A Three-Decade Retrospective on the Hostile Media Effect

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.     

Antecedents of children's comprehension of television advertising

This study compared the importance of role taking and logical operations stage in predicting children's understanding of the purpose of television advertising. Role taking was found to be the more critical variable.     

THIRD-PERSON EFFECT RESEARCH 1983-1992: A REVIEW AND SYNTHESIS

Ten years ago Davison formulated the third-person effect hypothesis,a novel approach to the study of public opinion. Davison proposedthat individuals typically assume that mass communications exerta stronger impact on others than the self, and he derived someinteresting ideas from this notion. Over the past decade, anumber of studies have tested predictions derived from Davison'sformulation. This paper reviews and synthesizes research onthe third-person effect. A systematic review of third-personeffect studies indicates that there is abundant support forthe notion that individuals assume that communications exerta stronger influence on others than on the self. However, thethird-person effect does not emerge in all circumstances andfor all people. The effect appears to be particularly likelyto emerge when the message contains recommendations that arenot perceived to be personally beneficial, when individualsperceive that the issue is personally important, and when theyperceive that the source harbors a negative bias. Considerablyless is known about the processes that underlie the third-personeffect. This paper proposes several explanations for the effect,and it suggests some directions for future research in thisarea.