Media bias is the bias of journalists and news producers within the mass media in the selection of events and stories that are reported and how they are covered. Political bias may be impossible to

MEDIA BIAS

Media bias is the bias of journalists and news producers within the mass media in the selection of events and stories that are reported and how they are covered. Political bias may be impossible to avoid in today's style of fast-paced 24-hour news coverage. News programs today are apparently designed to retain the attention of hyperactive and impatient viewers — people with dozens of other channels from which to choose.

On a normal day, almost every story is told in less than two minutes. This results in a great loss of detail, and that's where the TV reporter's personal bias comes into play: he or she decides what parts of a story to include or omit.

Types of bias

The most commonly discussed forms of bias occur when the media support or attack a particular political party, candidate, or ideology, but other common forms of bias include:Advertising bias, when stories are selected or slanted to please advertisers.Corporate bias, when stories are selected or slanted to please corporate owners of media.Mainstream bias, a tendency to report what everyone else is reporting, and to avoid stories that will offend anyone.Sensationalism, bias in favor of the exceptional over the ordinary, giving the impression that rare events, such as airplane crashes, are more common than common events, such as automobile crashes.

BIAS:

People read articles everyday, but they do not recognize that bias is being used to alternate their opinion. Readers are easily blinded by bias within print media because journalists are very good with blending the bias into their articles. Although bias is detectable, some types of bias are well disguised and hard to point out. Print media uses certain types of bias that can persuade a person into reading the article that may not concern them. There are many types of bias that are used in print media health issue articles. Print media shows bias through statistics and crowd counts, word choice and tone, and omission.

Journalists tend to use bias through statistics and crowd counts to influence the reader’s believability. Eg.:On September 27, 1999 an article in Maclean’s called ” Dangerous product,” is showing crowd count by saying ” 400,000 Florida smokers.”. The journalist did not tell the reader the population of Florida.

Word choice and tone is another form of bias used in print media. The choice of words can change a person’s opinion about the article. The words and the tone used can make a person agree or disagree with the opinion of the journalist.

One of the major types of bias used in print media is omission. By omitting certain facts the article may seem more credible and more extreme. Writers limit and decide what the reader should know about a product either the good or the bad of it. By omitting certain facts such as age, gender, location or race of the people an article can seem much different. Bias through omission is used by journalists to focus their article in one direction.

The following information is excerpted and adapted from How to Identify Liberal Media Bias by Brent H. Baker, Vice President for Research and Publications at MediaResearchCenter.org. Bias by selection of sources – including more sources that support one view over another. This bias can also be seen when a reporter uses such phrases as “experts believe”, “observers say,” or “most people believe”. Not all stories will include experts, but in those that do, make sure about an equal number of conservatives and liberals are quoted. If a story quotes non-experts, such as those portrayed as average citizens, check to be sure that about an equal number come from both sides of the issue in question.

Bias by story selection – a pattern of highlighting news stories that coincide with the agenda of the Left while ignoring stories that coincide with the agenda of the Right; To identify bias by story selection you’ll need to know the conservative and liberal sides of the issue.

Bias by placement – Story placement is a measure of how important the editor considers the story. Bias by placement is where in the paper or in an article a story or event is printed. To locate examples of bias by placement, observe where a newspaper places political stories. Or whenever you read a story, see how far into the story the conservative viewpoint first appears. In a fair and balanced story, the reporter would quote or summarize the liberal and conservative view at about the same place in the story.

Bias by labeling. Bias by labeling is present when the story labels the conservative, but not the liberal; when the story uses more extreme sounding labels for the conservative than the liberal (“ultra-conservative”, “far right”, but just “liberal” instead of “far left” and “ultra-liberal”); and when the story misleadingly identifies a liberal official or group as an expert or independent watchdog organization.

Bias by spin – Bias by spin occurs when the story has only one interpretation of an event or policy, to the exclusion of the other; spin involves tone – it’s a reporter’s subjective comments about objective facts; makes one side’s ideological perspective look better than another

Role of language

The choice of language of mass media may represent a bias towards the group most likely to speak that language, and can limit the public participation by those who do not speak the language. On the other hand, there have also been attempts to use a common-language mass media to reach out to a large, geographically dispersed population, such as in the use of Arabic language by news channel Al Jazeera. Language may also be a more subtle form of bias. Use of a word with positive or negative connotations rather than a more neutral synonym can form a biased picture in the audience's mind. It makes a difference whether the media calls a group "terrorists" or "freedom fighters".

Tools for measuring and evaluating media bias

Richard Alan Nelson's (2004) study cited above on Tracking Propaganda to the Source: Tools for Analyzing Media Bias ^[28] reports there are at least 12 methods used to analyze the existence of and quantify bias:

1. Surveys of the political/cultural attitudes of journalists, particularly members of the media elite, and of journalism students.

2. Studies of journalists' previous professional connections.

3. Collections of quotations in which prominent journalists reveal their beliefs about politics and/or the proper role of their profession.

4. Computer word-use and topic analysis searches to determine content and labeling.

5. Studies of policies recommended in news stories.

6. Comparisons of the agenda of the news and entertainment media with agendas of political candidates or other activists.

7. Positive/negative coverage analysis.

8. Reviews of the personal demographics of media decision makers.

9. Comparisons of advertising sources/content which influence information/entertainment content.

10. Analyses of the extent of government propaganda and public relations (PR) industry impact on media.

11. Studies of the use of experts and spokespersons etc. by media vs. those not selected to determine the interest groups and ideologies represented vs. those excluded.

12. Research into payments of journalists by corporations and trade associations to speak before their groups and the impact that may have on.

National and ethnic viewpoint

Many news organizations reflect or are perceived to reflect in some way the viewpoint of the geographic, ethnic, and national population that they primarily serve. Media within countries are sometimes seen as being sycophantic or unquestioning about the country's government.

Anglophone bias in the world media

the news agencies, and the main buyers of news are Anglophone corporations and this gives an Anglophone bias to the selection and depiction of events. Anglophone definitions of what constitutes news are paramount; the news provided originates in Anglophone capitals and responds first to their own rich domestic markets. Most news printed and broadcast throughout the world each day comes from only a few major agencies, the three largest of which are the Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.

Religious bias

Media bias towards religion is most obvious in countries where the media are controlled by the state, which is in turn dominated by a particular religion. In these instances, bias against other faiths can be explicit and virulent.

But even in countries with freedom of religion and a free press, the dominant religion exerts some amount of influence on the media. But the opposite may also occur, with media self-consciously avoiding reporting on any religious matters at all in order to avoid the appearance of favoring one faith over another, or presenting religious faith and phenomenon in a negative light.

Other influences: see http://dictionary.sensagent.com/media+bias/en-en/

E-recources:

http://www.studentnewsdaily.com/types-of-media-bias/

http://dictionary.sensagent.com/media+bias/en-en/

Specific examples of biased news coverage

http://www.akdart.com/media.html

Дата добавления: 2015-11-04