When ethnic minorities hit the headlines: The longitudinal associations between news features and adolescents' ethnic prejudice.

Abstract

Ethnic prejudice poses great challenges to adolescents' adjustment to multicultural societies. However, little is known about the role of the media in influencing attitudes in adolescence. Combining information environment and ecological development theories, the current study examined the longitudinal associations between the quantity, valence (i.e., neutral, positive, and negative), and target (i.e., migrant, refugee, and foreigner) of the news about ethnic minority groups and youth's affective and cognitive prejudice. In total, 962 adolescents (M_age = 15.67, 48.13% females) completed questionnaires at two time points, and news data were gathered from a national newspaper. While news quantity did not matter, positive and negative news were respectively associated with reduced and increased levels of cognitive, but not affective, prejudice. Nuanced associations emerged when accounting for the news target. Results were replicated regardless of adolescents' direct consumption of newspapers. These findings highlight the role of the information environment and suggest the need to account for it in planning interventions.