The affective and physiological underpinning of hostile media perception: Perceptions of media accuracy and influence

Research on hostile media perception has focused extensively on underlying cognitive mechanisms, while a few studies have examined the role of affective mechanisms. Given the increasing awareness of emotions among communication and political science scholars, it has been suggested that biological and physiological measurements can complement self-reports in explaining political attitudes and behaviors. By arousing dissonance through the exposure of counter-attitudinal materials, this study (N = 62) examines whether and how measures of skin conductance level (SCL) contribute to explaining media perceptions on top of self-reported emotional responses. While SCL responses were found to relate negatively to perceived media accuracy even after controlling for self-reported negative emotions, SCL measures were found to negatively predict perceived media influence only after self-reports were controlled for. The findings offer a foundation for examining media perceptions using physiology and provide empirical evidence that physiological measures contribute to media processing above and beyond self-reported emotions.