Seeing Media as Group Members: An Evaluation of Partisan Bias Perceptions

• Published in: Journal of communication Vol. 64; no. 5; pp. 874 - 894
• Main Authors: Stroud, Natalie Jomini, Muddiman, Ashley, Lee, Jae Kook
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hoboken, USA Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 01.10.2014; Wiley; Oxford University Press
• Subjects: Bias; Citizens; Communication; Evaluation; Homogeneity; Liberals; Mass Media; Media; Media coverage; Partisanship; Perception; Perceptions; Politics; Sociology; Sociology of communication and mass media. Sociolinguistics; Sociology of knowledge and sociology of culture; Variance; Social group; Social Perception; Bias; Media; Membership; Citizen; Categorization
• ISSN: 0021-9916; 1460-2466
• DOI: 10.1111/jcom.12110

Drawing upon research on ingroup and outgroup perceptions, 2 studies examine citizen perceptions of media bias. Study 1 examines how citizens think about media bias across multiple sources. Consistent with the phenomenon of outgroup homogeneity, citizens' political leanings influence how much variation they perceive; politically dissimilar media are seen as having a more uniform partisan bias and politically similar media are seen as having more diverse partisan biases. Study 2 examines whether familiarity, one explanation for outgroup homogeneity, accounts for the patterns. Results demonstrate that familiarity does account for the findings; however, how it does so varies between sources seen as conservative and sources seen as liberal. The study discusses implications relating to theories about media perceptions.