Communication · Executive Insight Brief · 119
Two complaints do not prove balance
Opposing partisans can experience the same coverage as biased against their own side even when they agree on what appeared
Premise
A disputed report can attract mirror-image accusations of bias from opposing groups. The Hostile Media Effect explains how people with strong positions may sincerely experience the same coverage as unfair to their own side. The disagreement can persist even when the audiences agree about the statements, sources, and evidence the report contained.
Robert Vallone, Lee Ross, and Mark Lepper introduced the phenomenon in 1985 through research on reactions to coverage of the Beirut massacre. The framework concerns perceived bias, not deception or direct attitude change. It adds an essential diagnostic distinction: what the message actually did and how audiences with different stakes perceived it are separate questions that require separate evidence.
What the model is: Hostile Media Effect in Knowledge →
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- FamilyModel
- CategoryEffects, Biases & Phenomena
- DomainMedia, Publics & Society
What these mean
Editorial orientation · Family
Model
In this series, Model names the editorial family primarily used to understand and explain communication: theories, frameworks, effects, traditions, principles and other conceptual resources. It is an umbrella for a route into the field, not a claim that every included object is a predictive model.
Editorial orientation · Category
Effects, Biases & Phenomena
Identifies a bounded pattern in judgment, behavior or communication and the conditions under which it appears. Naming the pattern makes a recurring difficulty recognizable; it does not make the pattern inevitable or supply a complete explanation.
- KnowledgeHostile Media Effect
- Related briefAttribution Theory: Separate the Event From the Cause You Assign