In an earlier post I talked about a dominant liberal bias in the media. Now I would like to discuss the Biases in the news itself that matters most. What exactly makes the news biased? I think that the biases in the media can be broken down into four distinctive areas.
The first area of bias in the media I think is personalization. Since the news market is so competitive, the journalist do whatever they can to get higher ratings. Ratings have become the one and only goal of news stations. It’s not getting THE story to the people; it’s getting A story to the most people. Personalizing Journalistic bias gives preference to individual actors and human interest over institutional, social, political contexts. They personalize issues, institutions and events in order to win over viewers. Depending on what audience the station is looking for, the personalization will go towards one side or another-liberal or conservative.
Dramatization is the second area of bias in the mass media. News stories are often portrayed as sensational events (or crises), with a spotlight placed on controversial characters and emotional scripts. Basically drama and entertainment sells and the news don’t. People are used to being entertained. There are thousands of entertainment channels available to the public, why does the news have to be entertainment as well? That’s because again, the news is a business and entertainment sells, not information. This is one quote that I really liked from the author Lance W. Bennett, “Every news story should, without any sacrifice of probity or responsibility, display the attributes of fiction, of drama. It should have structure and conflict, problem and denouement, rising action and falling action, a beginning, middle, and an end. These are not only the essentials of drama; they are the essentials of a narrative.”
Fragmentation is the third area of biases in the media. This basically means that the news is packaged as unique isolated events. Instead of stories, the news becomes self-contained episodic capsules isolated from each other in time and space. There is no connection between anything. People can’t relate the news to anything else they see because of the news fragmentation tactic. By using the fragmentation tactic, the news uses their other personalization and dramatization tools to promote their soft news stories. The news is no longer about social, and political events around the world, it is about separate episodic issues.
Authority Disorder is the last form of biases. This is basically a who done it and who do we blame biases. People love controversy and scandal and the news uses their authority disorder tactic to give it to them. Bias with a preoccupation toward questions relating to social order and whether authorities are capable of establishing or restoring it is their authority disorder tactic.
Well we’ve established the fact that bias exists in the media, and now we know exactly what they use to deliver their bias.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Bias, what bias?????
Bias, What Bias????
There have been many arguments of late of which way the news is slanting. Is it too liberal or too conservative? Proponents of both sides would argue this differently. Conservatives would tell you there is a liberal bias, and the liberals would tell you there is a conservative bias. Either way, it would be hard to say that there is no bias at all. I recently did a debate arguing that there is a dominant liberal bias in the media. Most of the information that I came across showed a dominant liberal bias.
Me leaning a little more towards the conservative side would have to agree, but not agree fully. Yes there are tons of liberal media outlets out there, and yes it seems like all of the major ones do lean toward the left. But there are a couple out there that fulfills the needs of Conservative Americans. Fox News is one that always comes to mind when talking about conservative news.
When thinking about this, I thought that this was a little unfair. One shouldn’t have to go to Fox News to find negative news about the liberal party. When the Van Jones story aired, I waited and waited to find it in the headlines on all the major news stations. Fox news is the only one that aired anything about it. The Recent Jimmy Carter incident—only found it on Fox. One can’t argue that most of the news stations are liberal, and they sad thing is that they don’t try to hide it either. Google for one openly endorsed the Clinton Administration and refused to show ads supporting the Republican Party.
I’m not going to get into a statistical war with anyone. I’m sure both sides have facts, graphs, and data supporting their argument. So this is what I’m going to end with. I personally feel that there is a strong liberal bias in the media that can’t be ignored.
There have been many arguments of late of which way the news is slanting. Is it too liberal or too conservative? Proponents of both sides would argue this differently. Conservatives would tell you there is a liberal bias, and the liberals would tell you there is a conservative bias. Either way, it would be hard to say that there is no bias at all. I recently did a debate arguing that there is a dominant liberal bias in the media. Most of the information that I came across showed a dominant liberal bias.
Me leaning a little more towards the conservative side would have to agree, but not agree fully. Yes there are tons of liberal media outlets out there, and yes it seems like all of the major ones do lean toward the left. But there are a couple out there that fulfills the needs of Conservative Americans. Fox News is one that always comes to mind when talking about conservative news.
When thinking about this, I thought that this was a little unfair. One shouldn’t have to go to Fox News to find negative news about the liberal party. When the Van Jones story aired, I waited and waited to find it in the headlines on all the major news stations. Fox news is the only one that aired anything about it. The Recent Jimmy Carter incident—only found it on Fox. One can’t argue that most of the news stations are liberal, and they sad thing is that they don’t try to hide it either. Google for one openly endorsed the Clinton Administration and refused to show ads supporting the Republican Party.
I’m not going to get into a statistical war with anyone. I’m sure both sides have facts, graphs, and data supporting their argument. So this is what I’m going to end with. I personally feel that there is a strong liberal bias in the media that can’t be ignored.
The News Just Isn't What It Used To Be
The news isn’t what it used to be….
We have all heard are parents or grandparents say this throughout our lives. We are all sitting around the TV listening to the six O’clock news and then a headline pops us about Brad and Angelina. With a look of disgust, someone says it- the news isn’t what it used to be.
But is it true; I would say that with full confidence that no, it is nowhere close to what it used to be. First to further this discussion on old vs. new news, it is imperative to define what the media actually is. I would define it as group of individuals and organizations that deliver communicative content. Communicative Content are the main words here. The communicative content that the media delivers is what makes the difference in the media of old vs. the media of new.
News can be broken up into two separate divisions: hard news and soft news. Hard
News is the news that our parents and grandparents are used to. It can be categorized as serious content that is useful to public policy . It is timely and gives us responsible coverage of important current events. Most of us reading this might be a little taken aback. News isn’t news without the flashy headlines and the intriguing stories right; wrong. This is exactly what news is supposed to be in the first place. The news we are used to today is soft news. This is the type of news that contains less serious subject matter. It is personality-based and filled with human interest stories. Lifestyle documentaries and celebrities fill much of the stories that are conveyed to us.
Why has the news changed so much over the years? One of the biggest reasons that I can think of is the idea of a market economy. The news is a business after all, the news marketplace is more diversified not with a plethora of new channels available. With all of the competition out there, the news stations need to focus on a target demographic. This has its drawbacks, one of which being excessive business control and consolidation. This causes less diversity, and few viewpoints in the news being delivered .Profit pressures “news” as a commercial product rather than a public service” is now on the rise, and worst of all internal corporate censorship.
In the end, your parents were right. The news just isn’t what it used to be. With the economy becoming a bigger issue by the day, it looks like the old news isn’t coming back for a long time.
We have all heard are parents or grandparents say this throughout our lives. We are all sitting around the TV listening to the six O’clock news and then a headline pops us about Brad and Angelina. With a look of disgust, someone says it- the news isn’t what it used to be.
But is it true; I would say that with full confidence that no, it is nowhere close to what it used to be. First to further this discussion on old vs. new news, it is imperative to define what the media actually is. I would define it as group of individuals and organizations that deliver communicative content. Communicative Content are the main words here. The communicative content that the media delivers is what makes the difference in the media of old vs. the media of new.
News can be broken up into two separate divisions: hard news and soft news. Hard
News is the news that our parents and grandparents are used to. It can be categorized as serious content that is useful to public policy . It is timely and gives us responsible coverage of important current events. Most of us reading this might be a little taken aback. News isn’t news without the flashy headlines and the intriguing stories right; wrong. This is exactly what news is supposed to be in the first place. The news we are used to today is soft news. This is the type of news that contains less serious subject matter. It is personality-based and filled with human interest stories. Lifestyle documentaries and celebrities fill much of the stories that are conveyed to us.
Why has the news changed so much over the years? One of the biggest reasons that I can think of is the idea of a market economy. The news is a business after all, the news marketplace is more diversified not with a plethora of new channels available. With all of the competition out there, the news stations need to focus on a target demographic. This has its drawbacks, one of which being excessive business control and consolidation. This causes less diversity, and few viewpoints in the news being delivered .Profit pressures “news” as a commercial product rather than a public service” is now on the rise, and worst of all internal corporate censorship.
In the end, your parents were right. The news just isn’t what it used to be. With the economy becoming a bigger issue by the day, it looks like the old news isn’t coming back for a long time.
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