Hostile Media Perception and Global Climate Change: Exploring the Relationships between Self and
Others' Perceptions of Bias
Global climate change is a highly polarized issue in the United States, with strongly divided
opinions on climate change along political party lines. The lay public generally relies on mass
communication channels as their primary source of information about global warming. This research
uses global climate change as a case study to examine hostile media perception, explore the effect of
source credibility in perceptual bias, and to elucidate the relationship between self and others’
perceptions of bias. Perceptual biases can impede public acceptance of complex issues such as global
warming, making them ‘hostile’ to views that are incongruent with their own.
Using mass media effect theories of hostile media bias and projection, an experimental study
with a sample of college students (N = 916) was conducted to study the relationship between hostile
media bias and how individuals estimate others’ perceptual bias, and to explore the role of source
credibility in perceptual bias. Hostile media perception was found to occur with the issue of climate
change, and perceived public perception of bias was consonant with self-perception of bias. Compared
to exposure to a student essay and a news source with mainstream credibility, exposure to a news
source with less mainstream credibility resulted in perceptual biases. Implications of our results for
public opinion research and for policy-making are discussed.