ABSTRACT

Despite the enormous rise in the transgender media visibility in recent years, the news media in particular still predominantly exemplify powerful elite transgender people or exclusively quote their cisgender counterparts, leaving out the voices and lived experiences of transgender people who do not fall into the high-power categories. Such power exemplification has become part of the journalism practice when reporting issues regarding marginalized social groups. Little quantitative social scientific research has explored how such journalistic practice might have contributed to the acceptance of or the increased hostility and hate crimes against transgender people. Through integrating the theories of exemplification, attribution, and dehumanization, this study experimentally investigates how the power exemplification of members from marginalized social groups like the transgender community (i.e., High-Power vs. Low-Power Transgender Exemplar) in the news narrative interacts with the cisgender heterosexual audience’s sex to redirect people’s intergroup attitudes, responsibility attribution for transgender social issues, dehumanization, and aggression towards transgender people. The findings demonstrated that after exposure to the news content featuring a high-power transgender woman exemplar, cisgender heterosexual women respondents reported significantly higher levels of dehumanization in regard to transgender people’s human nature. After exposure to the news content with power exemplification (vs. the control condition) regardless of the levels of power depicted, male participants were significantly more likely to attribute transgender issues to external factors. These findings reveal 1) the significant psychological and social impacts of the journalism practice of power exemplification when reporting transgender issues, and 2) how heterosexual cisgender men and women audiences respond to power exemplification of transgender people in the news differently. These findings not only provide social scientific evidence to guide practitioners to navigate the intricate practice of exemplifying the power of transgender people in the news but also fill the gap in the lack of quantitative experimental audience research in transgender media studies.

摘要

尽管近年来跨性别媒体的知名度大幅上升，但新闻媒体尤其仍然主要代表强大的跨性别精英人士或专门引用他们的顺性别同行，而忽略了不属于高阶层的跨性别者的声音和生活经历。电源类别。在报道有关边缘化社会群体的问题时，这种权力例证已成为新闻实践的一部分。很少有定量社会科学研究探讨这种新闻实践如何导致对跨性别者的接受或增加对跨性别者的敌意和仇恨犯罪。通过整合例证、归因和非人化的理论，这项研究通过实验调查了新闻叙事中跨性别社区等边缘化社会群体成员的权力例证（即，高权力与低权力跨性别样本）如何与顺性别异性恋受众的性别相互作用，以重新引导人们的群体间态度、责任跨性别社会问题、非人化和对跨性别者的攻击的归因。调查结果表明，在接触到以高权力变性女性为榜样的新闻内容后，顺性别异性恋女性受访者报告说，变性人的人性方面的非人化程度明显更高。在接触到具有权力例证（相对于控制条件）的新闻内容后，无论描述的权力水平如何，男性参与者明显更有可能将跨性别问题归因于外部因素。这些发现揭示了 1) 在报道跨性别问题时，权力例证的新闻实践的重大心理和社会影响，以及 2) 异性恋顺性别男性和女性观众如何不同地回应新闻中跨性别者的权力例证。这些发现不仅提供了社会科学证据来指导从业者在新闻中展示变性人力量的复杂实践，而且填补了变性媒体研究中缺乏定量实验受众研究的空白。这些发现揭示了 1) 在报道跨性别问题时，权力例证的新闻实践的重大心理和社会影响，以及 2) 异性恋顺性别男性和女性观众如何不同地回应新闻中跨性别者的权力例证。这些发现不仅提供了社会科学证据来指导从业者在新闻中展示变性人力量的复杂实践，而且填补了变性媒体研究中缺乏定量实验受众研究的空白。这些发现揭示了 1) 在报道跨性别问题时，权力例证的新闻实践的重大心理和社会影响，以及 2) 异性恋顺性别男性和女性观众如何不同地回应新闻中跨性别者的权力例证。这些发现不仅提供了社会科学证据来指导从业者在新闻中展示变性人力量的复杂实践，而且填补了变性媒体研究中缺乏定量实验受众研究的空白。