News outlets that Americans have today are plentiful. You can access the news and learn about what is occurring around the world practically anywhere: from television, in magazines and newspapers, or on a smartphone, etc. News is absolutely accessible. Each news outlet crafts stories that differ from other news outlets, whether very minutely or rather vastly. Bias occurs.
President Trump’s continual deflections and attacks on any new agency or politician that presents him unfavorably has fueled the right’s suspicion of any entity that they deem liberal. I support the notion that people should be skeptical of the news they engage with, but in many cases this distrust is verging on fanaticism. On the other end of the political spectrum, networks that are considered liberal are practically jumping through hoops in an attempt to appear unbiased. Although political bias is often attributed to the left, It is my belief that bias may be even stronger among conservatives.
People who are strongly attached to their views are not likely to change their opinions in the face of crosscutting media. However, some people who are more open minded may actually change their opinions or shift their political leanings if they believe the crosscutting media source is credible. Levendusky comments on this phenomenon in his fifth hypothesis, the Source Credibility Hypothesis, when he says “Viewers who perceive crosscutting sources to be credible will moderate their opinions after exposure to them”(Levendusky 55). Levendusky also theorizes about the effects on the viewer's willingness to compromise and support
The book Bias written by Bernard Goldberg explains how the liberal media distorts actual news and as a result impacts society negatively. Goldberg joined CBS News in 1972 and retired 28 years later, in 2000. Goldberg describes the distortion in present day due to no diversity of opinion in the newsroom, so no matter how many news executives go on about diversity, about ethnic, and racial diversity and how much they say we need that to go out the full story about things, they don’t seem to care much about intellectual diversity or diversity of opinions. This is why journalist can bash on a certain side or cheer the other side and wont fear about what will happen. Goldberg views Conservative news as evil and liberal media as right.
This is evidenced by the growth of small, often internet-based, media outlets that target a niche audience with a very specific ideology. For example, the online broadcast channel The Blaze mainly targets highly conservative millennials. By having these highly specific statements of opinion, people can only choose to affirm their beliefs and make them feel stronger about them. Thus, when statements of opinion are misused, the public becomes more divided in opinion and less open to compromising with other viewpoints. This can be seen today as increasingly opinionated news reporting has been a major factor in the growing political divide in the United States.
Everyone holds biases whether they believe it or not. Facing your biases will help you overcome and better yourself. Biases are often personal but can also be professional. Ignoring these can led to harm further down the road. I have a personal bias for immigrants, being one myself I often feel for fellow immigrants.
Political bias can occur in two ways- individualistic bias and gatekeeping. Individualistic bias occurs when an individual reporter skews the views he or she is reporting because of a personal bias. Gatekeeping occurs when a group of journalists or editors come together and skew the coverage in a way they want, hiding the actual
“An important part of political polarization is just in your head” explains how people’s opinions play a key role in political polarization (Gelman 2016, 1). People may have misconceptions about who is voting Democrat or Republican, leading them to believe that ideologies vary. Biases and prejudices tend to shape the people’s view of political polarization. According to Douglas Ahler and Gaurav Sood, “people think that 32% of Democratic Supporters are LGBT (6% in reality) and 38% of Republican supporters earn over $250,000 per year (2%)… These misperceptions are relatively universal across partisan groups and positively associated with political interest.”
As we know today that media plays a big role in controlling a society and influence people’s minds. It takes great skills form the news reporter to make people believe in something or convincing them of what they present. They use all kinds of techniques to present a news towards the public. There are all kind of news reporting media channels now a days. Some of them are unbiased and some are extremely biased.
Media bias is the preference towards a side that is more appealing based on communicative sources. Media is used to communicate something to you, whether it be through a book or an online site. Media has changed substantially over the last few decades. For example, many people used to get their information from newspapers, and today people usually get their information from electronic devices. Media Bias has had a big impact on COVID 19.
After all, news programming is meant to relay facts and inform of recent events. Does that mean undertone opinions should be adapted? When attempting to be the “first to report” a story, the lack of hesitation may allow for a story to be aired without all the facts. In the recent high profile events involving law enforcement, many times it initially appears the officer did something wrong. Viewers are incited, accusations fly, protests begin, and violence erupts creating a whole new situation for law enforcement fueled by media (Carlson, 91).
When thinking of the media you think they are reporting the appropriate and accurate information not based on any personal opinions and feelings. Also one would not think the media would be reporting based on one side of politics or the other. The media is extremely biased when it comes to politics and news. While some of the media is conservative-biased I believe the mass media is liberal-biased. Majority of media outlets are liberal companies, media personnel and journalists will identify themselves as democrats and liberals more so than republicans or conservatives and lastly the left side (liberals) of the mass media is persuasive on what information to report.
Bias is defined as being prejudice in favor of or against one thing, person, or group compared with another, usually in a way considered to be unfair. Americans experience some sort of bias every day, however, media bias is likely the most prevalent. Media can be biased towards liberals, conservatives, or any other political leaning. According to University of Oklahoma Professor, Keith Gaddie, the mainstream media mostly suffers from liberal bias - which is usually hostile toward conservative candidates and causes. Media bias can misinform, exaggerate truths, and cause confusion during voting season.
Annotated Bibliography Brody, N., & Vangelisti, A. L. (2017). Cyberbullying: Topics strategies, and sex differences. Computers in Human Behaviors, 75, 739-748. Doi:10.1016/j.chb.2017.06.020 There are multiple strategies to cyberbullying, the most common strategies include public and private comments, photographs, and status updates. Cyberbullies use these strategies to make someone feel less than what they are.
It is everywhere. An example of bias can be found in politics and media. Frequently politicians feel that the press is biased toward them in an unfair way. On January 20, 2017, a reporter from the magazine “Time” falsely reported President Trump removed the bust of Martin Luther King from the Oval Office. This information was quickly spread.
