Might blaming the news media be beneficial to democracy? The effects of bias-induced anger, anxiety, and issue novelty on subsequent news selection

Research based on the affective approach has established that political partisans' emotional responses to identity-threatening news content, particularly that of anxiety and anger, will affect their subsequent information seeking (e.g., Marcus et al., 2000; Arpan & Nabi, 2011), although they did not agree upon the effect of anger. Some contend that anger will close off information seeking (Valentino et al., 2008), and some argue that anger will motivate more information seeking (Arpan & Nabi, 2011). Based on the Hostile Media Effect and Lazarus' (1991) cognitive appraisal theory of emotion, the current study examined the role bias-induced emotions (anger and anxiety) play in mediating partisan information seeking preferences, as well as the roles that anger expression trait and issue novelty play in moderating partisans' emotional responses.;The current study involved an experiment including a 2 (Novel v. Familiar issues) X 3 (three different identity-threatening issues) design with a control condition (non-threatening) to explore the mediating role of anger and anxiety on subsequent information seeking preferences (identity-bolstering information, identity-threatening information, and neutral information), as well as moderating effects of anger expression and issue novelty. A total of 243 participants completed this study.;The results indicated three main findings. First, bias-induced anger, but not anxiety, motivated participants to want to read additional identity-threatening information. Second, surprisingly, only the interaction of anger-in expression and exposure to identity-threatening news articles affected the subsequent identity-threatening information seeking, which was contrary to the current study's proposition. The higher the anger-in expression trait, the stronger bias-induced anger's mediating effect. Third, perceived issue novelty did elicit greater anger and anxiety, and it also moderated bias-induced anger's effects on identity-threatening information seeking: the more perceived issue novelty, the stronger bias-induced anger's mediating effect. The findings have implications for the relationship between exposure to identity-threatening news and information seeking in a democratic society. Limitations and suggestions for future research were discussed.