2015/06/14 by Richard M. Perloff · 1 citation
Social Sciences · Computer Science · Psychology · #Social Media and Politics #Hate Speech and Cyberbullying Detection #Media Influence and Politics #Personality #Perception #Media coverage #Psychology #Mass media #Social media #Phenomenon #Social psychology #Media studies #Sociology #Epistemology #Political science #Computer science #World Wide Web #Philosophy
paper · doi:10.1080/15205436.2015.1051234
openalex publication_date 2015/06/14 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
Some 30 years ago, Vallone, Ross, and Lepper (1985 Vallone, R. P., Ross, L., & Lepper, M. R. (1985). The hostile media phenomenon: Biased perception and perceptions of media bias in coverage of the Beirut massacre. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 49, 577–585. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.49.3.577[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) conducted a pioneering study of the hostile media effect in which they demonstrated that partisans perceive media coverage as unfairly biased against their side. Over the ensuing decades, scores of experiments and surveys have extended their findings, demonstrating hostile media effects in a variety of domains. Taking the measure of the research more than 30 years later by systematically reviewing the many studies conducted in different locales, this article summarizes the knowledge base on the hostile media effect. The article integrates findings, clarifies conceptual issues, and presents two research-based models of the effect. Future scholarly pathways are suggested, with a focus on how hostile media biases may change—or continue—in an era vastly different than the mass communication-dominated age in which the concept was pioneered.