A Hostile Sports Media?

Abstract

This study examines how perceptions of a story can be altered simply by manipulating the reported winner or loser of a sports contest as well as how individual perceptions of a sports story change when the story is written by a perceived in-group (home nation) versus a perceived out-group (opposing nation). Using a combination of social identity, self-categorization, and hostile media theories, this experimental research aids the understanding of the role nationalism plays in how audiences respond to media gatekeepers from different nations. Results from 219 American participants revealed that the effect of nationalism strength on hostile media perception is greater when the national team loses than when a team wins a game. In addition, the interaction effect of nationalism and game results on the news bias perception is greater when the news is reported in a foreign newspaper than in a domestic newspaper.

Keywords

nationalism hostile media perception sports coverage

Belief in a hostile media perception (Vallone, Ross, & Hepper, 1985) has become ingrained within many facets of modern mediated society. A preponderance of studies seemingly confirms that one inevitably feels slighted by news reports, as people believe these are rendered with a point of view that is unflattering compared to one’s personally held beliefs. However, one area that has largely not been examined concerns the combination of nationalized identity, particularly as it pertains to the rendering of sports media reports. Bryant and Oliver (2008) affirm that identity can shape audience media perceptions and social identity theory (see Tajfel & Turner, 1986) illuminates how the sense of whether one belongs to a perceived in-group or out-group seemingly impacts how people respond to news reports. However, most studies of nationalism within sporting contexts have been relegated to content comparisons, with U.S.-based studies (e.g., Billings & Eastman, 2003; Farrell, 1989; MacAloon, 1984; Tomlinson, 1989) finding that sportscasts tend to report favorably on athletes from the United States at the expense of other nations, highlighting them more frequently and with substantially greater nuance than athletes from other nations. As Billings et al. (2008, p. 229) argue “it appears that history is not always written by the winners; it is also written by those with the television rights.”

This nationalized notion of shaping the story is not relegated to television and has been applied to other media platforms. Using newspapers as exemplar, Real (1989) uncovered how all nations favor the home nation as a de facto “favorite team” to some degree yet with magnitudes fluctuating wildly between the nations. One postulate of virtually all forms of media consumption is that reception changes as outlets change, with the person or entity (re)telling a story holding immense power in how that story is ultimately received offered a clear warrant to tie such content-oriented work to the effects-oriented hostile media perception.

Little attention has been placed on how individuals/viewers perceive sports news in terms of nationalistic bias. Arpan and Raney (2003) conducted an experiment to examine how individuals perceive the sports news differently by examining the interaction of different news outlets and the level of partisanship. This study is similar as it focuses on how people perceive sports news yet advances such work by moving beyond the realm of localized fandom and focusing on even more complex associations residing within the role of nationalism with different nationalized news outlets and game results. This study forges new ground in two essential ways, first by implementing a method rarely used in examining nationalism in sport (experimental research) and second by applying it to a different media format (digitally offered international newspaper stories). More specifically, the study examines how perceptions of a story can potentially be altered simply by manipulating the reported winner or loser of a game while also interrogating how individual perceptions of a sports story change when the story is written by a perceived in-group (home nation) as opposed to a perceived out-group (opposing nation). Using a combination of social identity, self-categorization, and hostile media theories, this experimental research aids the understanding of the role nationalism plays in how audiences respond to media gatekeepers from different nations.

Literature Review

Hostile Media Perception

People who are highly involved in an issue tend to perceive news coverage as biased against their own side, even when the news report is of relatively neutral tone (Giner-Sorolla & Chaiken, 1994). The tendency to see news media as unjustly slanted in favor of the opposition is deemed a concept of hostile media perception (Perloff, 1989; Vallone et al., 1985). Studies on hostile media perception have investigated who is more like to show hostile media perception and what factor or under what situation make people to have more hostile media perception. Studies have consistently shown that partisans’ or highly involved people’s judgments of media reports are more extreme than those of nonpartisans (Gunther, 1992; Vallone et al., 1985). Gunther (1992) insists that group identification might be an important indicator of partisanship, since group identification stimulates more profound levels of involvement. Extension of this, factors or situations that facilitate one’s partisan identity as well as its mechanisms have investigated (e.g., Gunther, Miller, & Liebhart, 2009; Gunther & Schmitt, 2004).

Reid (2012) argues that group membership—theoretically embedded in, social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1986) and self-categorization theory (Turner et al., 1987; Turner, Hogg, Oakes, Reicher, & Wetherell, 1987)—can create or bolster such hostile media perceptions. According to self-categorization theory (Turner et al., 1987), people perceive themselves and others in terms of social identity, such as gender, age, political party, and so on. Social identities are cognitive bases to define the in-group relative to particular out-groups. People sometimes view themselves as individuals and other times as part of a group. When a certain in-group identity is activated, people tend to view themselves as part of a group rather than view themselves as unique individuals, and it becomes a basis for social perception and judgment. People use group membership cues for assessing media content, with hostile media perceptions being greater among people who are more strongly committed to their in-group (Ariyanto, Hornsey, & Gallois, 2007; Hartmann & Tanis, 2013; Matheson & Dursun, 2001).

Nationalism Biases in Sport

Although perceptions can be shaped by issues such as gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and more (Billings & Kim, 2014), nationalism appears to matter most in the international sporting arena. Nationalism can be defined as a person’s positive attitudes toward and commitment to their nation (Kosterman & Feshbach, 1989; Skitka, 2005). By comparison, patriotism is one’s attachment and pride for one’s own country without comparison to other countries. Nationalism includes patriotism but goes one step further in that it also encompasses comparisons of one’s own country with others. In the context of international sporting events, when spectators perceive a connectedness to a team, they feel the team’s successes and failures as their own through a heavily nationalized lens (Smith & Henry, 1996; Wann, Melnick, Russell, & Peace, 2001; Wann, Royalty, & Roberts, 2000).

The concept of sportive nationalism includes the idea that athletes can function as symbols of national willpower and strength, with victorious athletes presumably promoting national prestige (Hoberman, 2004). Winning an international competition is considered by many to be a show of national strength/power; as a result, many countries competitively support and invest in home nation athletes in an attempt to bolster success at international sporting events such as Olympics. For example, Canada’s “Own the Podium” program for the 2010 Olympics invested more than 10 million dollars in the attempt to raise the medal productivity of Canadian athletes. Japan, China, New Zealand, and Australia also have financial systems to support medal success. Indeed, the flag trumps seemingly all other aspects of identity within such sporting contexts.

Studies of nationalism have been grounded in theories of group identification, self-categorization theory (Turner, 1986), and social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1986). A person with strong nationalism feels that his or her own nation is superior and that all other nations are inferior by comparison (Billings, Brown, & Brown, 2013). Such bonds are forged naturally within sports fandom (hence, “we won” and “they lost”), yet nations play roles in crystallizing such boundaries between in- and out-groups. In particular, international sports competitions activate spectators’ in-group/out-group identity formations. As Sabo, Jansen, Tate, Cuncan, and Leggett (1996) mentioned, nationalism instigates an us versus them mind-set in the sporting realm that is considerably different than rooting for one’s favorite localized team, as nationalistic feelings inculcate opinions and actions (see Ferguson, Carter, & Hassin, 2009).

As more a person partisan, the hostile media perception will be greater. However, more important thing is situational/contextual factors that make people partisan, in other words, factors that make people to use a certain identity when they perceive media reports. One’s nationalized identity shapes daily interactions, and the behavioral aspects of nationalism can be instinctive. A specific circumstance can raise levels of nationalism, as there are different ways to induce passionate national identity; however, it is most commonly seen in sports as it is the one overt pitting of nation against nation with a clear winner and loser as by-product (Cottam, Cottam, & Rienner, 2001; Kellas, 1991). A sporting event is not a conflict event like a war, but winning is important to the sense of national pride and a national team’s failure can be perceived as a threat to a nation’s identity (Wann & Grieve, 2005). Consequently, international sporting events such as the Olympics are “as much a forum for fervent nationalism as they have been about peaceful competition” (Butterworth, 2007, p. 187).

Researchers argue that in-group favoritism is more pronounced in situations involving a threat to the spectators’ identity (Branscombe & Wann, 1994; Hartmann & Tanis, 2013; Roccas & Brewer, 2002; Rubin & Hewstone, 1998), because, as Price (1989, p. 203) indicated, the salience of group membership is increased by the presentation of group conflict in the message because “recipients of the message are cued to think of themselves and others in relation to the issue primarily as members of those groups rather than as isolated persons.”. Wann and Grieve (2005) found that in-group favoritism is more pronounced when their participants’ team won. However, out-group derogation in situations involving a threat to the spectators’ identity has largely not been studied in depth. In a rare exploration of this concept, Branscombe and Wann (1994) compared a situation in which a Russian boxer defeated an American boxer, and Americans viewed the scenario as a high-threat condition; when the opposite outcome was reported, it was considered a low-threat condition.

In addition, the researchers found that highly identified participants in the high-threat condition reported high levels of derogation after viewing the competition. Rivenburgh (2000) notes that social identity can explain how news can both reinforce and bolster one’s conception of national identity. People with strong senses of nationalism have pride in their home country and often believe that their home nation is inherently superior to all others based on cultural, political, social, or even sporting circumstances. Therefore, they may have less tolerance for other points of view when their home team/nation is defeated. In this vein, the effect of partisanship on hostile media perception could be pronounced in situations involving a threat to one’s group identity. Thus, Hypothesis 1 predicts an interaction effect of strength of nationalism and group identity threatening situation will impact on hostile media perception, such that:

Hypothesis 1: The effect of strength of nationalism on hostile media perception will be greater when the national team loses than when a team wins the game.

Pronounced Nationalism Biases by Outlet

There is a tendency to evaluate in-group members positively and out-group members negatively (Fein & Spencer, 1997; Jetten, Spears, & Manstead, 1999; Mullen, Brown, & Smith, 1992). Such tendencies are commonly referred to as in-group favoritism and out-group derogation, respectively. For instance, Reid (2012) revealed that neutral news reports were perceived as in-group favoritism when attributed to an in-group outlet but as hostile when attributed to an out-group outlet.

Hostile media studies have addressed how group membership and type of media outlet combine to influence perceptions of bias. Gunther (1992) argued that characteristics of a specific news outlet could interact with partisanship, producing a hostile media effect. Ariyanto, Hornsey, and Gallois (2007) discovered that an article was assessed to be favoring Muslims when it was thought to be from a Muslim newspaper, favoring Christians when it was identified as being from a Christian newspaper, and of intermediate bias when the newspaper was not identified. In the context of sports, Arpan and Raney (2003) asked participants to read a balanced news article about their hometown college football team, finding that participants assessed the hometown newspaper as demonstrably less biased than the rival university’s hometown newspaper.

For the purpose of this study, the focus is on how individual perceptions of a sports story change when the story is written by a perceived in-group (home nation) versus a perceived out-group (opposing team’s nation), particularly in sports news coverage about an international sports event. Therefore, the location of the newspaper of each competing nation would be an appropriate exemplar for this study. Hypothesis 2 predicts that the location of the newspaper (i.e., nation of publication) can amplify the interaction effect proposed by Hypothesis 1.

Hypothesis 2: The interaction effect of nationalism and game results on the news bias perception will be greater when the news is reported in a foreign newspaper than in a domestic newspaper.

Methods

Participants

To test both hypotheses regarding bias perception within sports news coverage, a web-based experiment was conducted by manipulating the location of the newspaper and the information about who won a soccer match between the United States and Korea. The study employed a 2 (location of the newspaper: domestic vs. foreign) × 2 (results of competition: U.S. game win vs. South Korea game win) × 2 (nationalism: high vs. low) factorial design.

A convenience sample was employed, with undergraduate students at a large public university participating in the study as part of a core communication survey course requirement. Since the study focuses on nationalism and its effects on bias perception, respondents who did not have United States citizenship were excluded from the analysis. In addition, data from participants who did not remember the outlet of the news story and/or game result correctly were excluded from the analysis, resulting in a final total of 219 subjects used in the analysis (51 males and 167 females; age M = 19.54, SD = 3.19).¹

Administration

Participants were recruited through a college participation pool. Students accessed the online experiment through the participant pool website, taking the experimental survey at their convenience. Participation was completely voluntary. In the web-based experiment, participants were asked to complete an informed consent form with a brief description of the study. After that, they were shown one of four randomly assigned online newspaper stories that was drafted by one of the primary researchers and then pretested: U.S. newspaper with U.S. winner, U.S. newspaper with Korean winner, Korean newspaper with U.S. winner, and Korean newspaper with Korean winner. Finally, participants were given questionnaires inquiring as to their feelings and evaluations of the postgame article and asked about their feelings regarding nationalism. The experiment took an average of 15 min to complete. After finishing the experiment, participants were given the investigators’ contact information, thanked, and dismissed.

Manipulation of the Outlet of the Newspaper

To determine the effect of the location of the newspaper on individuals’ news evaluation, the banners of the online versions of the newspaper were manipulated. Participants were randomly distributed to either the domestic newspaper condition (n = 111) or the foreign newspaper condition (n = 108). The banner of the USA Today online news site was used for the domestic newspaper condition, and the banner of the Korean Herald online news site was used for the foreign newspaper condition. USA Today was chosen because it is well known for its sports section, as it is widely touted as “the nation’s newspaper”; the Korean Herald is South Korea’s largest English-language newspaper. The experimental online news article was designed to have the same format as the real USA Today and Korean Herald to achieve ecologically natural circumstances. All other features of the news story except the study’s manipulations were consistent across conditions, with a final sample of the article shown in the Appendix Figure A1.

Manipulation of the Results of Competition

To discern how perceptions of a news story slant can be different depending upon the winner or loser of a sporting competition, two different versions of news stories were constructed. The basic description of the game is the same for both conditions with only the scores being manipulated. One article reported that the U.S. men’s soccer team defeated a South Korean team by a score of 2-1 (n = 105), while the other reported that the South Korean team defeated the U.S. team by an identical score of 2-1 (n = 114). The overall article was 360 words and required an average of 60 s to read. The content for each condition was identical except when shifting depending on the winner or loser. For instance, the same quotation was used for the player scoring the winning goal, with only the name and nation of the player changing between conditions.

Measurements

Hostile media perception

The measurement of hostile media perception was adapted and revised from Vallone, Ross, and Lepper (1985) and Reid (2012). Hostile media perception was measured by asking participants how strongly they thought the news article is favorable or unfavorable toward the U.S. team or the Korean team on a scale of 1 (strongly favorable to the U.S. team) to 7 (strongly favorable to the Korean team; M = 4.01, SD = 1.75).

Nationalism

The nationalism measurements were adapted from Kosterman and Feshbach (1989) and Billings, Brown, and Brown (2013). Two of the nationalism scales were sports-specific, taken from the Olympic National Attitude Scale (see Billings et al., 2013). Participants were asked to answer how strongly they agree (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree) with the following 6 items: (1) The first duty of every young person from my country should be to honor our national history and heritage. (2) Other countries should try to make their government as much like ours as possible. (3) Generally, the more influence my country has on other nations, the better off they are. (4) It is important that my country wins in international sporting competitions like the Olympics. (5) My country should be more forceful in influencing other countries when it believes it is right. (6) In events such as the Olympics, my country is more likely to honor the rules and exhibit fair play. The nationalism variable was constructed using mean scores (α = .756, M = 4.42, SD = 1.0). For the analysis, study participants were divided into the two nationalism groups: high nationalism (n = 112) versus low nationalism (n = 107), applying with a mean split.

Results

To test the proposed hypotheses, a 2 (domestic newspaper vs. foreign newspaper) × 2 (U.S. game win vs. South Korea game win) × 2 (nationalism: high vs. low) analysis of variance was performed with hostile media perception as a dependent variable. Demographic variables—gender and age were controlled for (as covariates) in the analysis. The means and standard deviations of dependent variables for each cell are reported in Table 1.

Table 1.

Estimated Marginal Means and Standard Errors of Dependent Variables.

Location of the Newspaper	Competition Results	Low Nationalism	High Nationalism
Foreign newspaper (Korean Herald)	U.S. team loss	4.36 (.28), n = 27	5.67 (.27), n = 28
Foreign newspaper (Korean Herald)	U.S. team win	3.56 (.29), n = 24	3.08 (.27), n = 29
Domestic newspaper (USA Today)	U.S. team loss	4.77 (.25), n = 32	4.92 (.28), n = 27
Domestic newspaper (USA Today)	U.S. team win	2.58 (.29), n = 24	2.85 (.27), n = 28

Note. N = 219. Age and gender were controlled. Standard errors are in the parentheses.

Interaction Effects of Nationalism and Game Result

Hypothesis 1 predicted that the effect of strength of nationalism on hostile media perception will be greater when the national team loses a game than when the national team is victorious. A main effect of nationalism on hostile media perception showed that although participants with high nationalism feelings did indicate slightly higher hostile media perception (M = 4.13, standard error [SE] = .14, N = 112) than those who have low nationalism feelings (M = 3.82, SE = .14, N = 107), the difference was not statistically significant. A main effect of game result on hostile media perception was detected, F(1, 209) = 99.823, p < .001, η _p ² = .317, as participants felt heightened hostile media perception when the national team lost (M = 4.93, SE = .13, N = 114) as opposed to when the team won (M = 3.02, SE = .14, N = 105).

However, as expected, the interaction effect of nationalism and game results was significant, F(1, 209) = 4.689, p < .05, η _p ² = .022. More specifically, post hoc pairwise comparison tests revealed that when the national team lost the game, participants with high nationalism feelings reported significantly greater hostile media perception (M = 5.29, SE = .19) than those who have low nationalism feelings (M = 4.56, SE = .19), F(1, 209) = 7.448, p < .01, η _p ² = .034. Meanwhile, the difference between the participants with high nationalism feelings (M = 2.96, SE = .19) and low nationalism feelings (M = 3.07, SE = .21) was not significant when the national team was victorious. Hypothesis 1 is supported.

Interaction Effects of Nationalism, Game Result, and Outlet

Hypothesis 2 predicted that the two-way interaction of nationalism and game results on hostile news perception will be larger when the news is reported in a foreign newspaper than in a domestic newspaper. The prognostication was affirmed, as the Korean newspaper condition showed a more hostile media perception (M = 4.17, SE = .14, N = 108) than the domestic newspaper condition (M = 3.78, SE = .14, N = 111), a statistically significant difference, F(1, 209) = 3.979, p < .05, η _p ² = .019.

Additionally, Hypothesis 2 anticipated an interaction between nationalism, game results, and news outlet, an estimation that was substantiated, F(1, 209) = 6.067, p < .05, η _p ² = .028. To parcel out the three-way interaction patterns, planned contrast tests were conducted. First, the potential interaction effects of nationalism and game outcome were different between the two news outlets (i.e., domestic newspaper vs. foreign newspaper), as the results illuminated a statistically significant two-way interaction effect when the participants read the foreign newspaper account, F(1, 209) = 10.658, p = .001. However, the effect was not significant when reading domestic newspaper account of the game.

Second, news outlet and game result were examined to see how the variables may jointly affect differences in hostile news perception between participants with high level of nationalism and those with low level of nationalism. The results from a planned contrast test reveal that participants with high levels of nationalism reported greater hostile news perceptions than those with low levels of nationalism, specifically when reading foreign newspaper reporting about a national team losing the game, F(1, 209) = 11.592, p = .001]. Such difference was not significant in the other conditions, yet the combined significance of the results pertaining to the location (foreign or domestic) of the newspaper report offer considerable support for Hypothesis 2.

Discussion

This study revealed the hostile media perception in a new light, focusing on how one’s national identity can potentially impact perceptions based on group membership (see Reid, 2012). While much prior research in the area of hostile media perception focuses on the outlet being perceived as inherently biased (see Gunther & Liebhart, 2006), this study reveals that such linearity should not be assumed. Yes, the outlet could be found to be biased, but this was largely dependent on whether the outlet was revealing good or bad news—and was additionally influenced by whether one felt strong nationalistic ties at the onset. In sum, the study affirmed hostile media perceptions while showing that such feelings could be substantially impacted by external variables. Given that the manipulation was very mild (same game story, with only the winning and losing sides changing), the power of such findings is seemingly quite high even when utilizing a student sample.

One factor significantly impacting hostile media perceptions was the reported winner of the match. The American subjects reported increased perception of hostile media when the report indicated that the U.S. team lost as opposed to a virtually identical report indicating that the U.S. team won. Such conclusions have implications for sports media research and for news media research as a whole. Within sport, it appears that the simple reporting of a winner and loser can shift one’s perception of bias in noticeable ways. In-groups and out-groups (see Turner et al., 1987) are formed merely by the game result, seemingly lacking any sense of overt journalistic biases found in other practices, such as time-honored hypocrisy of embracing a team with a personal pronoun (i.e., “us” and “we”) when the team is successful but rejecting the team with third-person pronouns (i.e., “they” or “them”) when the team experiences failures.

Wann (2006) differentiates between the actions of a fan of a winning team—dubbed Basking in Reflected Glory (BIRGing) and the actions of a fan of a losing team—dubbed either Cutting Off Reflected Failure (CORFing) or Cutting off Future Failure (COFFing). These results seemingly indicate that such similar personality tendencies not only apply to one’s perception of one’s team but also could transfer to the perception of the outlet objectively offering the result. The concept of “shooting the messenger” appears exceedingly present in the significant differences between the U.S. win and South Korea win conditions. Differential levels of sport avidity could impact such results, yet with the case of soccer in the United States, it is unlikely that high-level fandom impacted the results in a demonstrable way. The number of Americans identifying as soccer fans is quite small compared to other sports, with fewer people claiming to be soccer fans than other second-tier sports offerings, including minor league baseball and boxing (ESPN Integrated Media Research, 2011). U.S. interest in soccer has grown since 1994, when it was ranked #67 in American sports popularity, even behind tractor pulling (Wolff, 1994), yet the number of highly identified soccer fans is still less than 4% (Enoch, 2011), making identification with the sport unlikely to play a major role in the current results. Nonetheless, future research in sports media should continue to explore this potential relationship between game result and hostile media perceptions of the newspaper rendering that result.

Beyond sports media, this study underscores how the hostile media perception is not a mere result of framing (Goffman, 1974) or agenda-setting (McCombs & Shaw, 1972) theories, as there are some aspects of news stories that inevitably must be primary. One could question the overall selection of the report, querying whether the game result was worthy of mention at all, yet the mention of a final score and the divided result on hostile media measures indicates something beyond framing is, indeed, at play.

This study found that the nationalized feelings one possesses impacts how one receives and responds to the information being rendered as does the news entity doing the rendering. Billings et al. (2013) found that media consumption within the Olympics significantly impacted not only nationalism feelings but also one’s feelings of patriotism, internationalism, and smugness. However, their study acknowledged the potential selection biases within the sample, as people who scored highly in these areas of nationalized feelings were inordinately more likely to consume higher amounts of Olympic media. Such limitations are not found in this study because of its experimental nature; the people who participated in the study were not responding to an immersive media stimulus like the Olympics but rather were instead responding to a single report pertaining to a single game. Thus, the fact that nationalized feelings impacted responses to the article is quite noteworthy, providing a useful heuristic for studies related to the impact of nationalism as it relates to media consumption.

Also of note is that previous research argued that hostile media effects would be heightened when media reach is high, using USA Today as an example of high media reach (Gunther & Schmitt, 2004). A decade later, this same outlet was used in the present study, finding escalated hostile media effects. However, American respondents likely had little knowledge of the media reach of the Korean Herald yet were likely to assume the publication was of substantial reach because of its inclusive nationalized name (as opposed to a publication banner related to a single Korean city). Future research would be prudent to include presumed media reach as a measured variable that could potentially impact attitudes related to hostile media perceptions.

However, given that the findings were ascertained using a convenience sample, the results must be viewed with caution and an eye toward greater generalizability in subsequent related studies. Limitations persist in a number of manners, including two key areas. First, the general public may have different impressions regarding both sport and its role pertaining to nationalism than undergraduate students. Second, given that women generally self-report less overall interest in sports (Enoch, 2011) findings could be affected—even if there was no significant difference between men and women subjects in this study—as a function of overall sports avidity. As such, including measures of sports fandom should be considered essential in future related investigations. Overall, future studies should endeavor to secure more representative samples of the overall population and should provide better understandings of the proposed relationships by utilizing a broader range of demographic and personal orientation variables (e.g., nationalism and sports fandom) which can potentially affect news consumers’ subjective news evaluations.

Avenues for future research are plentiful. From a sports media perspective, subsequent research should continue to register the degree to which reporting a desired win or a desired loss supersedes all other forms of media renderings when measuring overall perceptions, a trend that appeared to be the case in the present study. For scholars querying the role of the hostile media effect, new research should be conducted as to the conditions in which the outlet is more or less likely to be evident as well as the contexts in which the outlet appears to be more or less influential in cognitive assessments. For scholars of electronic news, this study provides new avenues for exploring the notion of factual renderings of winners and losers beyond the realm of sports news. Virtually, all forms of media feature some equivalent of the game report, ranging from elections won/lost to stocks rising/falling to movies that exceed expectations/underperform at the box office. Future studies can determine whether sports news media is an anomaly or, conversely, whether it indicates an overall trend, providing a new prong of hostile media perceptions.

Overall, this study highlights how hostile media perceptions become a relatively complex cocktail of influence when adding variables impacting nationalistic identities. Nationalistic qualities impacted the results and the winner or loser of the event impacted hostile media perceptions as did a simple change in newspaper banner. Moreover, reporting of a bad result (one’s home nation loses) seemingly activated/heightened the potential for hostile media perceptions more than a good result (one’s home nation wins) where perhaps less scrutiny is placed on the result since it likely elevates the mood of respondents. Given the overall sense of increased relativity when objective news facts are reported, the study underscores how virtually all news can be viewed within the largest socially-identified lens of “us” versus “them.”

Footnotes

Appendix

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Note

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