Immigrants’ Dual Identity and the Hostile Media Effect in the Context of Sports Broadcasts

Abstract. We explored how immigrants’ dual (ethno-national) identity affects the hostile media effect in the context of broadcast news of international sporting events. A mixed-methods approach to collecting data was used comprising an online experiment and in-person focus group interviews with Korean Chinese immigrants residing in South Korea. The results demonstrate that hostile media perception in favor of the out-group was greater for out-group broadcast news than for in-group broadcast news. The hostile media perception was linked to support for in-group players only for immigrants with a strong dual identity. The results of the focus group interviews suggest that the dual-identity participants reinforce their national identity and increase their support for the in-group players to deal with the threat to their self-esteem when collective self-esteem connected to their national identity is threatened by what they considered broadcast news biased against Chinese players.