This study analyses mistrust of media. Door-to-door interviews were conducted with 318 respondents in six different parts of Sweden. In 2015 the Swedish research institute SOM published an interesting study of mistrust of media in Sweden, showing that the group that mistrust the media is dominated by supporters of the Sweden Democrats. The aim of this study is to gain understanding of the causes and nature of mistrust of media. The interviews featured both open and closed questions, covering political interest and the respondents opinions about what is good and less good in society. This essay primarily analyses the issues that concern trust in the media linked to community involvement. This essay is based on the framework of a larger study by the think tank Arena Idé. The interviews were conducted by 10 interviewers and the coding of the material was done by a person employed by the think tank. For the interview guide, a code scheme was created and the computer programme Nvivo was used for the coding. Employing theories about public connection and the hostile media effect, this study aims to provide a better understanding of popular mistrust. The findings point to the conclusion that there are reasons to believe that a hostile media effect exists. The expressions of mistrust of media are classified into three different themes: Source criticism, Alleged obfuscation of truth, and Angling of media. The connection to society in the group with a low level of trust in the media is found to be narrow but intense.

This study investigates the public perception of whether there is enough coverage of COVID-19 vaccine complications by government agencies and the media. The theoretical rationale is the roles of the hostile media effect and social responsibility theory in the public's perception of the media coverage of COVID-19 vaccine complications. The central question is whether the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the CDC, local health departments, and the major media (cable news, TV news, newspapers, social media) have provided enough information about the COVID-19 vaccine complications to the public. The research method includes three surveys. The first two were administered before the Institutional Review Board (IRB) approved the same questions. The first was a November 2022 Qualtrics survey of adults (N = 156) in two politically different counties, Democratic-dominant Dallas County and Republican-dominant Collin County. The second was a paid survey using Survey-Monkey with a national sample of US adults (N = 210) in June 2023. The third survey included adults (N = 130) and used Qualtrics after IRB approval using a university listserv and the Nextdoor app for Collin County, again striving for balance between Republicans and Democrats. Both the Qualtrics surveys were also posted on Facebook and X (formerly Twitter). All three surveys showed dissatisfaction with the government and the media and suggested both a hostile media effect that crossed party lines and a counter-hostile media effect. The conclusion is that the public needs and wants more information, and the media needs to better address its social responsibility for government oversight.

This work is based on an assumption that human decision-making process is following several approximate rules (heuristics) that causes predictable and systematic errors in judgement (cognitive biases). Although this stand point is typical for fields like behavioural economics or behavioural law and economics, there is no reason to not apply this logic also on other discipline like a mass media communication studies. This work offers an analysis of the information market where supply side is represented by producers of information (e.g. media organizations) and demand side is represented by consumers of those information (audience). The analysis is focused on factors that cause perceived description of a particular event can vastly differ from this event. One of those cognitive biases which cause different perception of the same media content is called hostile media effect. In respect to this effect, sympathizers with a socially controversial topic tend to perceive information in the mass media as hostile to their own opinion. Previous research concluded that hostile perception is mainly caused by a reach of information which is explained by the selective categorization - although individuals with different worldview can see the same content, they perceive it with a different valence. The valence of the...

1 Abstract The thesis titled Partisans perception of controversial topics in online news and influence of hostile media effect is dedicated to a modern phenomenon from the field of media effects and media audience research called hostile media effect. Its theory has been shaping since the mid 80s of the previous century and it is defined as a tendency of polarized partisans to perceive even-handed and balanced media coverage of a controversial topic as biased against their own opinion. With this effect, both polarized groups evaluate unbiased media content as more favorable towards the contrary point of view. Theoretical part includes the history of the phenomenon, its context within development of new digital media and social media, factors that influence its impact and how it affects cognitive processes, therefore why there is a tendency of such perceptions within polarized partisans. The last chapter of theory covers a summary of major studies and their findings. In the research part, I conducted a questionnaire inspired by an American study from 2012 that observes different perceptions of media coverage among partisans in the topic of mandatory children vaccination. This is the first research that confirmed a tendency of hostile media phenomenon on Slovak online population.