Who triggers the hostile media effect in the generative AI era? Examining stance congruence,AI and human news writer and actor diversity in China

Abstract

In the era of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), the impact of news on audiences may depend not only on stance and source diversity but also on whether the news is generated by AI.This study employed a 2 × 2 × 2 between-subjects factorial experiment, manipulating news writer (GenAI vs human) and actor diversity (single vs multiple), while news stance (pro vs con) was combined with participants’ prior attitudes to calculate stance congruence between media and audience. The experiment examined two issue contexts, abortion and genetically modified food, and produced 608 valid responses. Results reaffirm the hostile media effect (HME): audiences perceived greater bias when news stances conflicted with their own and less bias when stances aligned. Moreover, under stand-incongruent conditions, human journalists were more likely than AI journalists to elicit stronger hostile perceptions. This study extends HME research in the Chinese context, showing that audience stance outweighs formal news characteristics such as writer identity and actor diversity. It highlights stance congruence between media and audience as the core mechanism of HME and suggests that AI journalists may help mitigate audience hostility in highly contentious issues.