Are Perceptions of Candidate Traits Shaped by the Media? The Effects of Three Types of Media Bias
- Author(s)
- Jakob-Moritz Eberl, Markus Wagner, Hajo Boomgaarden
- Abstract
Media coverage can influence how citizens think about their political leaders. This study explores how three types of media bias (visibility bias, tonality bias, and agenda bias) affect voter assessments of politicians’ traits. Bias effects should be stronger for political traits (such as competence) than for nonpolitical traits (such as likability). Biases may also interact in their effects: Specifically, visibility bias should moderate the impact of tonality bias. Combining media, party, and survey data through manual content analysis of newspaper coverage (N = 2,680) and party press releases (N = 1,794), as well as a three-wave voter survey (n = 927) during the 2013 Austrian election campaign, we find substantial effects of tonality bias and agenda bias on political trait perceptions. The effects are less clear for nonpolitical trait perceptions. Although visibility bias has no direct impact, there is evidence that it moderates effects of tonality bias on candidate perceptions.
- Organisation(s)
- Department of Communication, Department of Government
- Journal
- International Journal of Press/Politics
- Volume
- 22
- Pages
- 111-132
- No. of pages
- 22
- ISSN
- 1940-1612
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1177/1940161216674651
- Publication date
- 10-2016
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 506014 Comparative politics, 508012 Media impact studies
- Keywords
- ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Communication, Sociology and Political Science
- Portal url
- https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/c6cae877-4009-4e98-9dd5-006a064fd4b0