| Hostilities have always been part of society but in the last two decades, social hostilities, especially religious conflicts, have been on steady increase across the globe (Pew Research Center study, 2014). The urgency of these crises shaped the purpose of this study, to understand if and how the frames of media coverage of conflict news have effects on intercultural othering (social tolerance). Experiments in a 2 X 2 X 2 between-subjects factorial design were used to examine the effects of three independent variables: news story frames, victims' religion, and newspaper types on intercultural tolerance. Each variable had two levels each, violence vs peace journalism frames; Christian vs Muslim victims; and the London Times vs Nigeria Times. Intercultural othering, the dependent variable, was measured with integrated scales from Mendleson, Bures, Champion, and Lott (1997), and Aosved, Long, and Voller (2009). 749 subjects participated in the study. As an international study, 80.9% were Nigerians and 16.8% were North Americans (USA). 45% were male, and 53.8% were female. The age of participants ranged from 15-70. 78.1% identified themselves as Christians, 15.4% as Muslims, and 5.2% as Non-religious (e.g. agnostic, atheist). The study found that when participants were exposed to religious conflict news, the religious identity of the victims in the story, whether, for instance, they were Christians or Muslims, had significant effects on the intercultural othering of the readers (F(4,722) = 14.505, p < .05). Also, the religious identity (F(4,722) = 14.505, p < .05) and religiosity (F(8,657) = 3.340, p < .05) of the readers significantly moderated their measures of intercultural othering (tolerance). It was also found that the credibility perceptions towards the newspaper had significant effects on the tolerance levels of the readers (F(11,528) = 2.085, p < .05). The nationality (F(2,726) = 16.051, p < .05) and gender (F(3,719) = 3.037, p < .05) of readers of religious conflict news all had significant effects on intercultural othering. The frames of the news, whether violence or peace journalism; or whether the conflict news was read in London Times or Nigeria Times had no significant effects on the intercultural othering of the readers. The findings of this study reaffirmed the central theses of Contingency effects theory that while the literary devices of conflict news may have minimal effects on the audience, several psychological cues in the news have strong interactions with intervening variables like religion and religiosity, nationality and gender of the audience. This study contributes to the understanding of the dynamics of conflict media and social tolerance. It sheds light on the need for on-going interrogations of appropriate balance of mass communication with its intervening variables; for example, the need for appropriate balance between freedom of speech and media sensitivity to audience religious sensibilities. Future research will use psycho-physiological methods, and multiple dependent variables. |
