Study: Conservative Media Use, Political Beliefs and Geographic Identity Can Affect Perceptions of Rural Residents
A new study has found that there is a three-way interaction between conservative media use, political beliefs and geographic identity when evaluating rural residents.
The findings by University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications (UFCJC) Public Relations Associate Professor Jay Hmielowski and UFCJC graduate student Brittany Shaughnessy are featured in “I’ve Got Friends in Rural Places: Examining Predictors of People’s Feelings About Rural Residents” published in the Journal of Rural Studies, Volume 114.
The authors examined the two-way interaction of media use and political beliefs and the three-way interaction of media use, political beliefs and placed-based identity to better understand where the correlations between media use and feelings toward rural residents are concentrated.
According to the authors, “First, our results suggest that use of conservative media is associated with holding more positive views of rural residents, while liberal media was unrelated to people’s assessment of rural residents. Second, political beliefs were also related to how people feel about rural residents. Third, our results also revealed that people’s placed-based identities served as a predictor of people’s evaluation of rural residents. Fourth, we also assessed whether the correlation between media use and feelings toward rural residents varied based on political beliefs. Finally, we found some support for our three-way interaction for conservative media.”
They add, “Therefore, it will become important to understand how people learn about these two groups [rural and urban] that often do not come in contact with each other to better understand what factors might be fueling the potential negative views these different groups have toward one another.”
Posted: December 16, 2024
Category: Alumni Profiles, College News
Tagged as: Brittany Shaughnessy, Jay Hmielowski, Journal of Rural Studies, Public Relations
