One Bias Fits All?

Autor(en)

Jakob-Moritz Eberl, Hajo Boomgaarden, Markus Wagner

Abstrakt

Bias in political news coverage may have a profound influence on voter opinions and preferences. However, the concept of media bias actually encompasses different sub-types: Visibility bias is the salience of political actors, tonality bias the evaluation of these actors, and agenda bias the extent to which parties address preferred issues in media coverage. The present study is the first to explore how each type of bias influences party preferences. Using data from the Austrian parliamentary election campaign of 2013, we combine an online panel survey (n = 1,285) with measures of media bias from content analyses of party press releases (n = 1,922) and media coverage in eight newspapers (n = 6,970). We find substantial effects on party preferences for tonality bias and agenda bias, while visibility bias has no clear impact. Voters who are less politically sophisticated and lack a party identification are more susceptible to bias, and media bias can also reinforce existing partisan identities.

Organisation(en)

Institut für Publizistik- und Kommunikationswissenschaft, Institut für Staatswissenschaft

Journal

Communication Research (CR)

Band

44

Seiten

1125-1148

Anzahl der Seiten

24

ISSN

0093-6502

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1177/0093650215614364

Publikationsdatum

11-2015

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

506012 Politische Systeme, 508012 Medienwirkungsforschung

Schlagwörter

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Communication, Language and Linguistics, Linguistics and Language

Link zum Portal

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/27098ab6-74d1-4547-a84e-7dbf9198762b