Media messages and attitudes toward muslims and ethnic minorities: A panel study among ethnic majority adolescents in the Netherlands

Abstract

In recent years, western media coverage is frequently filled with issues relating to Islam, which are unfavorable to Muslims. The attitudinal consequences of such media messages are widely discussed; however, empirical research is scarce. This study uses large-scale panel data on adolescents in combination with newspaper data and takes advantage of an extensive fieldwork period during which media salience of Muslims has fluctuated. All unmeasured time-invariant characteristics are accounted for by adopting a fixed-effects panel design. The results provide evidence of immediate attitudinal responses to media salience: the more media salience of Muslims on the day of survey participation, the more negative adolescents feel about Muslims. However, the results do not point toward a secondary transfer effect because media-induced negative attitudes toward Muslims were not transferred to ethnic minorities. Findings of this study advance current research by providing evidence for the effect of daily variations in media salience on attitudes.