- 期刊
民眾對媒體多元的認知 社經地位的鴻溝
Public Perceptions of Media Pluralism: Gap of Socioeconomic Status
並列摘要
When the media is pluralistic, it can represent different attitudes among the public. This study applies the hostile media effect and knowledge-gap theory. The former suggests that people tend to think the media is hostile toward their group and cannot report a diversity of opinions, to the extent that there are differences among members of the public from different backgrounds regarding whether media coverage is pluralistic. The latter theory posits that people of lower social-economic status are unable to perceive whether or not the media reports diverse opinions. Our study shows that knowledge gap theory provides a more precise explanation. We found that people of higher socio-economic status tended to doubt the media's capacity for pluralism. This finding suggests the possibility that people of higher socio-economic standing may be more prone to the hostile media effect. Possibly due to their deeper understanding of and concern for public affairs, people in this demographic may represent a more sophisticated and critical sector of the public. People of lower socio-economic standing showed a comparatively sanguine assessment of pluralism in the media and less perception of a hostile media effect toward their social group. This finding might result from less access to media among this demographic, which may lower awareness of unfairness in the media toward this sector of the public.