Print media provides its readers with information, but what the reader very often does not recognize is the bias within the articles. Bias is not so easily recognized. Writers have the gift to blend the bias in with their work. It is so well done, that in order to see the bias, one must thoroughly analyze the article. A person must also know what the types of bias are and how they are used. There are many different types of bias that are used in health related articles such as statistics and crowd counts, word choice and tone, and through omission. Print media demonstrates these types of bias in many articles.
One method of bias being used is print media is through statistics and crowd counts. A writer can manipulate the reader into thinking that the results are very high or very low in some cases. In The Toronto Star on October 23, 1999, the article “ Pregnancy biggest threat to women, V.N. says” uses statistics to give an estimation, “ an estimated 585,000 women do every year”. This article explains how pregnancy affects many women. By using this statistic, it gives the reader an approximation, but not an exact number. This is used to make the reader think that the statistic is very high. Another article in The Toronto Star, “Tamil health crisis probed”, on October 29, 1999,demostrates bias by saying, “ At least 70,000 people”. The article is talking about the Tamil community and how 70,000 people have been affected, but it does not give the amount of people in that community. This type of bias is often used in print media to make an article more important than it is.
Bias through word choice and tone is often used in print media sources. By choosing specific words, the writer can easily influence the reader’s opinion about the article. Certain words give the reader a different meaning. In an article, “Health care to receive $3.8 billion injection”, in The Toronto Star, on October 22, 1999, the Governor, Hilary Weston, is reading a passage from a “throne speech” given by the government to introduce a Patient’s Bill of Rights. By using the word, throne, the writer suggests that the speech given is very important. During this speech, there is a “caucus chuckle” from a Liberal at the meeting. The writer uses caucus to indicate that it is more than a normal chuckle during an important speech.
Bias is everywhere in the mainstream media whether it is political, celebrity, or worldwide news. Bias can misinform the public and most of the time leaves the whole story to suit their belief. Bias is when someone is presenting information or talking about a topic but being unfair and not showing the whole side of the story. Media keeps certain information to themselves to not make their belief seem bad but as a good thing. In everyday media there is some form of bias that can be small or big depending on the topic. Of course in today's society it seems that bias is okay and acceptable in the media. However people doing their job are bias and present the information to their beliefs. The public thinks they are getting the truth but media is
Let’s start by taking a look at the bias side of electronic media. Take for instance the difference between Fox News and CBS. Both are news stations, both are intended to bring us the news, yet the way in which each station presents its stories to their viewers could not be more different. Few would argue the fact that Fox news appeals to the conservative audience while a station such as CBS would tend to be more liberal. This creates bias. To illustrate my point, let us take a look at how these 2 news stations covered the very same story in completely different ways.
All pieces of information, unless hard fact, are biased. Bias may arise intentionally or not, but either way it is imperative that readers, watchers, and listeners are aware when they come in contact with media bias. Although it is unrealistic for the media to be completely objective in every issue they cover, media bias is a prevalent issue in the world today, and will continue on unless consumers of the media become truly educated about the world and its events. This is demonstrated in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, as all forms of media are controlled by the World State, in favor of the World State and the culture they have created.
The two key terms “agenda setting” and “gotcha” journalism are going to be used within this paper to show you how politicians and news organizations try to persuade the public. The “agenda setting” is a term that “involves using the news to influence what the public regards as important for them to think about in society and politics.” (Bennett, Lance pg. 23) This is a major tool for news organizations or politicians to seek a public relation toward a certain aspect that they’re addressing their agenda and framing it to formulate their partisan viewpoints. Now for “gotcha” jour...
the conclusion that bias plays a major role in the validity and credibility of documents and personal
Ever since the beginning of news, there have been minor alterations to the reports. Doing anything to get their ratings to increase, changes would have to be made, whether it’s simply bending the truth a little or labeling someone or something. In Michael Parenti’s “Methods of Misrepresentation”, Parenti uses his methods of political bias in the news. The news main goal is to grab our attention, no matter what effects it has on the viewers. This is how some mainstream reporters are politically and media biased. “Media plays an extensive role in an individual’s daily life. Right from the second you wake up till you go to bed after saying goodnight to your wife, kid, parents, siblings or friends, you are surrounded in a world built just for you by the media.” (Shafi). The News isn’t the only one influencing the world; no one really notices this but Advertisements play an important role in Media Brainwashing.
Same sex marriage has been a controversial issue since homosexual couples started to petition for their civil and marital rights. Even though homosexuality existed long before our society labeled it, it is still not socially accepted by many groups as well as individuals. As a result, people tend to be biased when reporting facts concerning homosexual marriage. Biases can be hidden in many literature works like books, journals, magazines, and articles. Through these documents writers try to provoke an emotional response from their readers in order to influence their view of a usually highly debated matter. An example of this would be three articles through which the rhetors dissimilarly influence the opinion of their audience by omitting or emphasizing certain facts about the legalization of gay marriage in New York State.
The film used outside sources like journalists and politicians to give statistics. This appeal to logic doesn’t help me accredit them because they use opinions to state an argument instead of data. When these self-proclaimed ‘experts’ are less than qualified with their professional experiences, they can pretty much say anything that they want, and we will believe them because they’re professionals and we trust that they are experts, when they don’t have a clue. Therefore, I believe that these professionals pick and choose what they can and cannot speak about. It would help if they were honest and clearer about their experience. The consequence of not being clear about their qualifications and standpoints is that the public mostly cannot know who is speaking sense and who is speaking gibberish. With such a dilemma in the United States we need people who are trustworthy; professionals that have the clinical experience and people who show that they’ve done their research, people who are
For an example of the authors use of specific examples while describing what the media decides as news worthy the author writes, “The public rarely hears about the routine ceremonies at state dinners, but when President George Bush threw up all over the Japanese prime minister in 1992, the world’s media jumped on the story” (Edwards, Wattenberg, Lineberry, 2015, p. 398). This is an indication of how the media decides what is newsworthy. This quote demonstrates some of the strengths of the article because, not only does the quote support how the media decides what is news worthy, but it also shows no bias and is a factual, specific example. Another quote that demonstrates the strengths of the article is “Journalists and politicians have a symbiotic relationship, with politicians relying on journalists to get their message out and journalists relying on politicians to keep them in the know”. (p.400). this quote demonstrates the strengths of the article because, it shows how the media gets its news, how politicians gains their influence, and shows no bias. One last quote that emphasizes the strengths of this excerpt is “The media can even have a dramatic effect on how the public evaluates specific events by emphasizing one event over others. When during a 1976 presidential debate, President Ford incorrectly stated that the Soviet Union did
“The old argument that the networks and other ‘media elites’ have a liberal bias is so blatantly true that it’s hardly worth discussing anymore…No we don’t sit around in dark corners and plan strategies on how we’re going to slant the news. We don’t have to. It comes naturally to most reporters.” (Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News) This example is tremendously important in the author’s discussion because it proves that news stories do manipulate people through bias. Popular news networks are viewed by thousands of people every single day, thus making it have a huge impact on the public since they believe what they see. When news reporters present their news segments, it is natural for them to give their insights due to human nature being instinctively biased. “The news media is [sic] only objective if they report something you agree with… Then they’re objective. Otherwise they’re biased if you don’t agree, you know.” (CNN’s American Morning) In this quote, the readers are presented to current panelists agreeing that news consumers have a very hard time separating their own view of the news from the perspective of the news reporters because they are presenting their own opinions throughout their segments. This problem exists once again because of the bias that is contained in media
An example of this is,”The question was even looser in 1998 and 2002, when the General Social Survey found that roughly seventy percent of americans had read a novel,a short story ,a poem, or a play in the preceding twelve months. And, this August, seventy-three percent of respondents to another poll said they had read a book of some kind, not excluding those read for work or school, in the past year. If you didn’t read the fine print, you might think that reading was on the rise.”(Crain 7) This explains why Crain might have chosen to use statistics as a reference. Many times statistics help to explain reasoning for something that commentary cannot. An example of how Crain thinks that technology is the main reason for the decrease would be,”Children may be browbeaten, but adults resist interference with their pleasures. It may simply be the case that many Americans prefer to learn about the world and to entertain themselves with television and other streaming media, rather than with the printed word…”(Crain 8) This quote represents the problem as to why we turn to technology. It also gives the reader an example of why the reading decrease might be occurring. Technology could also be the root of many other problems in
* For a great cautionary tale of statistics and their manipulation go to this page on the Web: http://www.ifeminists.net/introduction/editorials/2004/0324.html
The language used in the example expresses the ideologies of the reporters making them unbalanced, detached and lacking in neutrality rendering them
Media bias is the tendency for the media to represent different people in a particular way based on their own views, the views of their sponsors, and possibly the views of society. Media bias could be blatant, but usually it is subtle. It can be expressed in the content of television shows. It can be expressed in the choices of types of stories that they show on the news. It can be expressed in the language used on shows, and that is written in the newspaper and magazines.
I will begin with my survey finding. I conducted a survey of 10 people, both males and females, consisting of 10 questions. Now I figured this would happen, but it was the opposite of what I thought they would answer. All of the questions were non-bias and helped me to get a better understanding of the relationship between attractiveness and alcohol.