The hostile media: politicians’ perceptions of coverage bias

Abstract

Politicians seem to be increasingly criticising the traditional news media for being biased. While scholars usually argue that politicians make such claims out of strategic concerns – they try to undermine the credibility of the potentially harmful media – it might as well be that they actually believe there is a bias in traditional news coverage. Though this so-called hostile media effect – the idea that news content is biased against one’s own ideas or party – is often studied with citizens, it has rarely been examined among politicians. However, in this paper it is studied, drawing on a unique survey in which 183 Belgian politicians were asked to what extent they perceived different media outlets to produce (un)favourable coverage about their party. The exploration shows that politicians, in general, have the tendency to perceive the news media as slightly biased against their party. Importantly, media hostility perceptions are more outspoken among politicians from right-wing parties and among politicians in high-level functions. Interestingly, politicians’ perceptions of partisan bias differ across outlets; especially the outlets that are used by non-party voters are considered to be biased.