Media Bias: The media is bias and we are too.
I just found an article concerning media bias based on research done by the UCLA Department of Political Science in 2003.
Groseclose and Milyo based their research on a standard gauge of a lawmaker’s support for liberal causes. Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) tracks the percentage of times that each lawmaker votes on the liberal side of an issue. Based on these votes, the ADA assigns a numerical score to each lawmaker, where “100″ is the most liberal and “0″ is the most conservative. After adjustments to compensate for disproportionate representation that the Senate gives to low‑population states and the lack of representation for the District of Columbia, the average ADA score in Congress (50.1) was assumed to represent the political position of the average U.S. voter.
Groseclose and Milyo then directed 21 research assistants — most of them college students — to scour U.S. media coverage of the past 10 years. They tallied the number of times each media outlet referred to think tanks and policy groups, such as the left-leaning NAACP or the right-leaning Heritage Foundation.
Next, they did the same exercise with speeches of U.S. lawmakers. If a media outlet displayed a citation pattern similar to that of a lawmaker, then Groseclose and Milyo’s method assigned both a similar ADA score (Sullivan).
Conclusions:
Although we expected to find that most media lean left, we were astounded by the degree. A norm among journalists is to present “both sides of the issue.” Consequently, while we expected members of Congress to cite primarily think tanks that are on the same side of the ideological spectrum as they are, we expected journalists to practice a much more balanced citation practice, even if the journalist’s own ideology opposed the think tanks that he or she is sometimes citing. This was not always the case. Most of the mainstream media outlets that we examined (ie all those besides Drudge Report and Fox News’ Special Report) were closer to the average Democrat in Congress than they were to the median member of the House (Groseclose).
Groseclose/Miylo Findings: A PDF of the media left, right and moderate
Other studies on media bias:
PDF: David P. Baron, Stanford University
PDF: Media Research Center: Media Bias Basics
These studies consequently have opposite findings (especially “Media Bias Basics”). So I guess there is bias in the media and research.
The point is we’re all biased because of our psychology (nature v nurture). Our environment makes us biased, how we grew up makes us biased and how we think makes us biased.
I grew up with both parents and 1 brother in an upper-middle class neighborhood. Those three factors alone set me apart from someone who grew up with one parent (mother or father), no or 6 siblings and in a rich or poor neighborhood. We’ll both see things differently.
You could also look at it as the parallax effect. Put your thumb right in front of your face and close one of your eyes. Now switch back and forth between the left eye and right eye. Each eye represents a different person and how they see the world.
It’s the same reason we have so many religions and different “facts” about God. No one can agree. We’re all different people with different stories.
Sources:
Groseclose, Tim, and Jeff Milyo. “A Measure of Media Bias.” Department of Political Science. 1 Sep. 2003. 12 Nov. 2003 <mason.gmu.edu/~atabarro/MediaBias.doc>.
Sullivan, M. “Media Bias Is Real, Finds UCLA Political Scientist.” / UCLA Newsroom. 14 Dec. 2005. 12 Nov 2007.<http://www.newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/Media-Bias-Is-Real-Finds-UCLA-6664.aspx>.
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