Partisan Media Exposure and Attitudes Toward the Opposition

Abstract

How has the rise of partisan media outlets changed how citizens perceive the other party? In particular, does watching partisan news sources make citizens dislike and distrust the other party? Drawing on social identity theory, I explain how the slanted presentation of the news on partisan outlets leads viewers to perceive the other party more negatively, to trust them less, and to be less supportive of bipartisanship. Using a series of original experiments, I find strong support for my arguments. I conclude by discussing the normative and empirical implications of these findings.[Supplementary material is available for this article. Go to the publisher's online edition of Political Communication for the following free supplemental resource(s): full details of the experiments, including descriptions of the samples, protocol, and text of the stimuli, results of manipulation checks, the replication of experiment 2 described in the text, and additional statistical results.]

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