Hostile Media Perception theory (HMP) is a theory about mass communication that says a partisan perceives bias when presented with neutral coverage of news from a source deemed to be opposite to their political leanings. It also suggests that reading news from a source perceived as politically biased might decrease their willingness to share it with others and vice versa. A paper in Royal Society Open Scientist reports on tests conducted to measure this effect. They took two "hot button" topics, police conduct and COVID-19 restrictions, and presented them to people as a headline and short report. The news items presented were real stories and presented in a neutral manner, but they manipulated the banner graphic on top of the headline to appear that it came from either Fox News or CNN.
Their results showed that perceptions that a news source is biased depends upon both the political leaning of the viewer as well as particular topics being reported:
We show that news reporting on important contemporary and debated issues in US society, such as negative police conduct (Study 1) and compliant or defiant behaviours concerning COVID-19 norms (Study 2), are more likely to be perceived as biased when the news source is not aligned with one's political view. This HMP effect might contribute to further polarization in US society, eroding trust towards media outlets and information providers. However, in line with theory, our evidence indicates that not all news content is relevant in triggering HMP: when respondents are exposed to less controversial news (i.e. positive police conduct, Study 1), perceived news bias is similar across political leanings.
Journal Reference:
Sergio Lo Iacono and Terence Daniel Dores Cruz, Hostile media perception affects news bias, but not news sharing intentions [open], Royal Soc. Open Sci., 9, 2022.
DOI: 10.1098/rsos.211504
(Score: 4, Insightful) by inertnet on Tuesday April 26 2022, @10:00AM (4 children)
This is also the reason why delusional dictators can still start wars today. Dehumanize the perceived enemy and force or convince your gullible youngsters to go and kill the -no longer human and thus evil- enemy.
A solution would be to prevent politicians from becoming dictators, but they will always be able to skew the news and take advantage of the universal rule: "people can be made to believe anything". Even that other ordinary humans are suddenly no longer human.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Mojibake Tengu on Tuesday April 26 2022, @11:03AM (3 children)
Did CIA Director William Casey really say, "We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false"?
The edge of 太玄 cannot be defined, for it is beyond every aspect of design
(Score: 5, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Tuesday April 26 2022, @11:52AM (2 children)
I notice that you do not give a source for the alleged quote by Barbara Honegger. As far as I can tell from your post, she may or may not have said or written that on Nov 25, 2014 (or at any other date). You also don't tell the context of that alleged quote, or anything at all about Barbara Honegger at all, which would allow me to make at least preliminary conclusions on the likely trustworthiness of that person, assuming she actually made that claim to begin with.
In short: Your post does not contain even close to enough information to even begin to judge whether William Casey has ever said that sentence. All I know is that you give an alleged quote by Barbara Honegger which in turn claims that William Casey said that sentence. Pretty thin evidence, if you ask me.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday April 26 2022, @06:52PM
Yeah but my second cousin's uncle's brother assures me it's true so nothing you can say will convince me otherwise!
(Score: 3, Funny) by Mykl on Wednesday April 27 2022, @03:52AM
Ah, but what evidence do you have that he _didn't_ say that?!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Tuesday April 26 2022, @10:01AM (2 children)
I would have been surprised if that were not the case.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by driverless on Tuesday April 26 2022, @01:52PM
Yup, not only is it not surprising but it's been extensively studied in the past. One famous study carried out years ago presented Israelis with an Israeli peace proposal labelled as being Palestinian, and Palestinians with a Palestinian peace proposal labelled as being Israeli. Both groups soundly rejected their own peace proposals simply because they thought they were coming from the other side. And there's many, many more like that.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday April 26 2022, @02:18PM
Well, naturally, but that's why it's a natural confound to control for in any analysis targeting some other dimension of human behavior. If the study didn't confirm that, then it would imply they didn't account for it.
That's why in a lot of these social psychology papers you'll see it broken into Study 1 and Study 2, where Study 1 finds [known effect] and Study 2 twists it slightly to examine [author's real hypothesis] while study 1 acts as a control for [known effect].
If you're really sharp, you might see how this lends itself to the replication crisis, because effects in Study 2, especially controlling for variables of Study 1, are small and more prone to confirmation bias by the authors.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 26 2022, @10:42AM (10 children)
It's scheduled in 3 1/2 weeks time and I'm really considering paying the fine* and not voting.
Such is the polarization via "hostile media" that each of the major parties are more interested in gaining one's vote through he says, she says sound bites than discussing any sort of coherent policies. And for this, they get to ride the gravy train at several times the average salary.
On the one hand, there's the governing coalition of right wingers who resort to nationalism, transphobia, war-mongering, climate change denial, churchy values, tax cuts and Sinophobia to win your vote. On the other hand, there's a motley crew of tree-hugging Trotskyists proposing to provide socialized dentistry and hastily shut down the coal industry.
In the middle are Labor, the workers' party who are so compromised by appealing to everyone that they lurch to the right or the left in a reactionary manner according to the whims of media meddler Murdoch. A group of well meaning but ultimately mediocre career politicians that have lost 3 successive elections while abandoning core policies following each loss.
So yeah, HMP is alive and well in my country. Don't even get me started on the senate, which has a whole other set of characters like Pauline.
* yes, you get fined for not voting compulsorily.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 26 2022, @11:04AM (1 child)
Well, at least you don't share a border with another country. That saves you from some amount of hate and fear mongering. Is the opposition party filled with "woke" pedophiles that drink baby blood, or is that a special level of "political discourse" that only we get to engage in?
(Score: 3, Informative) by Mykl on Wednesday April 27 2022, @04:40AM
No, that's special to the US.
Nobody believes for a second that the Green party (the far left in Australia) are evil Pedo-Satanists, but many believe that their social justice policies are too far to the left. This would certainly be true for US'ians, whose politics are so far to the right of us that our right-wing party (Liberal/National coalition) are probably more in alignment with the US Democrats.
(Score: 2) by ewk on Tuesday April 26 2022, @11:24AM (2 children)
Cannot really be bothered to find out how Aussie elections are performed, :-) but if you still use the pencil/crayon and 'tick the box' approach, why not tick way to manyall the boxes and thereby (I assume) invalidate your vote?
Or it the 'show/no show' division of voters also of importance?
I don't always react, but when I do, I do it on SoylentNews
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Tuesday April 26 2022, @12:30PM (1 child)
Yep, paper ballots. Usually two. A small one for the Lower House, anywhere from 2 to 12 candidates on it. Usually about 4 or 5. You number from one to N in order of your preference. The lowest voted candidate is eliminated and their votes distributed to the 2nd preference. This continues until someone has a majority.
The other ballot paper is huge, and is for the Upper House. The small one is for your electorate only, but the big one is not region limited. You get to number fifty or sixty squares in order (or you can take a shortcut and number one party and let them distribute your preferences). A pollie only needs to get a couple of percent of the vote to win a seat, but that's a couple of percent of the whole country.
Only the Lower House can introduce legislation, but it must also pass the Upper House to become law.
If the GP is disgusted with the two major parties there are almost always independents they can vote for, especially in the Upper House.
No problem is insoluble, but at Ksp = 2.943×10−25 Mercury Sulphide comes close.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Mykl on Wednesday April 27 2022, @04:47AM
There was a funny situation that occurred in the voting for the Upper House a few years ago. A political deal-maker called the "Vote Whisperer" worked with all of the micro-parties (usually single-issue groups) to share voting preferences with each other, in effect ensuring that as the parties with the lowest votes were eliminated, the next preference kept going to the minor parties still in the race rather than to the majors. The end result was that a candidate running for the Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party, Ricky Muir [wikipedia.org], ended up being elected!
The elites turned their full attention to make the guy look like an idiot (and his social media presence didn't help), but he actually ended up doing a pretty good job while he was there, all things considered.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by maxwell demon on Tuesday April 26 2022, @11:57AM
Why not simply turn in an invalid ballot? Should have the same effect, but won't cost you a fine.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday April 26 2022, @04:42PM
If you have seen the videos of people in Shanghai wailing and committing suicide out of desperation from extreme coronavirus lockdowns, you might conclude that a healthy dose of Sinophobia is warranted.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday April 26 2022, @07:00PM (2 children)
Good lord what an embarrassment of riches!
So you have straight up crazy people.
People somewhere between the crazy people and the people below.
And people with whom you disagree about dentistry and climate change, what, severity? (and are also actual policy positions)
We could only be so fortunate to have those choices!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 27 2022, @01:51PM (1 child)
Different AC but I have seen people refer to teeth as "luxury bones" completely unironically. Apparently people hate the idea of other people being able to eat solid food.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday April 27 2022, @02:35PM
Modern dentistry is responsible for something like 50% of the increase in human life expectancy!
Turns out having an infection right next to your brain can be a bad thing for your health!
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 26 2022, @12:37PM (8 children)
that's the real concern here. Continue to do as you're told, citizen! Don't question it!!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ikanreed on Tuesday April 26 2022, @02:31PM (7 children)
It's certainly also a problem that our media is hella untrustworthy.
But our alternative media is no-better-to-worse. And any serious attempt to address the problem would be rightly seen as a huge infringement on freedom of press.
10 years ago, I thought "Well if we educate people well enough on things they'll start to understand better" and that was foolish
5 years ago, I thought "Well, when the problems related to reality denial start to impact their friends and family, they'll start to understand better" and that was foolish
Nowadays, I think "Well, maybe when the American empire collapses because no systems actually work anymore, people will start to understand better", and in my defense, I'm prepared to feel very foolish about that too.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Tuesday April 26 2022, @02:50PM
Obviously Faux News has destroyed your belief in human kindness.
/s
"It is easier to fool someone than it is to convince them that they have been fooled" Mark Twain
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday April 26 2022, @04:45PM (5 children)
Not to freak you out, but it's not an American empire. It's a globalist one. The people who run Bangladesh have more in common with people on the Upper East Side of Manhattan than they do with regular Bangladeshis.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 27 2022, @01:05AM (1 child)
Will a theocratic dictatorship change that?
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday April 27 2022, @12:14PM
Whose? Iran's? Israel's?
America will never come close to such a thing, not even in the 1960's when church-going and Christian identity were several times greater than they are today. One could argue, in fact, that theocratic dictatorship in America has taken the form of cultural, political, and social institutions having been taken over by the Church of Woke. That's polemical at worst and tongue-in-cheek at best, but it's got more data supporting it than a supposed Christian theocracy does.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Wednesday April 27 2022, @09:47AM (2 children)
That has always been true of all countries everywhere. Nationalism is something to get the peasants motivated, not something the elite take seriously.
No problem is insoluble, but at Ksp = 2.943×10−25 Mercury Sulphide comes close.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday April 27 2022, @12:09PM (1 child)
No, it has not. No reading of history or literature supports your assertion. Read any selection of scholarly work or literature in the Western tradition and you will find innumerable references to "national character" and ornate differentiation between Frenchmen and Germans and that sort of thing.
Elite globalism as we know it began to develop with Bretton Woods after WWII. It peaked around the late 90's and early 2000's with maximum accession of member states to the EU and total supremacy of the US's hegemony. Now it is fracturing and de-laminating with Brexit, China's bid for superpower status, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The backlash may in fact shatter national identities that obtained pre-Bretton Woods if various programs of subversion are not checked. We'll have to wait and see.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 27 2022, @12:56PM
Of course, that explains why all those royals marry a commoner from their own country instead of a prince or princess from somewhere else.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 27 2022, @03:25AM
I can't believe that people are being allowed to teach HMP theory in our schools! Children will be brain-washed that having political opinions is evil. We urgently need legislation to prohibit such instruction.