laura M ^a   Nabi, Robin L ^b  

^a FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

MEDIA ROLE; THEORETICAL STUDY;

EID: 79958144558     PISSN: 10776990     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/107769901108800101     Document Type: Article

References (82)

1. Project for Excellence in Journalism, The State of the News Media 2005: An Annual Report on American Journalism (Washington, DC: Project for Excellence in Journalism, 2005), http://www.stateofthe-newsmedia.org/2005/(accessed October 1, 2006).
2. Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, Public More Critical of Press, But Goodwill Persists: Online Newspaper Readership Countering Print Losses (Washington, DC: Pew Research Center, 2005), http://people-press.org/ reports/display.php3?ReportID=248 (accessed June 8, 2007).
3. Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, Maturing Internet News Audience Broader than Deep: Online Papers Modestly Boost Newspaper Readership (Washington, DC: Pew Research Center, 2006), http://people-press.org/reports/ pdf/282.pdf (accessed October 22, 2007).
4. Hyunseo Hwang, Zhongdang Pan, and Ye Sun, "Influence of Hostile Media Perception on Willingness to Engage in Discursive Activities: An Examination of Mediating Role of Media Indignation," Media Psychology 11 (January 2008): 76-97;
5. Yariv Tsfati and Jonathan Cohen, "Democratic Consequences of Hostile Media Perceptions: The Case of Gaza Settlers," The Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics 10 (October 2005): 28-51;
6. Yariv Tsfati and Yoram Peri, "Mainstream Media Skepticism and Exposure to Extra-National and Sectorial News Media: The Case of Israel," Mass Communication and Society 9 (December 2006): 165-87.
7. Tony Rimmer and David Weaver, "Different Questions, Different Answers? Media Use and Media Credibility," Journalism Quarterly 64 (summer 1987): 28-36;
8. Tsfati and Peri, "Mainstream Media Skepticism";
9. Wayne Wanta and Yu-Wei Hu, "The Effects of Credibility, Reliance, and Exposure on Media Agenda-Setting: A Path Analysis Model," Journalism Quarterly 71 (spring 1994): 90-98.
10. Spiro Kiousis, "Public Trust or Mistrust? Perceptions of Media Credibility in the Information Age," Mass Communication and Society 4 (November 2001): 381-403;
11. Yariv Tsfati and Joseph N. Cappella, "Do People Watch What They Do Not Trust? Exploring the Association Between News Media Skepticism and Exposure," Communication Research 30 (October 2003): 504-29;
12. Yariv Tsfati and Joseph N. Cappella, "Why Do People Watch News They Do Not Trust? The Need for Cognition as a Moderator in the Association Between News Media Skepticism and Exposure," Media Psychology 7 (August 2005): 251-71.
13. Richard S. Lazarus, Emotion and Adaptation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991);
14. Robin L. Nabi, "Exploring the Framing Effects of Emotion: Do Discrete Emotions Differentially Influence Information Accessibility, Information Seeking, and Policy Preference?" Communication Research 30 (April 2003): 224-47.
15. Hwang, Pan, and Sun, "Influence of Hostile Media";
16. Kyun Soo Kim and David Roskos-Ewoldsen, "Hostile Media Perception in the Politics of Global Warming" (paper presented at the meeting of the International Communication Association, Chicago, IL, 2009).
17. Hwang, Pan, and Sun's ("Influence of Hostile Media") measure of additional information preference was content-neutral ("more information about the topic").
18. Kim and Roskos-Ewoldsen ("Hostile Media Perception") created a difference measure of content preference (interest in pro-attitudinal-interest in counter-attitudinal), but recent research suggests a need to examine effects on both preferences individually
19. (see R. Kelly Garrett, "Politically Motivated Reinforcement Seeking: Reframing the Selective Exposure Debate," Journal of Communication 58 [December 2009]: 676-99).
20. Neither study examined preferences in conjunction with variance in potential utility of information. However, recent research suggests that situational factors such as perceived utility will determine the preference for consonant versus dissonant information (see Nicholas A. Valentino, Antoine J. Banks, Vincent L. Hutchings, and Anne K. Davis, "Selective Exposure in the Internet Age: The Interaction Between Anxiety and Information Utility," Political Psychology 30 [August 2009]: 591-613).
21. Albert C. Gunther, "Biased Press or Biased Public? Attitudes Toward Media Coverage of Social Groups," Public Opinion Quarterly 56 (summer 1992): 147-67.
22. Albert C. Gunther and Kathleen Schmitt, "Mapping Boundaries of the Hostile Media Effect," Journal of Communication 54 (March 2004): 55-70;
23. Robert P. Vallone, Lee Ross, and Mark R. Lepper, "The Hostile Media Phenomenon: Biased Perception of Media Bias in Coverage of the Beirut Massacre," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 49 (fall 1985): 577-85.
24. Tsfati and Cappella, "Why Do People Watch."
25. Laura M. Arpan and Erik Peterson, "Influence of Source Liking and Personality Traits on Perceptions of Bias and News Source Selection," Media Psychology 11 (April 2008): 310-29;
26. Christopher E. Beaudoin and Esther Thorson, "A Marketplace Theory of Media Use," Mass Communication and Society 5 (August 2002): 241-62;
27. Tsfati and Peri, "Mainstream Media Skepticism."
28. Tsfati and Cappella, "Why Do People Watch."
29. Schmitt, Gunther, and Liebhart (Kathleen Schmitt, Albert C. Günther, and Janice Liebhart, "Why Partisans See Mass Media as Biased," Communication Research 31 [December 2004]: 623-41) note that such measures of perceived bias typically involve assessments of "several dimensions, including accuracy of information, content balance, and trustworthiness of sources."
30. See, for example, David D'Alessio, "An Experimental Examination of Readers' Perceptions of Media Bias," Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 80 (summer 2003): 282-94;
31. Gunther and Schmitt, "Mapping Boundaries";
32. Matthias Kohring and Jörg Matthes: Trust in News Media. "Development and Validation of a Multidimensional Scale," Communication Research 34 (April 2007): 231-52;
33. Philip Meyer, "Defining and Measuring Credibility of Newspapers: Developing an Index," Journalism Quarterly 65 (fall 1988): 567-74. We note that all of these studies reflect a focus on rational/cognitive rather than emotional/affective responses and/or processes.
34. Tsfati and Cappella, "Why Do People Watch";
35. Tsfati and Peri, "Mainstream Media Skepticism."
36. Dolf Zillmann, Silvia Knobloch, and Hong-sik Yu, "Effects of Photographs on the Selective Reading of News Reports," Media Psychology 3 (November 2001): 301-24.
37. Eddie Harmon-Jones, "The Role of Affect in Cognitive-Dissonance Process," in Handbook of Affect and Social Cognition, ed. Joseph P. Forgas (Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2001), 237-55;
38. Eddie Harmon-Jones, Jonathan Sigelman, Amanda Bohlig, and Cindy Harmon-Jones, "Anger, Coping, and Frontal Cortical Activity: The Effect of Coping Potential on AngerInduced Left Frontal Activity," Cognition and Emotion 17 (January 2003): 1-24.
39. Nabi, "Exploring the Framing Effects."
40. Harmon-Jones et al., "Anger, Coping, and Frontal Cortical Activity."
41. Len Berkowitz and Eddie Harmon-Jones, "Toward an Understanding of the Determinants of Anger," Emotion 4 (June 2004): 107-30; Lazarus, Emotion and Adaptation.
42. Hwang, Pan, and Sun, "Influence of Hostile Media."
43. Nico H. Frijda, "The Place of Appraisal in Emotion," Cognition and Emotion 7 (May 1993): 357-87; Lazarus, Emotion and Adaptation.
44. Frijda, "The Place of Appraisal."
45. Charles S. Carver and Eddie Harmon-Jones, "Anger Is an Approach-Related Affect: Evidence and Implications," Psychological Bulletin 135 (March 2009): 183-204; Lazarus, Emotion and Adaptation.
46. Frijda, "The Place of Appraisal."
47. Garrett, "Politically Motivated Reinforcement."
48. Valentino et al., "Selective Exposure."
49. Nabi, "Exploring the Framing Effects";
50. Robin L. Nabi, "Emotion and Persuasion: A Social Cognitive Perspective," in Social Cognition and Communication: Theories and Methods, ed. D. R. Roskos-Ewoldsen and J. Monahan (Mahwah, N.J.: Erlbaum, 2007), 397-98.
51. Garrett, "Politically Motivated Reinforcement";
52. Eva Jonas, Stefan Schulz-Hardt, Dieter Frey, and Norman Thelen, "Confirmation Bias in Sequential Information Search after Preliminary Decisions: An Expansion of Dissonance Theoretical Research on Selective Exposure to Information," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 80 (April 2001): 557-71.
53. For arguments suggesting that anger can motivate closer information processing see Robin L. Nabi, "A Cognitive-Functional Model for the Effects of Discrete Negative Emotions on Information Processing, Attitude Change, and Recall," Communication Theory 9 (August 1999): 292-320;
54. Nabi, "Emotion and Persuasion."
55. Harmon-Jones et al., "Anger, Coping, and Frontal Cortical Activity"; Lazarus, Emotion and Adaptation.
56. Participants' levels of argumentativeness (Dominic A. Infante and Andrew S. Rancer, "A Conceptualization and Measure of Argumentativeness," Journal of Personality Assessment 46 [February 1982]: 72-80);
57. need for cognition (John T. Cacioppo, Richard E. Petty, and Chuan Feng Kao, "The Efficient Assessment of Need for Cognition," Journal of Personality Assessment 48 [June 1984]: 306-07);
58. trait reactance (Lijiang Shen and James Price Dillard, "Psychometric Properties of the Hong Psychological Reactance Scale," Journal of Personality Assessment 85 [August 2005]: 74-81);
59. and trait aggression (Kirstie Farrar and Marina Krcmar, "Measuring State and Trait Aggression: A Short, Cautionary Tale," Media Psychology 8 [May 2006]: 127-38) were measured, ostensibly as part of another study, before exposure to the stimulus materials and were intended to be included as covariates in our analyses.
60. However, none of these variables was significantly correlated with any of the dependent variables, and, therefore, they are not discussed further. Cecilie Gaziano and Kristin McGrath, "Measuring the Concept of Credibility," Journalism Quarterly 63 (autumn 1986): 451-62;
61. Meyer, "Defining and Measuring Credibility of Newspapers," 567-74;
62. Mark Douglas West, "Validating a Scale for the Measurement of Credibility: A Covariance Structure Modeling Approach," Journalism Quarterly 71 (spring 1994): 159-68.
63. Vallone, Ross, and Lepper, "The Hostile Media Phenomenon";
64. Albert C. Günther and Kathleen Schmitt, "Mapping Boundaries of the Hostile Media Effect," Journal of Communication 54 (March 2004): 55-70.
65. Jonas et al., "Confirmation Bias."
66. Daniel J. O'Keefe, "Message Properties, Mediating States, and Manipulation Checks: Claims, Evidence, and Data Analysis in Experimental Persuasive Message Effects Research," Communication Theory 13 (August 2003): 251-74. Of note, bias judgments were not significantly correlated with fear, guilt, happiness, or sadness (p > .10).
67. One might imagine that anger would mediate, rather than moderate, the effect of anger on bias. However, this assumes that anger is the only mechanism through which bias impacts information preference. Yet, as others have noted, there are other, cognitively-based mechanisms through which bias influences information preference (e.g., Tsfati and Cappella, "Why Do People Watch";
68. Tsfati and Peri, "Mainstream Media Skepticism").
69. Thus, we expect anger to moderate, not mediate, the effects of bias on information preference. Still, we tested for mediating effects of anger on desire for all three types of information, using procedures recommended by Baron and Kenny (Reuben M. Baron and David A. Kenny, "The Moderator-Mediator Variable Distinction in Social Psychological Research: Conceptual, Strategic and Statistical Considerations," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 51 [December 1986]: 1173-1182). In all three cases, bias predicted anger, and anger positively predicted desire for more information. However, the significant, negative effect of bias on desire for additional information neither decreased nor became non-significant when anger was included in the equation. Thus, the evidence does not support a mediation relationship. We interpret anger responses in these conditions as directed toward the general situation or individuals described in the story (of note, anger and bias were not significantly correlated in the control condition, r (123) = .08, p =.37). This is in contrast to anger responses in the identity-threatening conditions, which we interpret as anger directed toward the news source.
70. Harmon-Jones et al., "Anger, Coping, and Frontal Cortical Activity."
71. Albert C. Günther, Cindy T. Christen, Janice L. Liebhart, and Stella C. Chia, "Congenial Public, Contrary Press, and Biased Estimates of the Climate of Opinion," Public Opinion Quarterly 65 (fall 2001): 295-320.
72. Garrett, "Politically Motivated Reinforcement";
73. George E. Marcus, W. Russell Neuman, and Michael MacKuen, Affective Intelligence and Political Judgment (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2000);
74. Nicholas A. Valentino, Vincent L. Hutchings, Antoine J. Banks, and Anne K. Davis, "Is a Worried Citizen a Good Citizen? Emotions, Political Information Seeking, and Learning via the Internet," Political Psychology 29 (April 2008): 247-73;
75. Valentino et al., "Selective Exposure in the Internet Age," 591-613.
76. Valentino et al., "Is a Worried Citizen a Good Citizen?"
77. For a discussion of variance in subjective evaluation of anger states, see Eddie Harmon-Jones, "On the Relationship of Anterior Brain Activity and Anger: Examining the Role of Attitude Toward Anger," Cognition and Emotion 18 (April 2004): 337-61.
78. Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick and Scott Alter, "Mood Adjustment to Social Situations through Mass Media Use: How Men Ruminate and Women Dissipate Angry Moods," Human Communication Research 32 (January 2006): 58-73;
79. Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick, "Gender Differences in Mood Management and Mood Adjustment," Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 51 (April 2007): 73-92.
80. Sally Jackson, Message Effects Research: Principles of Design and Analysis (New York: Guilford Press, 1992).
81. Paul DiMaggio, Eszter Hargittai, W. Russell Neuman, and John P. Robinson, "Social Implications of the Internet," Annual Review of Sociology 27 (August 2001): 307-36;
82. Shanto Iyengar and Kyu S. Hahn, "Red Media, Blue Media: Evidence of Ideological Selectivity in Media Use," Journal of Communication 59 (March 2009): 19-39.