News Media Literacy and Perceptions of Personal and News Bias

• In Event: Advances in the Study of Audience Engagement With the News

Abstract

Drawing on interviews with a diverse group of adults living in the United States, this research examines news habits, news media literacy, and bias to explore how perceptions of personal and news bias affect interpretation of news in general and two news stories in particular. Results suggest that while people recognize that their worldviews shape their news choices and evaluations in the abstract, when faced with analyzing stories, they point to journalistic choices, presentation of information, issue bias and political partisanship as the root of bias in news with little acknowledgment of how their biases influence their interpretations.

Authors

• Melissa Tully, University of Iowa

• Emily K Vraga, George Mason U

• Anne-Bennett Smithson, George Mason U