The Affective Underpinning of Hostile Media Perceptions: Exploring the Distinct Effects of Affective and Cognitive Involvement.

Author(s)
Jörg Matthes
Abstract

The hostile media effect (HME) refers to a process by which highly involved audiences tend to perceive media coverage as biased against their own views. In this process, issue involvement is usually treated as a cognitive construct, that is, as the extent to which the attitudinal issue under consideration is of personal importance. Although Vallone, Ross, and Lepper raised the issue of affective involvement in their seminal study, hardly any research has tried to disentangle the effects of cognitive and affective involvement. Thus, the aim of this article is to clarify whether the HME is triggered by cognitive and/or affective involvement. Data from three survey studies demonstrate that affective involvement—measured as emotional arousal or as the experience of concrete emotions—can explain the HME over and beyond cognitive involvement. Implications of these findings for future HME research are discussed.

Organisation(s)
Department of Communication
Journal
Communication Research (CR)
Volume
40
Pages
360–387
No. of pages
28
ISSN
0093-6502
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1177/0093650211420255
Publication date
06-2013
Peer reviewed
Yes
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
508014 Journalism
Portal url
https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/en/publications/the-affective-underpinning-of-hostile-media-perceptions-exploring-the-distinct-effects-of-affective-and-cognitive-involvement(b73933fe-b9ae-48a2-9bb7-6ad4667afa62).html