Literature

Literature Review on Media Bias

Name: Alecia Lane-Johnson

Institution Affiliation: University of Maryland College

Literature Review on Media Bias

Studies on media bias started back in the 1970s, and most of them show time and time again that America’s mainstream media professionals are left-oriented and Democrat. New data from America University counters this common conclusion and shows that the Sunday Shows on mainstream media feature more conservative members than liberalists. The question now is: are times changing media bias?

Groseclose and Milyo (2005) evaluate media bias by finding out the frequency with which a media outlet cites certain political groups or uses particular words and phrases. They compare it with the number of times that members of Congress on either the liberal or conservatives sides cite the groups or use the phrases. Economists, Gentzkow and Shapiro (2006) used similar criteria, taking famous Republic and Democratic phrases applied in Congress to establish which side newspapers lean on. Another way of quantifying media bias is to find out how many professionals in the media industry lean towards one area in ethical, social or political issues (Chiang & Knight, 2011). Other researchers include statistics on the voting arena and the media’s ideological leanings or political affiliations.

Recent studies done on all these spectrums use 20 major media outlets, and their results show that 18 of them score towards the left. However, researchers discover that these leanings are not intentional or an outright misguiding of the audience (Chiang & Knight, 2011). It is simply the way that reporters omit information, so they do not contradict the political narrative that they want to advance. Groseclose and Milyo (2005) are of the opinion that “for every single sin of commission, there are hundreds or even thousands of omission sins. These sins of omission arise from cases where journalists choose stories or facts covering the side that only one political spectrum will likely mention.”

Goldberg (2014) a media expert, defends that journalists “do not sit in dark corners, planning how they will slant the news. They do not have to since it comes naturally to a large number of reporters.” He goes further to say that most news people pursue journalism believing they can use it to transform the world, making it better. The statement echoes the belief by Farnsworth and Lichter (2010) that journalists “see themselves as the community’s designated saviors, and they continually strive to compel public action or awaken national conscience.

America’s Media Research Center showed an exhibit of three polls carried out in 2013 to feature people's perspective on media bias. Most Republicans described the media as “too liberal”. Democrats had a divide on the matter, with 36% stating that the media is liberal, and 37% saying the media is conservative. However, media bias being left sided was the opinion for such a long time. It is possible that the scales are shifting, but individuals are too caught up in the past to notice. Another post by the Center shows a collection of Journalist comments on media bias. Most believe that forces are centered since there are both liberal and conservative voices in media houses. Others are certain the bias shifts more to the right than to the left.

In his book Thinking Fast and Slow, psychologist Kahneman explains the two systems that drive our thinking process. The first system is emotional, fast and intuitive while the second is logical, deliberative and slow. He reveals how effortless it is for a person to deviate from rationality, and gives this as the main reason bias is difficult for an individual to see. We can use Kahneman’s theory that human reasoning is ‘flawed’ to look at media bias. System 1 draws a quick rough sketch of reality and relays this information for System 2 to arrive at a reasoned decision. However, it is not constantly so, because System 2 is tremendously lazy, so it often defers decisions to System 1. System 2 is always so satisfied to accept the simple but unreliable story of the world that System 1 feeds it.

With this understanding, we can be right to concur with Goldberg (2014) that since media professionals wants to change the world; they believe that their ideas are right. They will, therefore, unconsciously favor their standards as they work. Where this is the case, it could be that there are simply more liberal journalists than there are conservatives. If this changes, media bias will shift.

Chiang, C. F., & Knight, B. (2011). Media Bias and Influence: Evidence from Newspaper Endorsements. The Review of Economic Studies, rdq037.

Farnsworth, S. J., & Lichter, R. S. (2010). The Nightly News Nightmare: Media Coverage of US Presidential Elections, 1988-2008. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

Goldberg, B. (2014). Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News. Regnery Publishing.

Gentzkow, M., & Shapiro, J. M. (2006). What Drives Media Slant? Evidence from US daily newspapers (No. w12707). National Bureau of Economic Research.

Groseclose, T., & Milyo, J. (2005). A Measure of Media Bias. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1191-1237.

Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, Fast and Slow. Macmillan.