The phenomenon of media bias has always dominated journalism issues around the world. Media bias occurs when media outlets systematically emphasize one particular point of view in a way that contravenes the standards of professional journalism (Sheppard 89). Media bias is dominated by several factions including conservative, liberal, mainstream, and corporate media. Several organizations have come forward with the view of combating biases in the media by scrutinizing biased news reporting.
Media bias can occur in several forms. For instance, bias can be manifested when certain current events are not reported by the media. There are no definite patterns of media bias but trends indicate that liberal bias is the most common practice in journalism. This paper explores how media is biased using a news article that exemplifies bias in mass media.
The addressed news article addresses the differences between the presidential candidatures of both Hillary Clinton and Carly Fiorina. The article is titled Clinton-30 Days, 8 Press Questions; Fiorina- 8 Days, 322 Press Questions and it appears on the Breibart News website. According to the article, Clinton announced her presidential bid 30 days ago but she has had lukewarm engagement with the media.
On the other hand, her competitor Fiorina announced her candidature 8 days ago but she has had good interactions with the media (Swoyer 1). The brief article has obvious bias towards Clinton while it favors the actions of her rival. The bias in this article is aimed at discrediting mainstream medias coverage of Clintons campaign while praising the conservative actions of the GOP presidential candidate.
This article presents media bias in a number of ways. First, the articles headline announces the candidates appearance statistics as if they have a significant impact on the quality of their campaigns. It is important to note that these statistics do not reflect the suitability of any of the two candidates. However, the author of this article reports the matter in a manner that influences the readers opinions about the two presidential candidates. Another bias is evident through the authors attempt to show that Clintons actions are abnormal.
The author points out that Clinton has set the record for the longest running presidential candidate with the lowest instances of media interaction in her first thirty days of campaigning (Swoyer 1). The liberal bias is evident when the article quotes Fiorina saying that unlike Hilary Clinton, her campaign is transparent as indicated through her openness to the media. The author does not attempt to present Clintons side of the story and this is an obvious bias against the Democratic Partys presidential candidate.
This article has a significant impact on public opinion as indicated through the various comments that are made by its readers. First, the use of numbers in the articles title makes the public think that Fiorinas high numbers indicate that she is winning. Consequently, the readers who support Clinton are made to think that their candidate of choice is failing at something. The article also hints at the complexity and secrecy of the Democratic Partys candidate whilst presenting a new face of the GOP as a transparent political outfit.
Traditionally, the popular public opinion is that the conservative GOP is the secretive political outfit while the Democrats are transparent (Lee 28). However, this article attempts to sway the popular public opinion using press-interaction statistics of the two candidates. The greatest bias in this news article is aimed at insinuating that Hilary Clinton is hiding something thereby swaying public opinion towards this line of thinking.
Works Cited
Lee, Martin. Unreliable sources: A guide to detecting bias in news media, New Jersey: Lyle Stuart, 2011. Print.
Sheppard, Si. The Partisan Press: A history of media bias in the United States, New York: McFarland, 2007. Print.
The media is biased in both direction depending on the specific media outlets you may access like CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News. The media, including CNN, is biased more towards liberal values. The media’s motive is to make money even if what they’re promoting is wrong. According to Student News Daily, there is media bias by a selection of sources. Even though CNN chose sides the liberals, Fox News sided with the conservatives. For example, they provide bias by omission, bias by spin, and bias by labeling because in general they support liberal beliefs and sometimes publicly dismissed conservative beliefs. “As for the 2008 presidential campaign, media attention focused on the Democratic race for president because of its historic nature. The nominee was either going to be Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton.” In the 2008 presidential election, Oprah Winfrey received praise for giving Barack Obama the boost he needed to win the election. However, she did receive harsh criticisms from others viewers for turning her back on a female candidate. “Oprah Winfrey is credited with giving Obama the boost he needed to overtake Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primaries, although she faced a backlash from some viewers for turning her back on a female candidate.” Another example is during the 2016 presidential election Pew Research stated that the most of CNN’s stories about Trump were negative. According to a major study out of Harvard, “A major new study out of Harvard University has revealed the true extent of the mainstream media’s bias against Donald Trump. They found that the tone of some outlets was negative in as many as 98% of reports, significantly more hostile than the first 100 days of the three previous administrations.”
The media selectively chooses what they want to release to the public to program the majority of people that watch the news regularly to think a certain way. Most people are socialized to support liberal bias and adopt liberal values because the media deliberately promotes liberal bias. In the modern age, there is media bias especially on social issues and the economy. “And the political press in the U.S. has an overwhelming leftward tilt, mostly on social issues, but also on economic matters.” Another form of media bias in the 2008 presidential election is “bias by placement.” For instance, “During the 2008 presidential election, media outlets were criticized for helping Barack Obama win the White House while portraying the John McCain and Sarah Palin in a poor light.” In this case, the media was accused of downplaying John McCain and Sarah Palin while supporting Barack Obama.
Conservatives are misunderstood in most newsrooms like CNN and MSNBC. The mixed and hostile coverage leaves conservatives rightly distrustful that the news media will cover them fairly. This breeds the perception that the mainstream media is targeting conservatives, and this perception has truly harmful consequences. The mainstream media puts down conservatives political views in order to popularize liberal values. An example is that “The most crucial role of our press is scrutinizing those in power and those who want power. Dr. Carson, Donald Trump, Marco Rubio and the others all deserve intense scrutiny of their policy proposals, their past and their stated beliefs. Dr. Carson has portrayed the recent news media scrutiny of him as a witch hunt, and (especially when some of it is unfair) conservative voters believe him. This enables him to dodge accountability.” The mainstream media, especially the more liberal news stations, attacked Ben Carson verbally because of his conservative political stance and opinions. “Democracy needs a trustworthy news media. For conservatives to trust the news media, it needs to better understand conservatives.” News media influences society as a whole. If they release mostly negative information on the news, then the majority of people around the world will have a negative outlook on world and life.
MSNBC was founded in 1996 and based in New York City. MSNBC is an American basic cable and satellite television network that provides news coverage on current events. They are owned by NBCUniversal News Group, a division of NBCUniversal, which are both owned by Comcast. Outside of news reporting, MSNBC features hosted news programs such as “All In with Chris Hayes”, “Hardball with Chris Matthews”, “Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell”, and “The Rachel Maddow Show”, hosted by liberal pundit Rachel Maddow. MSNBC also has moderate conservatives, namely Morning Joe’s, Joe Scarborough, co-hosted by liberal commentator Mika Brzezinski. This shows that MSNBC is a liberal-based news platform.
According to MSNBC, “these media sources are strongly biased toward liberal causes through story selection and/or political affiliation.” MSNBC is more preferred by a liberal audience. A survey was conducted in 2014 that 48% of MSNBC’s audience is consistently or mostly liberal, 33% mixed, and 18% consistently or mostly conservative. For instance, MSNBC used strong headlines in articles, “GOP senator says he’s ‘concerned’ Trump was ‘involved in a crime”, “Cohen gets 3 years in jail for covering up Trump’s dirty deeds”, and “Says President Donald Trump is ‘talking about exterminating Latinos’”. According to Media Bias/Fact Check, all three articles were eventually confirmed false.
CNN was founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. The Cable News Network (CNN) is an American basic cable, satellite television channel and website. CNN was the first 24-hour cable news channel. However, by April 2016, a CNN executive officially described the channel as “no longer a TV news network” and instead as “a 24-hour global multi-platform network.” CNN has multiple stations in many countries around the world. CNN has been labeled for providing fake news by Fox News, President Trump and many of his supporters.
Fox News was the main source for 40% of Trump’s voters during the 2016 election. Another survey from the Pew Research Center claims that when it comes to choosing a media source for political news, conservatives strongly support Fox News. 47% almost half of the consistent conservatives exclaimed that Fox News is their main source of information for government and political news. Fox News presents issues from a conservative perspective because the majority of Fox News stories are pro-Trump. For example, Fox News posted headlines such as “They Wanted It to Blow Up: Limbaugh Says Success of Trump-Kim Summit Caught Media Off Guard.”
Taking a case of the president Richard Trumka in ALF-CIO, the president has a history of human injustice. This ranged from incitements that lead to killings of people. However, the media ignored the news and did not report the happening as they were happening. These issues are against the press responsibility of unveiling the truth so that necessary action is taken. This is on the other hand indirectly supporting wrong doings to continue happening, and the common citizens are the ones that keep suffering from the injustices. At the same time, the media should remain neutral and identify themselves with integrity in their work. In some instances, the media are not given enough power by some government constitutionally, and if so, their duties are influenced politically in some ways (Orcutt, 2012). This is to prevent some unjust activities happening from the government from leaking to the public. They are limited regarding intimidations and a lot of regulations of duties during licensing. The public which hence suffer is denied the right to information that is vital for a developing country.
According to the research done, the majority of the Americans still have no confidence in the media regarding reporting the exact and accurate news. 44% of the Americans believe that the press has shown the credibility of reporting reliable information throughout. However, the majority who are 55% did not agree with these and claimed the media in one way, or the other manipulates the exact information. The majority view bias of the media, 47% of the Americans believe the media are liberal, and 13% believe the media is conservative. However, 36% of the public believe the media is just. This shows that actually, the media need to improve their duties so that the above doubts from the public reduces.
Nowadays several humans square measure longing for fake news-associated drawbacks. The individuals square measure simply victim for over many faux info like social media, newspaper,etc. personalities will now not perceive whether or not the new is pretend or real. Bias news is the biggest drawback in our day-to-day life. it’s acceptable to possess a system to modify users to access balanced news content to work out whether or not a brand new article is faux or biased. Most existing ways of faux news detection square measure supervised that needed Associate in Nursing huge quantity of your time and labor to construct dependably and notated dataset. It normally focuses on disputed topics(e.g marriage, gay)tend to reveal a one-of-a-kind style of bias during a range of stories agencies.In existing machines they center of attention on solely the precise topics, therefore, people now not get the right output of demandable enter and to boot having a way less accuracy of their system, therefore to beat this drawback we have a tendency to develop a system to spot the knowledge is pretend or actual through creating use of some algorithmic rule like Na_ve’s Thomas Bayes, call Tree, Random Forest then forth on that,We used education dataset to teach statistics and check dataset to reinforce the accuracy. conjointly furnish chance of the news. in order that it will increase the accuracy of our machine
Keywords: media bias, text mining sentiment analysis, machine learning, news domain, SVM, accuracy, recall and f-measure.
I. Introduction
The rise of social media has democratized content creation and has made it easy for everybody to share and spread information online. On the positive side, this has given rise to citizen journalism, thus enabling much faster dissemination of information compared to what was possible with newspapers, radio, and TV. On the negative side, stripping traditional media from their gate-keeping role has left the public unprotected against the spread of misinformation, which could now travel at breaking-news speed over the same democratic channel. This has given rise to the proliferation of false information that is typically created either to attract network traffic and gain financially from showing online advertisements, e.g., as is the case of clickbait, or to affect individual people’s beliefs, and ultimately to influence major events such as political elections. There are strong indications that false information was weaponized at an unprecedented scale during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. Naturally, limiting the sharing of “fake news” is a major focus for social media such as Facebook and Twitter. Additional efforts to combat “fake news” have been led by fact-checking organizations such as Snopes, FactCheck and Politifact, which manually verify claims. Unfortunately, this is inefficient for several reasons. First, manual fact-checking is slow and debunking false information comes too late to have any significant impact. At the same time, automatic fact-checking lags behind in terms of accuracy, and it is generally not trusted by human users. In fact, even when done by reputable fact-checking organizations, debunking does little to convince those who already believe in false information. A third, and arguably more promising, way to fight “fake news” is to focus on their source. While “fake news” are spreading primarily on social media, they still need a “home”, i.e., a website where they would be posted. Thus, if a website is known to have published non-factual information in the past, it is likely to do so in the future. Verifying the reliability of the source of information is one of the basic tools that journalists in traditional media use to verify the information. Our system detect the fake news present in the data spread on a social network such as Facebook, Twitter and other resources. The machine learning concept is used to find such type of fake news or bias in news.
II. Literature survey
The study of biased news reporting has a long tradition in the social sciences going back at least to the 1950s. In the classical definition of Williams, media bias must both be intentional, i.e., reflect a conscious act or choice, and it must be sustained, i.e., represent a systematic tendency rather than an isolated incident. In this article, we thus focus on intentional media bias, which journalists and other involved parties implement purposely to achieve a specific goal. This definition sets the media bias that we consider apart from other sources of unintentional bias in news coverage. Sources of unintentional bias include the influence of news values throughout the production of news, and later the news consumption by readers with different backgrounds. Examples for news values include the geographic vicinity of a newsworthy event to the location of the news outlet and consumers or the effects of the general visibility or societal relevance of a specific topic.
Various definitions of media bias and its specific forms exist, each depending on the particular context and research questions studied. Mullainathan and Shleifer define two high-level types of media bias concerned with the intention of news outlets when writing articles: ideology and spin Ideological bias is present if an outlet biases articles to promote a specific opinion on a topic. Spin bias is present if the outlet attempts to create a memorable story. The second definition of media bias that is commonly used distinguishes between three types: coverage, gatekeeping, and statement (cf. ). Coverage bias is concerned with the visibility of topics or entities, such as a person or country, in media coverage. Gatekeeping bias, also called selection bias or agenda bias, relates to which stories media outlets select or reject for reporting. Statement bias, also called presentation bias, is concerned with how articles choose to report on concepts. For example, in the US elections, a well-observed bias arises from an editorial slant, in which the editorial position on a given presidential candidate affects the quantity and tone of a newspaper’s coverage. Further forms of media bias can be found in the extensive discussion by D’Alessio and Allen.
III. Methodology
A. Naive Bayes
As a Naive Bayes Classifier, because it is simple, it is handy to compute it has a greater pace for a large quantity of coaching data, a great deal much less sensitive to missing data, the algorithm is also alternatively simple, frequently used for textual content material classification, which is the essential assumption in Naïve Bayes Classifier. It is a conditional chance model: given a hassle occasion to be classified, represented via the use of a vector x = (x1,……, xn) representing some n facets (independent variables), it assigns to this occasion possibilities p(Ckj x1,……, xn) for every of K viable results or classes. The hassle with the above formula is that if the range of factors n is big or if an attribute can take on a massive range of values, then basing such a mannequin on hazard tables is infeasible. We, therefore, reformulate the model to make it greater tractable. Using Bayes’ theorem, the conditional threat can be decomposed as: p(Ck j x) = (p(Ck) p(x j Ck) ) / p(x). So, assuming that for i = 1, : : : .. n-1. So, beneath the independence assumptions, we can say that p(Ckj x1,……, xn) =1/Z p(Ck) i=1_ n p(xij ck) Where the proof is a scaling thing based entirely on, that is, a constant if the values of the function variables are known.
B.Support Vector Machine
In Machine learning, support vector machines (SVM) are supervised learning fashions with related learning algorithms that analyze records used for regression analysis. An SVM model is an illustration of the examples as points in space, mapped so that the examples of the separate classes are divided through a clear hole that is as large as possible. Support Vector Machine is a powerful algorithm used, In high dimensional space Support Vector Machine are very effective, Can deal with any data type via altering the kernel.
C.Random Forest
Random forests or random selection forests are an ensemble gaining knowledge of approach for classification, regression and different duties that operates by means of setting up a multitude of selection trees at education time and outputting the type that is the mode of the lessons (classification) or imply prediction (regression) of the individual trees. Random decision forests correct for choice trees’ addiction of overfitting to their training set. The first algorithm for random choice forests was created through Tin Kam Ho the use of the random subspace method, which, in Ho’s formulation, is a way to put into effect the ‘stochastic discrimination’ approach to the classification proposed by using Eugene Kleinberg.
Decision tree are a popular method for a variety of computer mastering tasks. Tree mastering ‘comes closest to meeting the necessities for serving as an off-the-shelf system for records mining’, say due to the fact it is invariant under scaling and a variety of different transformations of feature values, is sturdy to the inclusion of irrelevant aspects and produces inspectable models. However, they are seldom accurate.
D. Decision Tree
A decision tree is a shape that consists of a root node, branches, and leaf nodes. Each interior node denotes a test on an attribute, each branch denotes the outcome of a test, and each leaf node holds a classification label. The topmost node in the tree is the root node. The decision tree algorithm falls beneath the class of supervised learning. They can be used to remedy each regression and classification problem. The decision tree makes use of the tree representation to solve the trouble in which every leaf node corresponds to a type label and attributes are represented on the inside node of the tree. The benefits of having a selection tree are as follows:
It no longer requires any domain knowledge.
It is convenient to comprehend.
The learning and classification steps of a decision tree are simple and fast.
IV. Proposed system
We have followed text mining techniques and machine learning in an effort to detect bias in news agencies. We have crawled news articles from seven major outlets in the western media. Then we have made preprocessing to convert them into a useful structured form, building sentiment classifiers that
be able to predict article bias. The different machine learning algorithms are used to predict whether the news is faulty or real. Training data is the first trained using machine learning algorithms and save as a .csv file into the folder. Feature selection, Data processing is the first step in the training part of the project. Different type of classifier is used for news prediction such as naive Bayes, random forest, svm classifier. There are two actors who handle it one is the admin and the second is a system. The admin can provide the training data, and testing data with proper data processing to the system. System contains one or more algorithms like decision tree, Random forest, Naive Bayes, etc. this algorithm will generate a classi_er using training data and admin applied testing data on that classi_er and it will generate the output that the given new is fake or not.
VI. System architecture
A.Data Preparation
In this class, both training data and testing data is prepared in the format which is required for machine learning algorithm coding. Data Observation is done first on training data and testing data which syntax formation. Then create the distribution of data in label and data file format.
The data quality check operation is performed to check the equivalent quality of data. Tokenization of data is done to prepare data is ready for the next process. while using data preparation we used two approaches:
1. Stop word removal
Stop words are insignificant words in a language that will create noise. These words are commonly used in a sentence.we removed common words such as a,as,about,an,are,at,the,by,for,from,how,in,is,of,on,
will,etc.these word were removed from each document and the process document are passed to the next step.
2. Stemming
After the stop word removal, we used stemming for data standardization it changes the word into its original form.
B. Classification
Multiple classification algorithm tools are used for news bias prediction such as random forest, naive Bayes, and decision tree. This classifier work on training and testing data with multiple process definition.
C. Prediction
Prediction of news bias is done using training and testing data. Testing data is provided to find the actual bias in news with the help of training data.
III. Conclusion
Our analysis results have proven that the majority of those options have an awesome effect on performance, with the articles from the target website, its Wikipedia page, and its Twitter account being the principal integral (in this order). We tend to any performed accomplice ablation study of the have an impact on of the man or woman varieties of picks for every task, that can also provide standard directions for future analysis. In future work, we have a tendency to conceive to tackle the project as ordinal regression, and any to model the inter-dependencies between factualness and bias in a highly joint model. we tend to additionally are curious about characterizing the factualness of information for media in choice languages. records is processed mistreatment in more than one algorithm with variation in accuracy of the system. this approach locates the actual information is fraud or not with accuracy in percentage as a result user gets the idea related to machine output response.
IV. References
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The media is one of the most bias interaction sources. Whether you recognize it or not, everyday and almost all day, there is always some type of bias action happening around you or from you. Some of our top quality go-to sources are bias. For example, we have things such as the News, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook that lean towards either the liberal side or the conservative side. To get a better understanding of the two, liberal can be defined as, sharing “a root with liberty and can mean anything from generous to loose to broad-minded. Politically, it means a person who believes that government should be active in supporting social and political change” (Merrimam-Webster). Meanwhile, conservatism can be defined as, “The holding of political views that favour free enterprise, private ownership, and socially conservative ideas. Commitment to traditional values and ideas with opposition to change or innovation” (Lexico). Depending on what information the media will announce to the public, depends on which side they are on.
As you are aware, everyone has a sense of judgement Therefore, it is always better to be careful where you get your information from. Do some of your own research on the topic you are most interested in after being told information about it. For example, the news is a very bias place. Depending on which side they are on, determines whether you will believe what they are saying or not. This is because liberals are going to believe liberals and conservatives are going to believe conservatives. I believe that the news uses this to their own advantage because they know this little piece of information. If the person reporting the news is Liberal, then they are going to recite the information in such a way that is going to catch Liberals attention. If they do not like the piece of information, then they will make sure everyone in the Liberal side will not be too kindly of it either by leaving out bits and pieces and only talking about the parts that catch the liberal values. Although, nobody will know whose side they are on because we use the news as our first choice for trusted information so if the news says one thing, we most likely are going to believe it. Trump is another good example on the news media source. A media source pushing more towards liberal will never paint Trump to be anything else but bad. These sources will talk mostly about what is wrong with him, the corruption, damage, and threat to America he causes. Liberals are more persuasive to their own group as conservatives are more persuasive to theirs. A source states, “Newsroom headcounts do favor Democrats over Republicans, but not as much as they favor independents: as of 2013, just 7% identified as Republicans, while 28% declared themselves Democrats, according to a 2014 survey by Indiana University” (Graves).
Since we get most of our information from the news first, social media is where we go second to wander and explore other peoples thoughts on the different topics. With things such as Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook we see more harsh uncensored bias. This is because with these type of media sources there is no limit to what you can talk about or how much you can say. Therefore, these medias are used for deeper expressions. Of course, the same concept remains, as long as it is being told from a liberal view then they will gain the liberal audience and vice versa.
The media can manipulate your image by showing you only what they want you to know. For example, they can do things such as alter the way they describe a certain person to make them look more innocent or more guilty. Again, depending on what side they are on, they will only tell you what gains their story more agreement.( Image 1 attached: Media Bias). This shows how the media can paint an innocent person to look guilty by using certain pictures. The second image is another example of how media can alter an image to focus more on the negative and place the fault on the innocent person because they do not know the full story. I have attached both images into Dropbox for a visual example.
In conclusion, for every audience, there is some bias. The bias could come big or small but do your own specific research because the media Is not going to tell you the full story. Be careful what you believe before you get the full story. Everyone is on one side or the other, liberal or conservative. Whether they know or not, they use their certain opinions to adjust stories to their favor.
Media plays a big part around the world nowadays. About 11 years ago we would not think media would be such a big deal as we think of it now. The world uses media to post things that are happening in the world or we post to show our friends what we are doing on the weekends. I think when the question is asked is the media leaned more towards conservative or liberal? It really just depends on how a person views the media. Just like myself. I view the media on how I want to view it not on how I might think if it is liberal or conservative. I also don’t think you can really name a specific media to be “liberal or conservative”. As an example, if I am scrolling through Instagram and I see a beautiful skinny model my reaction would be “I wish that was me!”.
You then begin to put things in your head and make things bigger than it seems and view it on how it should be viewed. You start to lead your own thoughts and beliefs. People usually tend to watch their own beliefs if they are liberal then they will only watch media that are more towards liberal news, and if they are conservative, they then just watch media that is conservative. If they are like me, they watch anything that might just have both. In other words, I do believe humans make the media a big deal when in reality it is not. The media should not separate one another or make a person less of who they are because of what they want to be. Sometimes people will hate or bash one another because they believe in the same things. Media was not created for that reason. It was created to show new ideas, news, and entertainment.
Now onto the actual facts about media. Many Americans believe the media is liberal. I would see why when you scroll through any media really you don’t see traditional American values. The article “The liberal Media: It’s No Myth”, speaks about media spokesman denying that media is liberal. The article also says Groseclose and Milyo began rating voting records from U.S. Senators and representatives by Americans for Democratic (ADA) a group well known as liberals. These researchers used data from the 1990s and adjusted the ADA scores to compare them over time. On a 0-10 scale with 100 most of them being liberal the median member of the U.S house had an ADA score of 39. A list of computed ADA ratings for media outlets. On conservative, Fox News Special Report came out with a rating of 27. That was 12 points more conservative than the 39 of the median members of the House. On the liberal end, Newsweek had a rating of 72 which is 33 points more liberal than the House median. Also, other highly considered liberals would be The New York Times, the CBS Evening News, USA Today, and NBC Nightly News. (Barro 2004).
Media bias is an issue to Americans because it miss leads citizens and also causing hatred. The YouTube video, I watched “American News Media—Liberal or Conservative Bias?”, is a great debate video on media whether media is bias or not. Ronald Rice Co-Director, Center for Film Television and New Media began to explain in 00:01:20-00:01:45, media that were considered bias. 27% believe local tv is biased, 35% believe the network is biased, and 52% believe Fox news is bias.
Seems to me people who are professional journalism are writers who only reflect their opinions and not write about facts. I can see it happening there will be mistakes sometimes in the news about immigrants. If you look through the media and see certain articles on immigrants, you will see a lot of false spread rumors. Maybe then a conservative reporter is writing this article? One factor is getting news from a source does not always mean trusting that source. Data reveals that while 24% of Republicans got news from CNN in the past week, roughly four-in-ten who did (39%) say they distrust the outlet. And of the 23% of Democrats who got political news from Fox News in the past week, nearly three-in-ten (27%) distrust it. (Mark Jurkowitz, 2020)
There are many websites and new channels that choose one direction so than the other, but the most marketable media source favors the democratic party. They tend to attack other political parties and have lack information on the opposing views of their stories, which is described as counter-bias. To not be considered bias you have to show both sides of the party and display diversity within the content you are sharing about.
However, media bias has been known to go back and for decades, especially between two political parties. An example of mainstream media bias from the liberal standpoint is the presidential election in the year 2008 where “Media outlets were criticized for helping Barack Obama win the White House while portraying the John McCain and Sarah Palin in a poor light. The Katie Couric interview that skewered Palin is one example that conservatives point to that gives evidence to their claims.” McCain was extremely disappointed, feeling as if his campaign had been extinguished due to comments and reports made by television anchors and news journalists that sided with Barrack Obama and his campaign.
This example of democratic media bias could have a negative effect on the public’s opinion. Any type of media bias reflects negatively upon the citizen’s public opinion. Media bias can sway people because of the angle they display their reports on. They present them with the information they want to hear and see by overlooking the issues which miss leads many citizens.
The media reporting these stories in the light they want to show them in could cause the publics’ personal opinion to gradually fade away. With the persuasion, they present while covering news stories, they will begin to believe everything they hear and see as opposed to developing their own opinion about an issue or political matter. The defamation of McCain and praising of Obama lead to the people leaning toward the democratic party in the 2008 election.
Many reporters will lie and not give equal sides to the media. This is an issue I believe has to resolve.
In conclusion, through all of the research and obvious depictions from media, it is easy to see the weight that is put on expressing liberal views. A poll that was recently taken for media journalists found that “Of the 462 people surveyed, 17.63% called themselves “very liberal,” while 40.84% described themselves as “liberal. When you add it up, 58.47% admit to being left of center. Along with that, another 37.12% claim to be moderate. In fact, a mere 0.46% of financial journalists called themselves “very conservative,” while just 3.94% said they were “somewhat conservative.” That’s an unarguable 4.4% of the total percentage that leans right-of-center. That’s a ratio of 13 “liberals” for everyone “conservative.” This poll plainly exhibits that the mainstream media outlets of today are exceedingly biased to the liberal political views. As a result of this, there is no variation between political views, and they convey no exposure to all sides of the political spectrum.
Media bias is a contravention of professional standards by members of the fourth estate presenting in the form of favoritism of one section of society when it comes to the selection and reporting of events and stories as well as the extent of coverage (Beach 1). According to the code of conduct of the media, practitioners are expected to be neutral, impartial and factual.
Therefore, bias occurs when the journalist/reporter decides to give a twist that is unsubstantiated, with the aim of satisfying the demands of a particular individual. This essay seeks to analyze the impact of media bias in society. To this end, examples from modern day living shall be drawn and coupled with appropriate explanations to adequately evaluate the concept.
Methodology Statement
A mixed method of both qualitative and quantitative research shall be used to for this task. The research will be based on secondary data collection. According to Creswell (228), the mixed method is most ideal for research as it provides for exhaustive collection and analysis of information. Data will be extracted from various journals, articles and books.
The criteria of selection for the literature will be the relevance to the research topic as well as the year of publication. Both public and private libraries as well as online libraries will be visited in order to access the data. This research will be partly evidence based and partly founded on professional research by professionals in the field. Various articles will be studied in order to provide background information which will essentially give credibility to the final essay.
Information from literature will serve to provide explanation as regards to media bias. This will be very crucial information that will make the research report appeal to both professionals and the general public. For the latter, it may require that some of the information obtained from the books and other publications be broken down into simple language and at the same time illustrations drawn from the commonly applied systems of online identity.
Reasons for selecting the above methodology
Like with any other professional field of study, political theory studies have to be conducted in such a way that the offer credibility to the practitioner. In such a specialized field, the strength lies in substantiation and particularly the numbers obtained from real life scenarios to support collected evidence. With this knowledge in mind, effort will be made to obtain relevant information to the particular topic in question and this will be accompanied by proper citation.
For any professional study, chances are that extensive research has been carried out by professionals in the field before. Consequently, in order to establish the backbone of a given research project, it is only necessary that extensive review of literature be carried before identifying seeking firsthand information from the field.
The latter, i.e. information collected from the field is also necessary since it helps give professional credibility to the project. Combining results from both sources would serve to foster their symbiotic relationship with one offering background information and the other presenting up-to-date information on the topic.
Literature review
Some of the stakeholders whose influence leads to media bias include governments which can threaten to impose overt or covert censorship in order to attain a particular objective (Xiang 4). The owners of media houses can also impose their authority over the journalist in order to get them to report in a manner that favors their own interests.
Market forces also determine whether there will be a bias in reporting and coverage. Among these forces include, the demands and preferences of the target audience as well as the needs of advertisers (who are the main source of revenue for media houses).
Types of bias
There four primary forms of bias and these are briefly explained below:
Advertising bias- This is a very common type of bias and it mainly presents in the form of stories and news items being slanted or skewed towards the demands of advertising entities.
Corporate bias-In this type of bias, stories are presented in a manner that aims at pleasing the corporate shareholders of particular media houses. This is common in media companies that are privately owned and which seek to always maintain the names of their associates in good light, even when these individuals are involved in scandalous activities.
Mainstream bias- This bias presents in the form of cautious selection and reporting of stories. In this regard, practitioners focus on what all other media houses are covering in order to steer clear from controversy.
Sensationalism- This presents in the form of media stakeholders giving exceptional events a lot of coverage such that it appears that the event being covered is more common than is assumed.
Research process
The first step in conducting the research will come in the form of extensive review of literature from various secondary sources. Information on the topic of internal auditing and its integration processes will be collected from company records, journals, Magazines, conference proceedings and websites.
These procedural steps would make it easy to come up with a survey question which will guide us into the third step of the process. In this stage, an analysis of the data obtained shall be carried out and the facts identified to structure the paper.
Effects of media bias
The greatest and most commonly reported effect of media bias is on the political front, especially around election time (Knight and Chiang 1-39). It mainly presents in the form of one candidate seeking or buying favor from particular media houses such that the give him intense coverage while obscuring his opponents.
Consequently, the person with the most financial might ends up pitching his candidacy and manifestos in a manner that gives him undeserved advantage over his competition. The end-result of such slanting of coverage is that the public ends up voting for individuals who do not have their interests at heart.
Another effect of media bias is the creation of animosity amongst individuals of different cultural or ethnic groups (Streissguth 98). This is common in Africa and other countries of the third world and especially during national election campaigns.
In these countries, the politicians are always after gaining favor from the largest ethnic communities. As such they end up looking for ways of using the media to make them appear like they are doing their best to give members of these large communities the best of everything.
With this happening, persons from the smaller tribes that are overshadowed by the scramble for big votes feel discriminated and end up developing an unwarranted animosity towards members of the larger community. This was the case in Rwanda in 1994 where media personalities were used to push the agenda of politicians.
As a result, the Tutsi tribe was presented as the enemy of the bigger Hutu tribe. The situation turned into a massacre of the former by the latter and by the time the peace was restored over one million people had lost their lives. This is in consideration of the fact that all the damage was caused in less than three months.
The same happens when individuals from a particular race obtain their own media houses and seek to ensure that coverage is skewed in their favor (Beach 1). For instance, in cosmopolitan United States, if individuals of the Asian race create their own media house with its own television station, radio, magazine and newspaper, it may appear as if they are trying to isolate themselves from other races. As a result, individuals from the other racial origins may end up regarding them as enemies to societal unity and harmonious living.
Conclusion
This paper has assessed the element of media bias on society. It has been shown that greatest impact of the professional vice is presented in the political front where aspirants for political seats seek to gain advantage over opponents by using their financial might to buy media coverage.
Aside from this, the article has illustrated that media bias, especially when it leads to favoritism of certain ethnic and tribal groupings ends up generating animosity amongst individuals.
It is worth noting that this paper has without particular mention concluded that media bias cannot have positive effects. This is particularly because for any positivity to be attained, especially in the media, all the relevant stakeholders must be allowed involvement on an equal platform.
Works Cited
Beach, Justin. General effects of bias in the media. Ehow.com. 25 March 2011. Web.
Creswell, J. W. Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed method approaches. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2003. Print.
Knight, Brian G and Chun-Fang Chiang. “Media Bias and Influence: Evidence from Newspaper Endorsements”. NBER. Working Paper No. 14445. Web. Streissguth, Thomas. Media bias. Marshall Cavendish, 2006. Print.
Xiang, Yi. Media Bias, competition and efficiency. INSEAD. September 2005. Web.
Media refers to lopsided reporting rather than inaccuracy of presenting information. Media bias in favor of corporate groups is as a result of ownership. Media bias requires that both sides who claim bias be considered because most of the time if favored sides consider the media biased against them at some level. In the U.S. politics, it is considered that liberal journalists reduce their aggressiveness when handling conservative groups to avoid being labeled as biased.
However, the bias streams because they set double standards when a Democrat is being interviewed. The main cause of media bias apart from the influence of power is the profit-maximizing objective. Matters that are weird are considered unexpected, and exciting. A touchy visual impression is also considered as newsworthy. This makes the selection of topical issues, and photos to be biased towards cuteness.
Introduction
The media refer to whole groups of materials that used to pass information to the masses. They include printed material such as newspapers, and magazines. They also include electronic materials such as TV, film, radio, video, videogames and the Internet (Sanson et al. 7).
Media bias does not mean that the reporting is inaccurate or dishonest but preference to cover one side of a story. The main reason given by Groseclose & Milyo for not labelling media bias as dishonesty or inaccuracy is the fact that rarely do reporters make dishonest statements.
A better name would be ‘slanted’ in case of one-sided reports. Groseclose & Milyo point out a case where “a journalist chose facts or stories that only one side of the political spectrum is likely to mention” (para. 40). Mackay and Sloan discuss the case where media groups would not cover business stories unless they are about events such as “national strikes, layoffs, shortages, or rising prices” (218). All these events are bad news for businesses, and the consumer.
Background
Groseclose & Milyo emphasize the use of information from one side of a story, and reporting it as the only fact available. They give the statement issued by an editor in Los Angeles who said that a story did not need to happen all that was needed was “to get other people to make the same points and draw the same conclusions and then write the article in their words” (para. 3).
In this case the conclusions are made without real contest between opposing sides. Reporters may behave like the common people who seek proof that justifies their claim or information that supports their theories (35).
Media bias may be caused by the preference of a segment of the public. It is noted that the consumer may prefer a media outlet when it highlights information that conforms to their prior beliefs and practices. In this case, media bias is pushed by a profit motive to suit their customers. Chiang and Bright state that “readers believe that outlets have a credible news if the reports conform to their beliefs” (3). This form of bias is also found when handling religious issues.
Christian leaders themselves are fond of talking about a title known as ‘Christian failure narrative’ (Wright and Zozula 3). In this case, pastors seek attention through stories of failure. Wright and Zozula consider such stories to include “Christians acting immorally, not evangelizing, not loving their neighbors … or simply not living to their beliefs” (3).
The selection of parts to be covered in newsrooms depends on editors. Stocking and Gross agree with the finding that “news editors’ values and attitudes shape the selection of news” (13). When values and attitudes are used to select news coverage, objectivity is reduced to bias.
Mackay and Sloan review a statement by Perkins in which the media hardly reported a massive “24,000 documented acts of corporate law breaking in 1998 alone” (214). The main reason for the censure of this information by the media is because it had a connection with the working masses, and Unionists.
It is recognized that a big portion of media personalities mainly hold liberal ideologies. When people with the same ideologies discuss issues they seem to have an easy time in what Eveland and Shah call “safe discussion” (113).
The perception of media bias may come out when a journalist interviews a Republican candidate. They themselves are mostly considered to be liberal. In this case, the perceived media bias comes from the state of the mind of the viewer. Eveland and Shah point out that to “to assess news bias, one must have a standard of what unbiased should be” (106).
Individuals with concerns of media bias are most likely to categorize a news coverage as biased than those who never had prior thoughts on media bias. The environment where one stays may also have an impact on the perceived media bias. It is considered that views are not only obtained from news content but also “from the frequency of opinions heard in public discussion” (105). Eveland and Shah analyze that perceived media bias may be a result of interpersonal factors rather than the news itself.
Process of media bias
Categorization is a type of bias found on reporters that tends to instantly label events as the ones that are stored in their memory. It is easier for a reporter to quickly categorize a group outburst as a riot because picture matches the one stored in the memory (Stocking and Gross 20).
This kind of categorization is found in practice in cases such as the labeling of American military involvement outside its territories as “another Vietnam”. When this happens, the following analysis will try to find similar characteristics between such events such as costs incurred, and marine casualties.
Theory generation is another bias that is derived from categorization. Reporters select theories that support their categorization. When a theory has been developed, subsequent questions will be testing the accuracy of the generated theory.
The reporters are tempted to “select incoming information that is consistent with their theories” (Stocking and Gross 21). Part of the bias is generated by the reporters integrating and interpreting pieces of information. Journalists must also give semblances from their memory, compare and reconstruct past events.
Salience is a process in which a reporter can lay more emphasis on particular characteristics while ignoring others that have an impact on the debate at hand. Sometimes the important aspects are ignored for the sake of popular features (Stockings and Gross 48).
With reporters using more of less reliable sources, the public mostly remembers information obtained from unreliable sources. Stockings and Gross suggest that the reporters preference of unreliable sources may be a “function of people’s failure to see the relevance of base-rate data” (50). The preference comes from the fact that less reliable case sources have vivid descriptions compared to base-rate information.
Media bias in political alignment is cyclical. It is noted that the media bias was liberal in the early 1990s but shifted to favor conservatives after 2000. The entry of new media companies such as Fox News is considered to have provided the market with a shift in objectives towards profit-maximization (Gasper 11). Gasper mentions that the media favors different sides in different periods.
It is argued that journalists would seek to find bits of information that support their beliefs. Vallone, Ross and Lepper propose that a contested issue on the media would be inconclusive and increase polarization (577). This is because people would immediately endorse facts that support their side and dismiss those that are against their side.
Politics
Media bias in politics is practiced when a reporter treats one side of competing parties less aggressively as he/she would have treated another party. In the U.S., reporters are considered to belong a party themselves. Most of them are either moderate or liberal Democrats.
This makes most Republican presidential candidates to be treated less aggressively because the reporters avoid being branded the “enemy”. The case is different when a Democratic candidate is being interviewed or analyzed. The bias takes a different shape in that “the more he likes and agrees with the candidate personally, the harder he judges him professionally” (Groseclose & Milyo para. 14).
All news outlets had a strong liberal bias “except for Fox News’ Special Report and the Washington Times” (Groseclose & Milyo para. 5). New York Times and CBS Evening News showed a slight deviation from the average Democrat citing of think tanks. Fox News was considered full of conservatives while the New York Times was full of liberals. Both sides perceive the other as the one with the bias.
Economics
Media bias in economics takes a different perspective given by economic reports from government sources. An example mentioned by Groseclose & Milyo is the case where a report given by authorities indicates growth of GDP by a large margin. A newspaper instead chooses a headline that reads “GDP Growth Less than Expected” (para. 19). This contradicts the positive reception of the previous report from the public.
In another case that occurred in March 1, 2002, the New York Times reported the changes in the IRS that would increase the rates of taxes collected from salaried groups while reducing rates from those who earned above $100,000. It also reduced audits on those who earned above $100,000 and increased audits for those who relied on salaries.
They criticize the need to increase the frequency of audits for the working poor instead of those who earned above $100,000. Their reasoning was those who earned above $100,000 did not rely on payrolls and could easily shortchange the taxation authorities. Groseclose & Milyo discuss that the facts were accurate and true but major news outlets such as “ABC’s Good Morning America and CNN’s Newsnight failed to mention any of these facts” (para. 43).
Matters of justice
Media bias in reporting major cases that are undergoing in the courts may seem to portray one side as winning or losing long before the judgement is made. Stocking and Gross consider Ginny Foat’s case who once was the president of the California chapter of the National Organization for Women.
She accused reporters of selecting views that made her seem guilty (Stockings and Gross 43). Another case of media bias is noted about Birmingham News in 2004. The government had withdrawn 31 counts of malpractices that portrayed Richard M. Scrushy, former CEO of Healthsouth, as fraudulent, and added four counts. The media reported the additional 4 counts of fraud without mentioning the 31 counts that had been withdrawn (Mackay and Sloan 218).
Media bias against labor
The media is considered to report preferably the views of the corporate groups to laborers’ sentiments. Mackay and Sloan review the situation in which the General Motors is considered more influential in the media than the United Auto workers. The media would give a coverage that suits the interest of General Motors rather than the laborers in case of a workers’ strike. Mackay and Sloan distinguish the bias against labor into three categories.
These are “unfair media coverage, connection to corporate owned media, and lack of a labor beat” (219). Lack of a labor beat means there is barely a distinct section in the media that adequately covers labor issues. The pro-management bias is derived from the fact that most media outlets belong to the corporate class, and the editors do their best to reflect some of the values of the media owners.
Durante and Knight discuss the influence that Berlusconi has in the media in Italy. They are two categories of media ownership in the country. Some are privately owned, and others publicly owned. It is argued that media bias exists due to “Berlusconi’s influence over private television and the strong influence of the ruling coalition on public” (Durante and Knight 5). His influence on the public media side as Prime Minister, and on privately owned media because of ownership.
Media bias against environmental concerns
The media chooses topical issues according to the degree that they can capture viewers’ and listeners’ attention. For this reason, environmental matters are sidelined in news coverage. Mackay and Sloan mention that “environmental stories lack the human interest angle” (137).
They discuss the situation where a seal plague had resulted in a large number of seal deaths. British media invented the slogan “Save Our Seals” running for about a year. This is because seals give a preferred visual impression. Were the extinction of a species such as beetles then it could not receive much publicity. As Mackay and Sloan point out, the reason is that beetles lack the cuteness of seals (137). Visual impressions are used to market media products such as newspapers and programs.
The media personalities are considered to overlook the benefits of capitalism. Situations which involve “poisonous waste dumping by companies or nuclear plant accidents” fail to meet the broadcast requirements (Mackay and Sloan 138). Without enough coverage of environmental matters then environmental degradation will continue.
Chiang and Bright note that “newspaper slant is similar to the position that would be chosen by a profit-maximizing firm” (4). It is the responsibility of reporters to ensure that the public is well-informed about the choices they make that have an impact on the environment.
Media bias on military issues
The double standards are set in reporting cases that involve the American citizens suffering in instances such as hurricanes or terrorism. People suffering under America’s military operations a receive slanted coverage. A case of such coverage is seen in Iraq where the media coverage is mostly about soldiers dying while ignoring the necessary humanitarian services carried out by the American Marines.
This kind of reporting makes people to pressure on withdrawal of troops instead of supporting the operations carried out by the Americans in Iraq (Mackay and Sloan 161). According to Mackay and Sloan, the “media’s overall sense is that the war is a disaster” (166). Media bias in military operations is noted in the selection of photos that are used as to make news headlines. In the case for the U.S military operations in Somalia the photos lead to massive emotional outbursts leading to the withdrawal of American troops.
Religion
It is believed that the media portrays the Christian Community as either in crisis or failing to live according to the set standards. Wright and Zozula discuss that the media treat religion negatively because it considers “conservative religions as a threat to its liberal agenda” (2). According to a statistical research carried out by Pew Forum and Public Life in 2009, it found out that 35% of Americans concur that the media does not portray religion positively.
The media is seen as treating favorably mainstream religious groups while undermining upcoming religious groups. Journalists are biased against the media because of two reasons. Being less religious than the population makes journalists lack empathy or a clear understanding to interpret religious contexts. Another reason is that journalists “create news rather than objectively or neutrally reporting it” (Wright and Zozula 3).
They report issues that are unusual because of the excitement and attention that is raised by such topics. Wright and Zozula point out that by Christians condemning themselves, the media uses this as proof to portray them negatively (6). The motive is what creates a difference, Christians view self-incriminating as a confession while the journalists consider it as evidence.
Media Responsibility
Voters rely on the media to be informed about the contesting candidates in elections. Most voters do not have adequate information on all candidates. The challenge arising from relying on the media is that “such information may not be sufficiently objective” (Chiang and Bright 1).
People expect voters to be rational and filter out the biases that may be broadcast by the media. People may filter media bias when there is a low level of media credibility. The influence of the media bias is functional in swaying voters to a particular side if the bias is supported by many media outlets. According to Chiang and Bright, the influence increases depending on “the credibility of the endorsement and that endorsement from extremely biased newspapers have little or no influence” (2).
The function of the media is to keep the society informed on all matters that affect humanity. Wells discusses that the responsibility of the media “is to tell citizens what they need to know to function in their society” (385). Among this comes categories such as advertising with the intention to make society understand the benefits of a product or entertainment to keep the public merry. Media bias denies the public a chance to make rational choices.
Digital media and credibility
Flanagin and Metzger discuss that credibility measures how a piece of information is likely to be believed. This relies on two main properties of the source which are “trustworthiness and expertise” (8).
However, they note that physical attractiveness and charisma of the reporter may increase the likelihood to be believed. Credibility may increase if the source is a well known figure or media outlet. For example, if the Guardian Newspaper posts a piece of information on the website it may be easily believed than a source that is not on the mainstream media.
With the widespread use of information technology, it is perceived that the youth expects information instantly when needed. The sources are many such that it is difficult to know who posted the information on the internet. Flanagin and Megtzer argue that “information posted on the web may not be subject to filtering through professional gatekeepers” (13).
Recommendations
The preference of eye witnesses should be used in cases where the witness gives a vivid description of the events. Stocking and Gross discuss that people may “give weight to eye witness accounts when such accounts contain a lot of detail” (51). Psychologists compare the use of eye witnesses in courts to verify the truth as a practice to emulate.
Mackay and Sloan recommend the need to separate labor news from the general business news for it to receive a fair news coverage. Journalists should be objective when handling reports that involve laborers versus management (225).
There are cases where both sides agree on the presence of media bias but on different directions. A similar case is that of Israeli and Arabs about the Beirut massacre of 1982. Both sides believed there is media bias but each side thought it favored the other side. It is considered there are “sharp disagreement about the direction of the alleged bias” (Vallone, Ross and Lepper 578). This makes it necessary to weigh the complaints of both sides. In most cases, those who think they are favored by a coverage never report media bias.
Flanagin and Metzger recommend that the youth, being the main users of digital media, should be taught to test the credibility of digital media. This includes websites. This may be conducted by giving them a comparison of cases of bias. This is necessary because the youth are “increasingly self-directed, interactive with a network of peers, and reliant on group outreach and knowledge” (Flanagin and Metzger 20).
Sanson et al. recommend that ethnic and cultural groups be represented in mainstream media to avoid stereotyping and ridicule of certain groups (7). They recommend a shift from the current emphasis of exciting news to those that cover all aspects of socioeconomic factors. They also recommend that the public should complain about media bias especially in instances that affect psychology. To skip certain programs in protest for change.
Parents are supposed to control what their children view. They can review scenes portraying violence, and unhealthy advertising. Sanson et al. recommend that children should be trained in handling the media interactively as part of their school curriculum (6).
Conclusion
Most people have learnt to verify sources of information. They use their experiences and understanding to make decisions. Metgzer notes that “people’s evaluative strategies evolve with experience (19). Studies indicate that the youth do not put much weight on the credibility of information.
This makes it necessary to introduce media education in schools to make the youth develop skills to assess credibility of information. There is still a problem of separating media outlets from the influence of their owners. This is because mainstream media involve a lot of capital which can only come from the influential few. In spite of these factors, mainstream media is more credible than other small-sized media outlets.
Works Cited
Chiang, Chun F. and Brian Knight. Media Bias and Influence: Evidence from Newspaper Endorsements. Providence, Rhode Island: Brown University. 2008. Web.
Eveland, William P., and Dhavan Shah. “The Impact of Individual and Interpersonal Factors on Perceived News Media Bias.” Political Psychology. (2003) Vol. 24, No. 1. Web.
Flanagin, Andrew J. and Miriam J. Metzger. Digital Media and Youth: Unparalleled Opportunity and Unprecedented Responsibility. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2008. Web.
Groseclose, T., and Jeff M. A Measure of Media Bias, UCLA and University of Missouri, 2004. Web.
Mackay, Jenn B. and William D. Sloan. Media Bias: Finding It, Fixing It. North Carolina: McFarland & Company Publishers, 2007. Print.
Sanson, A., Julie D., Glen C., Judy U., Carl Scuderi, and Jeanna Sutton. Media Representations and Responsibilities: Psychological Perspectives. The Austarlian Psychological Society, 2000. Web.
Stocking, Holly S. and Paget H. Gross. How Do Journalist Think? A proposal for the Study of Cognitive Bias in Newsmaking, Bloomington: ERIC Clearinghouse on Reading and Communication Skills, 1989. Web.
Vallone, Robert P., Ross Lee, and Mark R. Lepper. “The Hostile Media Phenomenon: Biased Perception and Perceptions of Media Bias in Coverage of the Beirut Massacre.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. (1985): Vol. 49, No. 3, 577-585.
Wells, Allan. Mass media & Society. Greenwich: Ablex Publishing Corporation, 1997. Print.
Wright, Bradley R. E and Zozula Christina. “Bad News about the Good News. The construction of the Christian Failure Narrative.” University of Connecticut and University of Virginia: The Kripke Center, Journal of Religion & Society Vol 14, 2012.
The mass media is considered to be the Fourth Estate by the majority of people. By means of television and the Internet, world news is transmitted globally. However, modern media agencies are often accused of impartiality and even propaganda. I believe that several basic principles of journalism are widely violated. The main goal of this paper is to prove that the modern media is biased because it lacks transparency, independence, and objectivity.
Discussion
Media transparency is an ability to see inner processes of this system. This concept helps to describe the way media is perceived by its audience. It is one of the most powerful instruments that can influence a political or social environment. The way that different situations are interpreted by the government and general public is affected by media. Its participation might be the major factor that has an impact on the government’s decisions. I think that many mass media sources lose their credibility because they lack transparency. The information presented by such news providers is biased. Also, insufficient transparency allows many governments to interfere with the inner processes in media systems (Niederer 1). The way the information is demonstrated is now distorted to affect perceptions of audiences. Therefore, the credibility of many media agencies is diminished due to the lack of transparency.
Another important aspect is independence. To report impartially, news organizations should be absolutely independent. It is one of the most prominent principles of journalism (Harcup 89). The lack of independence affects the ability to describe existing problems in a proper manner. The main problem is that negative news involves organizations that make up audiences of media networks. The information presented by news agencies should be accurate, comprehensive, and true. Also, they have to present all views equally. However, powerful companies try to interfere with this process. Many journalists are fired because they refuse to obey their unfair requirements. Therefore, the concept of independence should be discussed on various levels.
Objectivity is another fundamental aspect of journalism. Objectivity implies the ability of reporters to cover controversial topic without letting their emotions and preconceptions influence reports (Harcup 89). One of the distinguishing characteristics of an objective story is a neutral language. Journalists should avoid assessing people’s personal characteristics. Even ordinary adjectives could show the reporter’s feelings towards the object of discussion. Fairness is the main component of objectivity. Nowadays, many professional journalists do not cover all sides of multisided problems (Niederer 175). Although objectivity should manifest itself in reports, this characteristic has to determine the journalist’s conduct as well. The purpose of any news media is to reveal real facts. However, its biased nature seriously hinders the search for the truth.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the mass media reaches a wide audience and influences people’s perceptions. Nowadays, it is a multinational industry that includes television, radio, the Internet, and press. As the general public depends on this complex system, it should provide them with fair information. However, there are many prejudices and much impartiality in professional media these days.
The mass media is the principal source of political information that has an impact on the citizens. This powerful tool with a significant influence on the perception of political parties can be helpful when expressing a public opinion on events in the political sphere. However, it can also become a tool for manipulating citizens’ preferences and views on the decisions of the government toward internal and external politics. This results in media bias created by journalists being not objective enough when describing recent events.
The Concept of Mass Media Bias
The concept of media bias refers to the disagreement about its impact on the citizens and objectivity of their choices. Nowadays, with the development of online technologies, it is much easier to access information. This fact has led to the appearance of citizen journalism, which means that even ordinary citizens present things from their point of view and thus have an impact on public opinion (Ardèvol-Abreu and Gil De Zúñiga, 2017). With an increase in news outlets and online sources, people start to distrust the media as not all of the authors are objective the way professional journalists have to be. It is hard to recognize whether the article is a reliable source of information or a biased point of view of a non-professional writer.
It is essential for journalists to be as objective as possible and put their opinion aside to provide unbiased material for non-partisan citizens. According to Ardèvol-Abreu et al. (2017), journalism is a political tool that “oversees the activities of public authorities on behalf of citizens” (p.3). To be successful mediators between the government and ordinary people, they need to remain professional in any situation. Nevertheless, with the development of alternative media sources, this task is becoming more complicated. The new opportunities allow the citizens to become more involved in the process of political information production and thus distort reality.
There is another perspective on the mass media bias and the reasons for it. In this model, not journalists, but politicians themselves are responsible for the distortion of political information. Partisans can use different psychological techniques that divert the attention of citizens from unfavorable evidence. Pursuing their interests, they create an image that is beneficial for them. This situation becomes worse due to the appearance of numerous online sources that are difficult to control.
Both unintentional and intentional media bias represents three main types. According to Sterin and Winston (2018), the first type is a partisan bias, which means that a news outlet exclusively serves a particular political party. The second type is propaganda bias, which intentionally represents some materials against some political parties. The third type, unwitting bias, implies that a reporter has a right to choose which part of the information he would represent due to the limitation of pages or time.
The mass media outlets have a significant impact on political outcomes. The media bias can lead to severe consequences. Luo (2017) claims that “collective bias may result in a collective failure” as the essential political decisions depend on non-partisan individuals (p.78). The more people believe the distorted information on political issues, the more wrong choices they make. Thus, the strategies of newspapers have a significant impact on the government’s policy in general.
Scholars regularly conduct surveys to show trends of decreasing trust of Americans in mass media. According to the Gallup and Knight Foundation’s 2017 survey on trust, media, and democracy, this figure keeps declining. They estimated that 62% of all the news on TV and in newspapers is biased. Americans tend to believe in the inaccuracy of news reports, and more than eight in ten adults get angry with this information (Sales da Costa Melo, Balby Marinho, and Alonso Veloso, 2019, p.5). Thus, the trend of distrust in mass media in the United States continues.
Media Bias toward Liberal and Conservative Values
In the case of conservative media bias, citizens tend to criticize news outlets for serving the interests of politicians and not providing a clear picture of current political situations. Media sources do not contribute to public enlightenment but only express the interests of partisans (Lichter, 2017). The misinformation from the government leads to the biased choice of citizens and threatens democracy. Thus, the manipulations of politicians control the society and promote their interests.
Liberal bias derives from the “personal liberalism of journalists” (Lichter, 2017, p. 407). They have an opportunity to intervene in the political process when providing the wrong information. Some reporters tend to impose their values instead of representing solid facts, mislead the citizens, and influence their decisions. According to scholars, this type of media bias is less common than the conservative one (Lichter, 2017). The coverage of political news or election campaigns equally represents both parties.
Examples of Media Bias and their Impact on Public Opinion
One of the latest examples of media bias in politics is the CNN report on Trump supporters (Fox News, 2020). Don Lemon, a TV journalist, laughed at the Republican strategist Rick Wilson and the New York Times writer Wajahat Ali who mocked the supporters of Donald Trump. He accused them of being utterly illiterate in all the areas. The unnatural behavior of a speaker and his emotional reaction makes the listeners pay attention to his words. His observation that the President’s supporters are not smart makes it more convincing for non-partisans as he is not an independent journalist, but a CNN representative.
Another example is the criticism of Melania Trump by The Washington Post (Fox News, 2018). After the release of the video with Christmas decorations, the article criticizing the first lady’s outfit appeared in the newspaper. Ms. Givhan, a fashion editor, commented on her ridiculous coat, which was distracting from the decorations. She did not stop on this and moves on to the criticism of the previous first ladies’ jackets. And, finally, she added than in contract to Michelle Obama, Melania has never been on the cover of such fashion magazines like Vogue. This type of media bias is not about the first lady herself but about Donald Trump, who the newspaper does not support. This way, the newspaper expresses hatred towards the president.
Conclusion
Mass media is the most vital means of political communication for American citizens. The fastest way to receive the original news content is by watching TV or reading newspapers. That is why the information containing in these reports need to be accurate and complete. The results of surveys conducted by scholars show the constant decrease of trust among American citizens. The government should work on reducing the media bias for the people to make the right decisions.
References
Ardèvol-Abreu, A., & Gil De Zúñiga, H. (2017). Effects of editorial media bias perception and media trust on the use of traditional, citizen, and social media news. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 94(3), 703-724.
Luo, X. (2017). Collective mass media bias, social media, and non-partisans. Economics Letters, 156, 78-81.
Sterin, J., & Winston, T. (2018). Mass Media Revolution. New York: Routledge.
Sales da Costa Melo, A., Balby Marinho, L., & Alonso Veloso, A. (2019). Media Bias Characterization in Brazilian Presidential Elections. In Proceedings of the 5th International Workshop on Social Media World Sensors (pp. 5-6).
S. Robert Lichter (2017). Theories of Media Bias. The Oxford Handbook of Political Communication, 403-416. United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.
Most people believe the present millennium is only getting worse than previous millennia. With the constant bombardment of saddening news such as xenophobia, deskilling, recessions, structural unemployment, dictatorship, social unrest, and terrorism, fewer individuals see the progress happening worldwide. A survey done in the US and Sweden shows that only 6% and 10% of respondents thought the world was improving (Denning, 2017). When analyzing the significant facets that determine human well-being, that is, in education, freedom, health, literacy, and poverty, the world is becoming more just and more respectful of human liberties.
Tremendous progress has been achieved in decreasing abject poverty in the past 50 years. Some nations which are currently wealthy were impoverished some decades back. Only a fortunate minority were not languishing in terrible poverty two centuries ago. Despite all of the industrialization’s flaws, rising productivity enabled a steady increase in the number of people lifted out of abject poverty. Initially, improvement was gradual: 75% of the world’s population was surviving in absolute poverty around 1950 (Denning, 2017). However, individuals living in absolute poverty currently account for fewer than 10% of the population (Denning, 2017). This is a remarkable feat, especially given that the world’s population has surged seven times in the past 200 years. Enough food, finer clothing, decent housing, and indoor plumbing became available.
Health progress is also astounding. Over 40% of the world’s infants perished before the turn of five years in 1800 (Denning, 2017). Only a small percentage of children today pass away before the five-year age. Contemporary medicine, notably germs discovery aided, but changes in housing, hygiene, and food were much more essential.
Political liberty has also advanced. Given the rise of populist politicians and autocrats throughout the globe, it is tempting to overlook the progress in creating civil liberties and political freedoms, which are both a way to and a culmination to development. Liberty is notably difficult to quantify, and a democracy index is considered the least challenging indicator that gives a long-term view of liberty. Practically everybody in the nineteenth century existed in authoritarian controlled states. More than half of the countries in the world are democratic.
All of these achievements were made possible by advances in education and knowledge, as education is improving worldwide (Ferguson, 1988). With the worldwide fertility dropping, experts estimate the number of infants will fall over time – never will there be more infants on the globe than in this era. The world population is anticipated to climax in 2070 and then drop (Denning, 2017). This prognosis is quite optimistic, given the critical role of education in enhancing healthcare, expanding political liberties, and eradicating poverty.
It is strange that in a society where education and knowledge are significantly advancing, there is pervasive dismal ignorance regarding the world’s improving situation (Ferguson, 1988). Part of the fault falls on the media. The media does not inform its audiences about how society is evolving; rather, it informs people about where the globe is doing poorly. It tends to fixate on specific events, especially those that have gone wrong. On the other hand, improvements occur gradually, with no one event to highlight in the news. Consequently, most individuals are unaware of how the situation of society has changed.
Unfortunately, the media does not adequately inform its audiences about how the world is gradually improving. This lack of awareness can be attributed to the media’s fixation on negative events rather than the slow and steady improvements made over time. Education, healthcare, political liberties, and poverty standards are progressing, yet many individuals remain ignorant of the world’s overall advancement due to the media’s focus on negativity.
