Conflict between Mainland Chinese and Hong Kongers: A social identity perspective in explaining the hostile media phenomenon and the third-person effect

Abstract

This study adopts social identity perspective to examine hostile media effect (HME) and the third-person effect (TPE) in the context of conflicts between Mainland Chinese and Hong Kong people. We conducted a field experiment involving Mainland Chinese (N=77) and Hong Kong (N=74) university students using a constructed neutral newspaper article as the stimuli. The results provide evidence that social identity could be a predictor of HME. It also suggests that perceptions of hostile bias in news coverage are not only limited to partisans, but also happen among readers of different cultural identities. Moreover, the research links up HME with the TPE, and further illustrates that TPE would happen even when neutral article is employed.