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Martin Johnson |
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Professor, Department of Political Science |
2222 Watkins Hall Tel 951.827.4612, Fax 951.827.3933 e-mail: martin.johnson@ucr.edu |
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Public Opinion & Media Effects
How Does Media Choice Affect Hostile Media Perceptions? Evidence from Participant Preference Experiments (with Kevin Arceneaux) We test hypotheses from a motivational model of media choice to investigate how selective exposure to various types of media shapes hostile media perceptions. We use an innovative experimental design that is specifically designed to gauge the influence of viewers' preferences for entertainment, partisan cable news, or mainstream broadcast news on their reactions to media content. This design represents a new modification to the participant preference experiment used elsewhere, expanding a laboratory-based media environment to include partisan and mainstream news options, alongside entertainment programming. We find that people's viewing preferences shape their reactions to news media content. The Decline of Daily Newspapers and the Third-Person Effect (with R. Kirby Goidel & Michael Climek) Members of mass media audiences tend to believe that others are more susceptible to the influence of media messages than they are themselves. This third-person effect underlies other phenomena like hostile media judgments. It tends to be studied in terms of the effects of enduring and established forms of communication, especially those viewed as having potential negative effectsÑpolitically biased messages, other forms of propaganda, and communication that could harm reputations. We investigate third-person effects in relation to the reduction of information in a political environment. The New Orleans Times-Picayune ended daily print circulation in September 2012 in favor of a three-day per week publication schedule and on-line news offerings. Using original survey data, we investigate the concerns expressed by residents of the primary Times-Picayune circulation area about the informational challenges this reduced publication schedule presents them and others readers. We find evidence of a third-person effect on judgments about changes at the Times-Picayune. |
Last updated September 10, 2013.