HME文献6 Hostile media perceptions Partisan assessments of press and public during the 1997 United Parcel Service strike.pdfVIP

Political Communication, 19:423–436, 2002 Copyright ã 2002 Taylor Francis 1058-4609/02 $12.00 + .00 DOI: 10.1080/10584600290109988 Hostile Media Perceptions: Partisan Assessments of Press and Public during the 1997 United Parcel Service Strike CINDY T. CHRISTEN, PRATHANA KANNAOVAKUN, and ALBERT C. GUNTHER This study investigated partisan perceptions of hostile bias in news coverage of the 1997 Teamsters Union strike against United Parcel Service (UPS), and the processes by which Teamster and UPS partisans formed impressions of public opinion regard- ing the strike. As predicted, both partisan groups perceived neutral news coverage as biased against their respective sides. However, perceptions of hostile media bias did not produce corresponding perceptions of hostile public opinion; instead, parti- sans appeared to rely on their personal opinions when estimating the opinions of others. Nonpartisan control-group subjects, however, did infer public opinion in part from their subjective assessments of news content. Findings suggest that level of involvement is crucial in predicting the effect that perceived media coverage of so- cial issues will have on perceptions of public opinion regarding those issues. Keywords hostile media effect, persuasive press inference, projection effect, public opinion, involvement At one time or another, most people have probably found mass media to be biased. However, even when media coverage of a controversial issue is, by the standards of most individuals, comparatively balanced and objective, people who are highly involved in the issue may see that coverage as unjustly slanted in favor of the opposition (Vallone, Ross, Lepper, 1985; Perloff, 1989; Gin