The Hostile Misinformation Effect: How Ideological Congruence Drives the Assessment of Misinformation Targets

Misinformation is increasingly seen as a key challenge to democratic societies. Our study is one of the first to shed light onto the citizen perspective when it comes to the perceived target of misinformation during election campaigns. In doing so, we extend on a classic concept in the (political) communication literature, the hostile media effect, and examine whether this applies to misinformation as well, a so-called hostile misinformation effect. Do citizens believe that their political in-group is being targeted more by misinformation than their political out-group? Our argument is based on motivated reasoning and social identity theory and extends to the role of several crucial moderating factors. Using data from a panel study conducted during the 2024 European Parliament elections across Germany, the Netherlands, and Poland (N = 4,045), we find clear support for a hostile misinformation effect, as citizens believe their own political party was much more targeted than the political opponent. Moreover, we demonstrate that particularly political interest, party identity strength, ideological extremity, and being right-wing make people more susceptible to the phenomenon. Our findings demonstrate that the hostile media effect can be extended to the domain of misinformation perceptions. Moreover, they explain why people perceive to be surrounded by misinformation, and help contextualize literature suggesting that people associate misinformation with various other information disorders and threats.