Media Bias Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Media bias is a tendency, subtle or overt, to advantage or overexpose one perspective (or selected person or point of view) when reporting any event, issue or debate, and/or to neglect the other side. Media biases exist as well whenever journalists provide misguiding or incomplete coverage that can lead viewers or readers to a distorted conclusion, such as introducing some common clichés into evocative formulations that can automatically lead to a predictable conclusion.

In most western societies, the principle of objectivity in journalism implies providing a diversity of viewpoints, mixed sources of information, and a variety of perspectives to give a balanced view on current news, ongoing issues, election campaigns, and history. This postulate, frequently heard in democratic states, possibly finds its idealized origins in the agora of Ancient Greece, where free citizens could debate and be exposed to viewpoints other than their own. On the opposite side, media in totalitarian regimes (often under governmental control) tend to generate only one perspective or present the opposing views as without merit.

Media bias occurs whenever a medium tends to unfairly advantage one side of any topic, issue, or debate, either by offering unbalanced exposure or by retaining only the more positive comments from “neutral” experts or commentators. Apart from letters to the editor, editorials, some sport commentary, and some columns where writers may (and should) express their own views and opinions, general news coverage is expected to be neutral, so the audience can decide which perspective to adopt or reject.

Media Theories

Like public opinion, the phenomenon of media bias is studied by sociologists, political scientists, strategists, political marketers, historians, and media experts. In their classic German Ideology (1846), political theorists Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels demonstrated that the thoughts and beliefs of the dominating class were imposed on the whole society through the dominant class’s control over the production and distribution of news media. In this scheme, the perspective of the dominants was presented as representing the common good and therefore was proposed to become the ideology shared by a majority.

However, some non-Marxian observers argued that the media and journalists were often independent and free and therefore unlinked with the state. French philosopher Louis Althusser responded to this objection in his famous 1970 article “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses” by demonstrating that even within the independent media, the elites who controlled the main media belonged to the same upper class as the rulers of the state. Thus, both elites (the rulers of the state and the media) had the same values, beliefs, and worldview; this dynamic was coined the “ideological state apparatus.” Pursuing his critique of the Western world, Althusser believed that although educators do not belong to the ruling class, they also contributed in an unconscious way to reproduce the same dominant scheme. Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman adopted similar arguments in their 1988 book Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass. As adherents of the “Frankfurt school” and continuing in the tradition of Marx and Engels, German theoreticians Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno studied the propaganda and media bias that occurred during World War II (1939–1945). Using a neoMarxist approach while working in Chile during the 1970s, scholars Ariel Dorfman and Armand Mattelart have demonstrated in their research “How to Read Donald Duck” that the local Chilean newspapers carried a procapitalist ideology, even in the daily Disney comic strips.

French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu wrote many books about media bias, criticizing the dominating position of speakers on television shows who control questions, time limits dedicated to each guests’ answers, and even who is invited to the show. Incidentally, political leaders can use a comparable selection process during press conferences. In his 1987 book Distinction, Bourdieu demonstrated that average readers of any newspaper were more or less buying a collection of opinions that corresponded to their own opinions and position in society; for instance, a liberal thinker would likely select a left-wing daily, while a right-wing citizen would read a rightwing newspaper. In France, some respected newspapers have a political trend that their journalists clearly acknowledge: Le Figaro is more right wing and Libération is left wing, while Humanité is linked with the French Communists. The monthly Le Monde Diplomatique is obsessively anti-American.

In The News Shapers: The Sources Who Explain the News (1992), American scholar Lawrence Soley states that if journalists in search of objectivity always use the same reliable sources, they will reproduce the status quo; however, varying the sources of information used in reporting will bring a healthy critique of the legitimized institutions in any society.

New Media And The Internet

Although alternative media are less cohesive and grounded than other media, they can sometimes be a source of diverging opinions, contestations, and debates. With the Internet, citizens have more access to diversified points of view, but blogs can sometimes contain unreliable information or misinformation. By definition, blogs are not made to be neutral or comprehensive: Some writers of blogs are in reality partisans disguised as journalists.

Understanding Media Bias

An easy way to observe media bias would be to observe occurrences of anti-Americanism in foreign newspapers and television. Analysts can study whether the bias is generalized or targeted only to specific issues, themes, people, or nations. A recurrent “anti” trend is common to biased media; an example is anti-Zionism in many Arab media. Elsewhere, Canadians often feel the U.S. Fox television network is recurrently satirical toward Canada.

In rare occasions, media bias can exist simultaneously in many media that do not belong to the same group: In his 2002 work, The Black Book of English Canada, Canadian journalist Normand Lester provided a critique of the current and sometimes not so subtle Quebec-bashing (toward French Canadian communities) frequently appearing in many English Canadian newspapers, showing that journalists can sometimes be aware of an ongoing bias within their own profession.

Media Bias In Science

The media coverage of issues related to bioethics, science, and technologies can sometimes become debated and biased. Because most journalists are not experts or scientists themselves, they frequently rely on experts’ opinions, although scientists do not always agree one with another and usually work with hypotheses rather than theories. Therefore, facts, data, and diverging opinions of scientists are often summarized and transformed into stories during the reporting. Another risk of media bias occurs whenever journalists consult and rely on the same experts for any given issue: a familiar activist for environmental issues, a retired politician for current affairs, and so forth.

Degrees are not essential for being recognized as an expert; when using strategy and rhetoric, celebrities and some politicians can adopt a cause related to science and the environment, even if the issue appears to be in the middle of a larger debate among scientists and within civil society. For instance, millions of viewers watched former vice president Al Gore in his 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth, in which he disqualified his opponents by labeling them as “so-called skeptics” questioning the scientific “truth,” ending the debate between two divergent perspectives related to climate change.

In partisan politics and especially during election campaigns, it becomes difficult to give appropriate measure to minor events or out-of-context reflections made by candidates, as the media can amplify an anecdote to bigger proportions. The over dramatization of casualties, excessive negativity, and transformation of single, isolated events into scandals are also forms (or symptoms) of media bias, especially during periods of slow news.

Bibliography:

Althusser, Louis. “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatus (Notes toward an Investigation).” In Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays, by Louis Althusser, translated by Ben Brewter, 121–176. London: New Left Books, 1971.
Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987.
On Television and Journalism. London: Pluto Press, 1998.
Dorfman, Ariel, and Armand Mattelart. How to Read Donald Duck: Imperialist Ideology in the Disney Comic. New York: International General, 1975.
Gore, Al, Jr. An Inconvenient Truth. Directed by Davis Guggenheim. Hollywood, Calif.: Paramount Classics, 2006.
Hammond, Andrew. What the Arabs Think of America. Oxford: Greenwood World, 2007.
Herman, Edward S., and Noam Chomsky. Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. New York: Pantheon, 1988.
Lester, Normand. The Black Book of English Canada. Translated by Ray Conlogue.Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 2002.
Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. German Ideology. 1846.
London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1938.
Soley, Lawrence C. The News Shapers:The Sources Who Explain the News. New York: Praeger, 1992.
Watkins, Peter, dir. The Journey. San Francisco: Canyon Cinema, 1986.

This example Media Bias Essay is published for educational and informational purposes only. If you need a custom essay or research paper on this topic please use our writing services. EssayEmpire.com offers reliable custom essay writing services that can help you to receive high grades and impress your professors with the quality of each essay or research paper you hand in.