Conferences

Perceptions of group threat, whether related to majority members’ economic interests or cultural identity, have proven to be a key predictor of majority members’ anti-immigrant prejudice. However, research has only partially identified the contextual-level characteristics giving rise to such perceived threat. Most studies in this domain focus their attention on structural characteristics as explanatory factors, e.g. the demographic size of the immigrant population. Surprisingly, up to date the role negative media portrayals of immigrants might play for explaining majority members’ perceived group threat has received only little attention. To remedy part of this neglect, we examined the role of negative media portrayals of immigrants for explaining majority members’ perceived group threat during the period 1996 to 2007 in Spain. Controlling for various regional- and individual-level characteristics, our data show that an increase in negative media portrayals of immigrants is associated with an increase in majority members’ threat perceptions. Our findings highlight the importance of including the mass media as an explanatory factor in a group threat framework.