ABSTRACT
When entering political debate in the classroom, students bring a wide variety of information that they learned from the news media. This can create a problem for political discussion because people tend to get news predominantly from like-minded sources, and usually trust news outlets that reinforce their opinions. For example, Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC viewers will all enter the classroom with very different sets of facts and beliefs about the world. The purpose of this chapter is to help students understand how we process information from the news media, and the ways that different types of news sources affect political hostility. In this chapter, the author discusses the role of the news media in American politics, why people think the media are politically biased, and how both partisan and mainstream media affect negativity towards people who disagree with our viewpoints. Topics discussed in this chapter include: the hostile media effect, cognitive dissonance, selective exposure, partisan media, and the contact hypothesis.
