News bias perceptions as impacted by source cues, content cues, and media bias ratings

Abstract

Using three experimental studies, this research considers whether exposure to source cues, content cues, and media bias ratings impacts perceptions of ideological bias in news stories. As a possible news media literacy intervention strategy, viewing a media bias ratings chart after reading a news story had limited influence on assessments of bias. Source cues consistently influenced bias perceptions. Study 1 and Study 2 revealed evidence of the relative hostile media perception, where Republicans and Democrats perceived the news stories as biased in the same direction but to a significantly different degree. This finding did not replicate in Study 3, where content cues were held constant. Thus, content cues, alongside source cues, appear necessary in facilitating the relative hostile media perception.