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Article

ESPN and the Hostile Media Effect

Galen Clavio1 and Ryan Vooris2

Abstract Recent layoffs at sports media giant Entertainment and Sports Programming Net- work (ESPN) have caused some commentators to question whether the network’s forays into social and political commentary are at the heart of shrinking revenue streams. Several conservative political commentators have accused ESPN of a liberal bias in their recent coverage of social issues within and related to sport. This study examined the political perception of ESPN by audiences, by applying a perceptual theory of communication known as the hostile media effect. Prior research of the hostile media effect has found that audiences with strongly held beliefs subjectively perceive media bias relative to their own beliefs, whether or not any actual bias is being demonstrated by the media source in question. Through a nationwide survey, study subjects were asked about their political leanings, media consumption, and views on ESPN. Statistical analysis found that individuals with conservative political leanings were more likely than others to view ESPN as hostile to their political beliefs, and those who perceived ESPN as hostile media were less likely to trust ESPN to cover social and political issues fairly.

Keywords hostile media effect, ESPN, politics, bias, television

In late April 2017, sports media industry behemoth Entertainment and Sports

Programming Network (ESPN) laid off more than 100 well-known employees,

including long-time reporters, analysts, and commentators (Harris, 2017). This was

1 Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA 2 SUNY-Cortland, Cortland, NY, USA

Corresponding Author:

Galen Clavio, Indiana University, 601 E. Kirkwood Avenue, M030B, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA.

Email: [email protected]

Communication & Sport 2018, Vol. 6(6) 728-744 ª The Author(s) 2017 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/2167479517739835 journals.sagepub.com/home/com

the second major round of layoffs for ESPN in a short period of time, as the company

had previously laid off approximately 300 personnel in late 2015 (Drape & Barnes,

2017). The newest round of layoffs surprised media observers, many of whom had

assumed that ESPN’s financial might had insulated it from the kind of belt-

tightening that much of the rest of sports media industry had endured over the

previous decade.

There were legitimate financial concerns that led to the layoffs. A New York

Times article cited a loss of more than 10 million cable subscribers, impacting

ESPN’s bottom line at a time when they had committed nearly US$35 billion in

rights fees to the National Football League (NFL), NBA, and College Football

Playoff (Drape & Barnes, 2017). ESPN’s unique revenue structure has always rested

on the dual streams of advertising dollars and subscriber revenues, from which

ESPN receives more than US$7 per subscriber, the highest in the cable television

industry (Vernon, 2017).

Multiple media commentators seized upon the ESPN layoff news to allege that

the network’s financial difficulties and falling subscriber rate were a direct result of

the company’s recent forays into mixing sports with politics (Strauss, 2017).

Included in these forays were the network’s decision to give an athlete award for

courage to Caitlyn Jenner, a retired Olympic decathlete, who had recently revealed

her identity as a trans woman, the network’s extensive coverage of Michael Sam, the

first publicly gay player to be drafted in the NFL, and their coverage and support of

NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, whose refusal to stand for the U.S. national

anthem caused significant and nationwide controversy.

ESPN’s television coverage of these and other topics has demonstrated a political

perspective that the network’s leadership appeared to admit in late 2016, couching it

in a promotion of the values of diversity and inclusion (Brady, 2016). Many con-

servative political commentators have accused ESPN of politicizing sport and of

refusing to “stick to sports” by inserting a perceived liberal bias into its coverage of

certain sports and social issues (Freddoso, 2017; McLaughlin, 2017). Some sports

media commentators drew a direct line between ESPN’s purported shift to left-wing

political commentary and coverage and the network’s struggles with its current

business model (Travis, 2017; Whitlock, 2017).

ESPN found itself at the center of yet another politically charged controversy in

mid-2017. The New York Times reported in August 2017 that ESPN pulled announ-

cer Robert Lee from play-by-play duties of a University of Virginia football game

(Haag, 2017). ESPN made the move out of a fear that the similarity of Lee’s name to

Confederate General Robert E. Lee, would prompt “social hectoring and trolling”

(Deitsch, 2017, para. 10) in light of the events earlier in the month at a violent white

supremacist rally in Charlottesville, VA, home of the University of Virginia (Wong,

2017). According to the Times, the incident was “the latest episode of the cultures

wars to wash into sports, and the news media that cover it . . . ” (Tracy, 2017, para. 1).

The charge that ESPN’s move was motived by fear of offending people was popular

among conservative circles (Travis, 2017) and from many independent outlets

Clavio and Vooris 729

(Deitsch, 2017; Grossman, 2017). According to the Times, the incident

“ . . . provide[d] new fodder for those who accuse ESPN of liberal bias, a charge

leveled this year after the network laid off dozens of employees” (Tracy, 2017, para.

11).

As is apparent from their changing reactions to the perception of their content,

ESPN appears sensitive to these accusations, including the commissioning of a

private research study to evaluate the claims that the network has lost viewership

because of liberal biases in coverage (Blyn, 2017). ESPN’s research claimed that

only 30% of viewers saw a political bias in ESPN’s coverage, but of that number,

63% saw a liberal bias, versus 30% who saw a conservative bias (DeCosta-Klipa,

2017). With that said, a longtime member of ESPN’s talent circle, anchor Linda

Cohn, stated on a radio show that she believed viewers were becoming turned off

and disengaged from the network by political insertions into sports coverage (With-

iam, 2017). In early 2017, former ESPN tennis commentator Doug Adler sued the

company for branding him a racist after they fired him for comments he made about

Venus Williams. Adler alleged the firing was a result of political correctness run

amok (Gaydos, 2017). Furthermore, ESPN’s ombudsman noted that ESPN employ-

ees of all political stripes worried that the company’s politics had become too

apparent and that conservatives in the company “feel the need to talk in whispers”

(Brady, 2016, para. 14).

Political and social issues have increasingly entered into sports media commen-

tary, and both this commentary and the media and audience reaction to this com-

mentary have become phenomena deserving of scholarly inquiry. Therefore, the

purpose of this study is to investigate the audience perceptions of ESPN from a

political and social perspective.

Literature Review

The attention paid to ESPN’s political stances and the effects those stances may

be having on their subscriber numbers is relatively new in sports media but

fairly standard in the world of political media. The first decade-plus of the

2000s has seen a shift in the way that news and issues are reported, with

coverage often taking a much more partisan approach than in previous decades.

As noted by Feldman (2011),

The proliferation of opinion and overt partisanship in cable news raises questions about

how audiences perceive this content. Recent research has examined how the expected

ideological leanings of cable network “brands” like CNN and Fox cue audiences to

perceive news bias even when none exists. (para. 6)

Feldman goes on to note that for many cable news outlets, point-of-view-based news

coverage is a business and ratings decision that yielded success. Travis (2017)

730 Communication & Sport 6(6)

argues that ESPN’s shift into obvious political stances is a business decision and that

it has backfired against the company.

Hostile Media Bias

Perception of certain media as “hostile” has been studied and observed in other

media contexts in the past. Hostile media bias, or the hostile media effect (HME),

is a perceptual theory of communication which argues that individuals with strongly

held beliefs or attitudes subjectively perceive media bias relative to their own

beliefs, regardless of whether any actual bias is being demonstrated by the media

in question (Hwang, Pan, & Sun, 2008).

Vallone, Ross, and Lepper (1985) were the first to document a type of motivated

reasoning in news consumption which they called the hostile media phenomenon.

According to Perloff (2015), the HME is a phenomenon wherein various groups

view the same media content in different ways. As Perloff points out, this occurrence

often happens when individuals view media as biased against their point of view and

in support of a contending view. Lee (2005) defines the HME as “ . . . supporters of

an issue or group tend to believe that media favor their opponents” (p. 45). Further-

more, Perloff (2015) wrote of the HME’s enduring relevance in media research:

The hostile media phenomenon is riveting because it captures a petulant, paradoxical

aspect of human behavior that seems to fly in the face of social reality: the abiding

belief on the part of partisans from opposing sides that their view (and only their view)

is correct. (p. 703)

HME is a response to perceived media bias, rather than a direct effect (Perloff,

2015). Hansen and Kim (2011) add that when the HME is strongest, it can aggrieve

partisans who “may take extreme or aggressive action when they believe they are

treated unfairly in the news media” (p. 170). Within the political realm, these reac-

tions can take the form of more devotion to political participation, outward defiance

of political norms, or public withdrawal (Perlorff, 2015). According to Hansen and

Kim, the HME is not only limited to partisans but can also manifest itself on an

issue-by-issue basis.

The amount of attention individuals pay to an issue may not impact how nega-

tively they view the coverage (Gunther & Christen, 2002; Hansen & Kim, 2011),

though involvement does impact the magnitude of HME (Hansen & Kim, 2011). In-

group mentality may also color the lens through which people discern media bias

(Coe et al., 2008). The terms involvement and partisan are often used interchange-

ably by scholars when discussing the attitudes exhibited by individuals exhibiting

the HME (Hansen & Kim, 2011; Vallone, Ross, & Lepper, 1985), though Perloff

(2015) argues for a stronger focus on issue salience for an individual rather than the

more difficult to conceptualize term of involvement.

Clavio and Vooris 731

As Coe et al. (2008) note, there are two types of hostile media theory:

absolute and relative. In the case of absolute effects, the assumption is made

that the media content is neutral. By contrast, relative effects occur when media

content is legitimately biased. In relative HME, divergent points of view still see

the content as biased, but in the same direction. Additionally, strong partisans

from different points of view, while agreeing the content is biased, will still

perceive the content as more unfavorable to their point of view. Gunther and

Christen (2002) found that even when measuring perception of slanted coverage,

strong partisans still found the slant opposed to their own position. As Perloff

(2015) points out this relative, HME is a more “nuanced view of media bias”

(p. 707) and the strength of the perception of bias is still related to the indi-

vidual’s degree of partisanship.

As Lee (2005) points out, the HME is not about media bias itself but about the

perception of media bias among certain audiences. Lee’s approach of examining

general bias perception focused on whether bias is created by ideology and influ-

ences perceived coverage patterns. Lee’s (2005) research also examined how

strength of partisanship, political cynicism, personal, and political cynicism

impacted an individual’s trust or distrust of the media. Findings indicated that the

strength of an individual’s partisanship made them more likely to perceive media

bias, while politically cynical individuals and personally cynical individuals were

also more likely to perceive media bias. The HME explains the negative, ego-driven

reaction that individuals with strong political feelings have toward media coverage

that presents facts they inherently disagree with. This disagreement leads to the

individual rejecting the authenticity of the source (Hovland, Harvey, & Sherif,

1957; Perloff, 2015).

The fact that much of the criticism of ESPN’s political excursions has emanated

from conservative media echoes a pattern observed in perceptions of bias and

hostility in political media. Prior research has demonstrated that the more conser-

vative people are politically, the more likely they are to think that the media are

biased and hostile (Lee, 2005; Lin, Haridakis, & Hanson, 2016). Watts, Domke,

Shah, and Fan (1999) found that claims of liberal media bias were influencing public

opinion on whether the media was liberally biased and that news coverage that

discussed potential media bias was dominated by conservative political candidates,

officials, and supporters.

Kim and Billings (2017) recently looked at how strength of nationalism and

outcome of a sporting event impacted the hostile media perception by conducting

an experiment wherein subjects were given altered newspaper articles. Some of

these articles were made to appear as if they came from domestic newspapers, while

others were manipulated to appear as if they came from foreign outlets. Their results

concluded that the tenor of the news—whether the result was a win or loss—had

more of an impact on hostile media perception than nationalism, though feelings of

nationalism still had an effect. Kim and Billings also recommended the use of a sport

fandom measure in future hostile media studies.

732 Communication & Sport 6(6)

While the original conceptualization of hostile media bias presupposed a neutral

press with unbiased coverage, later scholars found that perceptions of hostile media

existed even when some degree of bias existed in the media content at hand (e.g.,

Gunther, Christen, Liebhart, & Chia, 2001; Lee, 2005). We do not assume that ESPN

is fully objective, due to the social and political content choices that are highlighted

in the introduction of this piece. Therefore, this study evaluates ESPN and the HME

through the lens of relative effects. Adapting the thoughts of Feldman (2011) as they

related to political coverage, based on the relative hostile media perception, both

liberal and conservative ESPN viewers could perceive liberally slanted coverage by

ESPN as biased against conservative viewpoints, but liberals would perceive this

coverage as less biased than would conservatives.

Hypotheses and Research Questions (RQs)

A series of hypotheses and RQs guide this examination into ESPN and the HME.

The first is how an individual’s political ideology affects the perception of ESPN as

a biased entity. The prior literature and media coverage of the network support a

directional Hypothesis 1 (H1): The extent to which one self-identifies as politically

conservative will positively predict perceptions of hostile media bias by ESPN.

The next hypothesis focuses on how perceptions of ESPN’s hostile bias affect an

individual’s level of trust in ESPN to cover social and political issues fairly. The

prior literature supports a directional Hypothesis 2 (H2): The extent to which one

perceives ESPN as having a hostile political bias will negatively predict an individ-

ual’s level of trust in ESPN to cover social and political issues fairly.

A related Research Question 1 asks whether political ideology affects the percep-

tion of political slant within ESPN’s coverage of social and political issues.

The last RQs ask whether an individual’s level of media exposure affects the

perception of ESPN as trustworthy (Research Question 2), whether an individual’s

self-identified interest in or knowledge of politics affect their perceptions of ESPN

as trustworthy (Research Question 3), whether an individual’s personal or political

cynicism affected their perceptions of trustworthiness on the part of ESPN (Research

Question 4), and if perception of ESPN’s trustworthiness varies by level of fanhood

or favorite sport (Research Question 5).

Method

An online survey was conducted in June 2017, during a period of time when ESPN’s

perceived political bias had received recent media attention. The survey was

designed via Qualtrics, and the survey utilized Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk)

service to recruit participants from across the United States. It has been demon-

strated that MTurk provides a diverse sample that is as reliable as other data col-

lection approaches (Buhrmester, Kwang, & Gosling, 2011). Participants were

provided a small monetary compensation for completing the survey instrument,

Clavio and Vooris 733

which they received through the MTurk system after entering a completion code.

The survey ran for 2 days, at which time a sufficient number of responses were

recorded. After cleaning the data set to remove incomplete submissions and to

ensure that respondents were residents of the United States, the survey was found

to have generated 470 valid responses.

The survey instrument asked respondents for demographic information relating to

age, education, gender, race, and income. Subjects were also asked to identify the

number of days a week they watch ESPN, news shows in general, and political

opinion shows in general. Subjects were asked to rate their interest in politics on

a 7-point Likert-type scale with 0 indicating not at all interested and 7 indicating

extremely interested. Based on Lee (2005), two additional questions relating to

dimensions of personal cynicism (most people are honest) and political cynicism

(an honest person cannot get elected to office) were included and measured on a 5-

point Likert-type scale with 1 labeled as strongly agree and 5 labeled as strongly

disagree. It was decided to further extend the collected data relating to political

information by asking an additional question. Being politically informed was mea-

sured through a sliding scale with the question “On a scale of 0–100 how informed

would you say you are about the political issues of today?”

Respondents were also asked to identify their political beliefs, using two distinct

measures. One measure used traditional American political labels and asked for self-

identification on an 8-point Likert-type scale anchored by extremely liberal and

extremely conservative, with an option labeled “Don’t know/haven’t thought of it”

at the end of the scale. This scale was derived from Hwang, Pan, and Sun (2008). A

separate second measure attempted to evaluate political conservatism on an instru-

ment known as The 12-item Social and Economic Conservatism Scale (SECS). This

scale utilizes a series of 12 issues, 7 social and 5 economic, to measure levels of

overall political conservatism (Everett, 2013). When thinking of political ideology,

it is helpful to understand that not all individuals who choose to self-identify on the

liberal/conservative dichotomy always fall in line with the expected political beha-

viors congruent with that self-identification (Conover & Feldman, 1981). For exam-

ple, individuals may consider themselves nonreligious but identify as a conservative,

or a self-identified liberal may support a more conservative position such as limited

government. For these reasons, both the self-identification question and the 12-item

SECS were used to assess participants’ political ideology. Both of the SECS sub-

scales were separately summed and averaged, and the SECS as a whole was also

summed and averaged, yielding one scale total and two subscale totals for each

respondent. Lee (2005) also computed correlations between lifestyle choices and

ideology. The current study used correlations between lifestyle items on the SECS

and HME scores to see whether Hanson and Kim’s (2011) variance by issue would

emerge.

Additionally, respondents were asked two questions related directly to ESPN’s

coverage of social and political issues. One question asked “Which of the following

do you think best describes ESPN’s coverage of sports-related social issues?” with a

734 Communication & Sport 6(6)

5-point Likert-type scale anchored by strong liberal bias and strong conservative

bias. The other question asked for responses to the statement “ESPN can be trusted

to cover social and political issues fairly,” with a 5-point Likert-type scale anchored

by strongly disagree and strongly agree.

Finally, as suggested by Kim and Billings (2017), respondents were asked two

questions relating to fandom. The first question asked them to identify which sport

their favorite team participated in, utilizing a categorical variable that provided

respondents with a choice of the five most popular sports in the United States

(e.g., football, basketball, baseball, soccer, and hockey; Luker, 2011), as well as

an option for other. The second question asked respondents to rate their self-

perceived level of fandom on a scale of 0–100.

Hostile Media Bias

We measured hostile media bias with an index adapted from prior HME studies,

including Lee (2005), Hwang et al. (2008), and Lin, Haridakis, and Hanson (2016).

Respondents rated their agreement (1¼ strongly disagree to 5¼ strongly agree) to 3

items evaluating their perceptions of ESPN’s willingness to give opposing political

viewpoints too much air time, perceived bias and hostility against the respondent’s

held political beliefs, and perceptions of ESPN being influenced by political special

interests. Responses to these 3 items were summed and averaged to produce a single

index score. The 3 items of this HME index were evaluated for scale reliability. The

Cronbach’s a from the analysis was .845, indicating a reliable scale.

An ordinary least squares (OLS) multiple regression analysis was performed

with the 3-item HME as the dependent variable. The independent variables of age,

education, gender, and household income were entered first to judge their impact

on perception of ESPN’s bias (Model 1). Then, the independent variables of ESPN

viewership, news show viewership, political opinion show viewership, interest in

politics, personal cynicism, political cynicism, and self-identified political ideol-

ogy were entered (Model 2). Lastly, the same independent variables in Model 2

were entered again but with the 12-item SECS score instead of the self-identified

political ideology score (Model 3). This approach mirrored the HME-related work

of Lee (2005).

Results

Demographic results for the survey sample found a mean age of 33.97 (SD ¼ 10.750), with a range of 18–74. The majority (53.8%) of respondents indicated that

they had received a 4-year college degree or better, with 89.4% indicating at least

some college completed. The sample was 62.3% male and 37.7% female. Whites

made up the majority (74.5%) of the sample, with Black/African American (11.5%)

and Asian (7.9%) comprising the next two largest racial groups. The median

reported household income was US$50,000–59,999 per year.

Clavio and Vooris 735

On the traditional 8-point political scale, 106 respondents (22.6%) self-identified

as moderate, while 44.9% identified as slightly liberal, liberal, or extremely liberal,

and 31.5% identified as slightly conservative, conservative, or very conservative.

Only five respondents (1.1%) indicated that they did not know their political beliefs.

Utilizing the 12-item, issue-oriented SECS, the mean value for social and economic

conservatism was 56.27 (SD ¼ 19.793) on a scale of 0–100, with a slightly lower

mean (M ¼ 55.5) for the social subscale and a slightly higher mean (M ¼ 57.5) for

the economic subscale. Scores closer to 100 indicate a higher degree of conserva-

tism, while scores closer to 0 indicate less.

The lowest individual mean of the items in the HME index was from ESPN is

hostile to my political viewpoints (M ¼ 2.73, SD ¼ 1.180), followed by ESPN gives

too much airtime to political viewpoints that I disagree with (M¼ 2.83, SD¼ 1.104)

and ESPN is influenced by powerful special interests that I oppose politically (M ¼ 3.03, SD ¼ 1.191).

Table 1 presents the results from the three OLS regression models. Hypothesis 1

stated that self-identifying as a political conservative would lead to a higher percep-

tion of hostile media bias by ESPN. This hypothesis was confirmed when political

beliefs were determined by self-selection (b ¼ .391, p < .001) and when determined

via the issue-based SECS (b ¼ .327, p < .001). The more conservative a person is,

the more likely they are to perceive a media bias from ESPN. The second model

demonstrated a significant regression equation, F(11, 458) ¼ 10.481 p < .001, with

an R2 of .201. The second model also demonstrated a significant regression equation,

F(11, 453) ¼ 7.519, p < .001 with an R2 of .154.

Hypothesis 2 posited that a greater level of perception of ESPN as politically

hostile would negatively predict an individual’s level of trust in ESPN to cover

social and political issues fairly. A significant regression equation was found, F(1,

468)¼ 142.322, p < .001, with an R2 of .233. The higher the level of HME, the lower

the level of trust in ESPN (b �.548, p < .001).

Research Question 1 asked whether political ideology affected the perception of

political slant within ESPN’s coverage of social and political issues. Pearson’s

correlation analysis found a weak negative correlation between political identifica-

tion and perception of ESPN’s political and social coverage, r¼�.253, n¼ 463, p <

.001. As people’s political beliefs became more conservative, their perceptions of

ESPN’s coverage became more liberal. The utilization of the SECS demonstrated a

more pronounced negative correlation, r ¼ �.372, n ¼ 463, p < .001.

Research Question 2 asked whether a person’s consumption of ESPN, news

shows, and political opinion shows affected their perception of ESPN’s media bias.

Consumption of ESPN (b ¼ �.109, p < .05), political opinion shows (b ¼ .114, p <

.05), and news shows (b ¼ �.142, p < .05) had effects when individuals were

assessed via the SECS, but not when their political beliefs were determined through

self-identification.

The third research questioned if an individual’s perception of media bias from

ESPN is affected by their interest in politics. Interest in politics was found to have an

736 Communication & Sport 6(6)

effect when individuals self-selected their political affiliation (b¼ .128, p < .01), but

not when judged by the SECS (b ¼ .056, p > .05).

The fourth RQ asked whether personal or political cynicism affected views of

ESPN as hostile media. Political cynicism was found to have an effect (b ¼ �.182,

p < .001) in both the self-identify model and the SECS model (b¼�.168, p < .001),

while personal cynicism affected neither the second model (b ¼ �.016, p > .05) nor

the third (b¼ .039, p > .05). People who are cynical about politics are more likely to

see a hostile media bias in ESPN.

The fifth RQ asked if level of fanhood impacted HME. A correlation between

level of fandom and HME found a negative correlation which approached signifi-

cance (r ¼ �.084, p ¼ .069). It does not appear that level of fandom for one’s

favorite team significantly impacts one’s perception of ESPN’s media bias. To test

whether a person’s favorite sport possibly impacted their perception of media bias, a

w2 test of goodness of fit was performed, w2 (60, N ¼ .464) ¼ 60.183, p ¼ .469. It

does not appear that a person’s favorite sport impacts their perception of ESPN

media bias.

Additional correlations were tabulated between subject’s HME scores and the

various issues measured on the SECS scale. These correlations revealed that a desire

for limited government (r ¼ .332, p < .001) and an appreciation for gun ownership

(r ¼ .331, p < .001) were the 2 items with the highest Pearson correlations. Because

of the sample size, correlations between the HME scores and 11 of the 12 political

ideology questions on the SECS were significant at the .05 level. Only the responses

relating to the family unit (r ¼ .081, p > .05) were not. The economic conservatism

Table 1. Factors Affecting Perception of Entertainment and Sports Programming Network (ESPN) Media Bias.

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3

Variables b b b

Age .003 �.046 �.038 Education �.059 .000 �.018 Gender �.045 �.039 �.061 Household income .067 .008 .020 News consumption �.089 �.142* Political opinion consumption .070 .114* ESPN consumption �.084 �.109* Interest in politics .128** .056 Personal cynicism �.016 .039 Political cynicism �.182*** �.168*** Political beliefs .391*** SECS .327***

Note. SECS ¼ Social and Economic Conservatism Scale. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

Clavio and Vooris 737

subscale demonstrated a higher correlation (r ¼ .361, p < .001) than the social

conservatism subscale (r ¼ .223, p < .001) with a perception of ESPN bias.

Discussion

This study attempted to ascertain how an individual’s perception of media bias on

the part of ESPN was affected by political ideology, cynicism, and television con-

sumption. The results indicate that one’s political ideology, whether measured

through self-identification or on an affiliation scale (Everett, 2013), affects one’s

perception of ESPN’s media bias. Additionally, cynicism about the American polit-

ical system and interest in politics appear to have an impact. These results expand

the application of the HME to the realm of sports media’s biggest entity, ESPN,

while also demonstrating how the HME manifests itself in sports communication.

The composition of this study’s sample was particularly robust. The racial break-

down closely mirrors U.S. census numbers from 2016. The sample was more edu-

cated than the general population when considering completion of a bachelor’s

degree (53.8–23.9%), but in line with U.S. median household income of

US$53,889 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2016).

From a political perspective, the results of this study skewed more liberal than

overall political numbers found in recent polling. Data collected by Gallup in 2017

indicated that 36% of Americans self-identify as conservative, 34% as moderates,

and 25% as liberals (Saad, 2017), whereas nearly 45% of respondents in this poll

self-identified as liberal. According to a March 2017 report from the Pew Research

Center, 48% of the U.S. population considers themselves Democrats or Democratic

leaners, 39% consider themselves Republicans or Republican leaners, and 11% consider themselves independent (Maniam & Smith, 2017). If Democrats and Dem-

ocratic leaners are seen as “liberals,” in the broadest sense, and Republicans or

Republican leaners are seen as “conservatives,” then the ideological composition

of the sample also closely mirrors the U.S. population.

The finding that individuals with conservative political beliefs perceive ESPN

as hostile is not surprising in light of previous research on strongly held beliefs

and perception of media bias (Hwang et al., 2008; Lee, 2005; Lin et al., 2016),

particularly when coupled with the hostility exhibited toward ESPN by certain

members of the conservative media. As observed in the findings relating to

Hypothesis 1, there is a clear relative effect in terms of perceived ESPN bias

and political leaning, meaning that even left-leaning individuals perceive some

bias, though not as much as right-leaning individuals. This is to be expected,

since ESPN’s purposeful entry into covering issues with a political or social

basis removes the expectation that audiences are perceiving ESPN’s content as

neutral. The findings from this study demonstrate that liberals and moderates do

perceive some degree of bias in ESPN’s coverage, but to a significantly lesser

degree than conservatives. This finding is a clear example of the relative HME

(Perloff, 2015) at work.

738 Communication & Sport 6(6)

It is interesting that ESPN has recently chosen to strongly deny any degree of

political slant in their coverage (Ourand, 2017) after seeming to embrace a more

socially conscious political perspective in earlier commentary on their coverage

approach (Brady, 2016). Quite possibly, ESPN was satisfied with taking a more

progressive tack on political and social issues until that approach became an effec-

tive cudgel in the hands of their opposition. Regardless of the origins, the data from

this study illustrate an environment where at least some of ESPN’s audience per-

ceives them as politically hostile. It is possible that ESPN’s documented issues with

falling subscriber numbers are not related to an actual political slant in their cover-

age, as some have speculated (e.g., Travis, 2017; Whitlock, 2017), but instead are

due to audience perceptions of slanted coverage. Since the perception of media bias

can often lead to drastic actions among strong partisans (Hansen & Kim, 2011), one

of these drastic actions in this case may be cord cutting or the reduction of one’s

cable package to a package without ESPN (Putterman, 2016).

The three OLS regression models utilized in this study are an attempt to take a

broad-based approach to evaluating the effects of political beliefs on attitudes of

media hostility and trustworthiness. In an American political era where many tra-

ditionally left-wing political adherents self-identify as progressive instead of liberal,

and many right-wing political adherents self-identify as libertarian instead of con-

servative, it was not certain whether the traditional liberal-to-conservative one ques-

tion scale would provide an accurate picture of the political attitudes of the audience,

or how those attitudes affect their perceptions of ESPN. The introduction of the

issue-based, 12-item SECS provides a more nuanced measure of political ideology

than a single self-identification question. As seen in the data, the political measures

demonstrated strong positive correlations, indicating that high scores on the SECS

corresponded well with more conservative self-identifications on the traditional

scale. The smaller effect size of the third OLS model makes sense due to that nuance.

In particular, individuals who desire to limit the role of government and support

private gun ownership were the most inclined to perceive a hostile bias on the part of

ESPN. The models each demonstrate the lack of impact that any of the traditional

demographic variables have on perception of ESPN’s trustworthiness, which is

notable. Prior research into HME (Lee, 2005) found that both gender and education

had an impact on distrust of news media, but no such effect was observed here.

Previous research on HME has found that political involvement is a strong

predictor of one’s perception of media bias. Much like the work of Lee (2005),

Hansen and Kim (2011), and Perloff (2015), the findings in the current study,

demonstrates that the more individuals watch political shows, the more hostile

they felt toward media, in this case ESPN. The negative relationship between

perception of bias and consumption of ESPN may help support ESPN’s contention

that they are not overly political (Ourand, 2017) since it suggests that the more one

actually consumes ESPN’s coverage, the less they perceive it as biased. In other

words, those who watch ESPN the most detect less bias than those who watch the

network less frequently.

Clavio and Vooris 739

Unlike in some previous research (e.g., Lee, 2005), political cynicism was not

found to have a positive predictive impact on perception of media bias. In fact,

political cynicism was found to have a weak negative predictive impact on percep-

tion of bias from ESPN. There was no correlation between political cynicism and

political beliefs, which perhaps points to a broad-based cynicism of the political

structure that operates separately from political affiliation. As in Lee (2005), no

relationship was found between personal cynicism and perception of bias. It appears

that in both sports media, as in media in general, there is little to no association

between personal cynicism and a feeling of bias against one’s political ideology.

Limitations and Future Studies

This study had some limitations. Because the core assumption of the study was that

ESPN was not providing completely impartial commentary and reporting, based

upon their own public pronouncements, the hypotheses and data collection were

constructed with relative HME in mind. An assumption that ESPN is practicing

objective journalism across its content might result in different questions and out-

comes. There was also no explicit distinction between ESPN’s television properties,

Internet properties, and other properties, with the idea that much of the consumption

of ESPN content is not taking place on a particular isolated medium, but rather

across several convergent media forms.

Future studies should explore ESPN’s content choices at greater depth, utilizing

both content analysis and experimental design (e.g., Kim & Billings, 2017) to

evaluate how audience members perceive certain types of content, and whether or

not those pieces of content contain measurable political or social bias. Additionally,

audiences should be surveyed in relation to ESPN’s coverage of specific, contro-

versial political, or social issues such as player protests or labor disputes within

sport, to see whether their responses differ from the broader and more general

evaluations of ESPN’s coverage found in this study. It would also be relevant to

discover whether political conservatives who perceive ESPN as hostile are in fact

taking the kind of drastic action mentioned by Hansen and Kim (2011) by eliminat-

ing the network from their cable package.

ESPN will celebrate its 40th anniversary as a cable network in 2019, and the

media environment it exists in now has changed tremendously from the environment

that existed in 1979. In the early days of the network, it would have likely been

difficult to fathom that on-air content would have been the center of political con-

troversy and hostile perceptions among viewers. However, the world of media

continues to change, and the augmenting effects of social media, constant connec-

tivity, 24-hr news cycles, and never-ending election cycles have combined to create

a posttruth era media landscape (Sartwell, 2017) where everything is subject to

politicization and polarization. Whether or not ESPN considers its content to be

politically biased, this study illustrates that certain segments of the audience now

view it as such. Barring an unexpected receding of the political tumult in the current

740 Communication & Sport 6(6)

media environment, ESPN and other media entities not strictly focused on politics

will have to bear in mind that almost all content is likely to be viewed through a

political lens by some observers.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, author-

ship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of

this article.

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