Sex-Segregated News Consumption: Origins of Gender-Typed Patterns of Americans’ Selective Exposure to News Topics

To examine psychological origins of gender-typed news preferences, an online newsmagazine was presented to 204 US participants in an experimental setting. The presented articles featured the same portions of social/interpersonal and achievement/performance topics with equally positive and negative news, while personae gender was counterbalanced. Newsreaders’ selective news exposure was unobtrusively logged. Results show that, in line with gender stereotypes, women favor social/interpersonal topics and men prefer achievement/performance issues. Newsreaders’ affiliation motivation, gender-role orientation, and self-esteem influenced what news content was preferred.

Publisher: Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Communication Association, Dresden International Congress Centre, Dresden, Germany
Year of Publication: 2008