This explains a lot of MeFi threads...

July 24, 2006 12:46 PM

In 1988, 12% of the public thought the media was biased. Today, the figure is 62%; and, paradoxically, the reported bias is almost always to the opposite political view of the person surveyed. Introducing the Hostile Media Effect. Partisans on either side of an see the media as being biased against them, and the more educated about a situation they are, the more strongly they see bias. Unsurprisingly, news of the Middle East conflict is one area where the effect has been frequently noted. If you want a lot more information, see this academic PDF. [If media bias isn't your thing, Mixing Memory is full of many other interesting articles, from the cognitive science of patriotism to the science of art.]
posted by blahblahblah (35 comments total)

And the best quote from the WaPo article (second link): "When you are persuaded by something, you don't think it is propaganda... The difference is people think in their case, their special identities are a source of enlightenment, whereas other people's source of enlightenment is a source of bias."
posted by blahblahblah at 12:53 PM on July 24, 2006

I wonder if the explaination isn't, in part, that's it's just so doggone useful to claim a media bias and then try to bully the media into reporting that is more sympathetic to your side. The right certainly understands the usefulness of the "liberal media" meme, and has used it repeatedly to discredit any story they find unsympathetic.
posted by Astro Zombie at 12:57 PM on July 24, 2006

This a bunch of reactionary conservative crap.
posted by keswick at 12:58 PM on July 24, 2006

I read this article in today's Post and immediately noted that they ignore the most important facet... linguistic framing. There's no comparison in which 'side' the media is more biased towards: the corporate, mostly-but-not-totally-conservative-humping status quo. The Republican vs. Democrat, Conservative vs. Liberal memes are just part of the smokescreen, and this article just feeds right into that. Does anyone with half a brain and critical skills really believe that CNN is a liberal equivalent to Fox? It's a corporate shill that happens not to be a strident apologist for insane Republicans.

It doesn't matter how many people line up on either side of a poll... the vast majority of Americans have no fucking clue as to how they are bamboozled through framing almost every second of every day. We, as a nation, are so sadly uncritical about the things fed to us. Even sadder, we're exporting the bullshit across the border.

What explains a lot of MeFi threads, if I get your drift, is lack of education and a lack of critical faculties.
posted by the_savage_mind at 12:58 PM on July 24, 2006 [3 favorites]

I'm going to make a quick guess here to resolve that seeming paradox (and no, I haven't read the article yet, sorry): Most mass news media in the US leans center-right (CNN) to far-right (Fox). Liberals perceive that bias with a degree of accuracy. Conservatives, by contrast, have a level of cognitive dissonance created by the far-right media's insistence that "the media," a label which somehow does not include the immediate speaker, has a left-leaning bias. The viewers, therefore, don't count the media outlets from which they get their news when asked about bias in the media, and only perceive the relative bias of the media outlets which stand further to the left than themselves.

Am I making sense?
posted by Faint of Butt at 1:04 PM on July 24, 2006

The freedom of choice offered by online sources is probably a huge contributor to the perception of bias. People generally tend to seek out news sources that confirm their preexisting worldviews. This is true across all educational demographics, although I'd suspect that the higher one's education, the more likely one is to at least peruse divergent viewpoints.

Prior to the internet, news sources were more limited, more homogeneous and their apparent bias tended to be more accepted, or even ignored. It's not just the diversity of opinion online that makes bias stand out more now, but the fact that people can completely immerse themselves in cultures of people whose world views are more or less identical to their own in almost every significant detail. That makes alien worldviews stand out in more stark relief than ever before - and people are becoming less tolerant of those alien worldviews.
posted by slatternus at 1:13 PM on July 24, 2006

I wonder something, when pollsters say 'the media' do liberals think 'news media' and think 'center-right bias,' and do conservatives hear 'the media,' and think 'entertainment industry' and think 'left-leaning' (socially anyways)?

Just an idea.
posted by jonmc at 1:16 PM on July 24, 2006 [1 favorite]

That's a very interesting point, jonmc. I think you might be on to something.
posted by Faint of Butt at 1:17 PM on July 24, 2006

The experiments in the link very explictly address news media bias, and demonstrate that with two groups seeing the same news clips they can have exactly opposite views of the percieved bias. The other issues may come into play, but there is a cognitive process here as well, which is what interested me in the topic.
posted by blahblahblah at 1:23 PM on July 24, 2006

Studies from the late 1980's-early 1990's, as referenced in that post, might indeed show little media bias.

Studies in 2006 would show a massive amount of media bias. (Look for studies done by non-Americans - I don't believe American researchers are capable of evaluating American media, as they are immersed in it.) The Fairness Doctrine was repealed by the Republicans in 1987, paving the way for broadcast media to be as unbalanced as they like. FOX was launched in 1986. The religious broadcast radio push started in the mid-80's. If you read the Republican strategy documents from the 1980's, "working the ref" was a major part of their strategy from the beginning and continues today. On the day after the last non-FOX TV network shuts down, FOX will still be talking about liberal TV bias.

Divide the population into two sets: liberals vs. Republicans.

Divide it into two sets along another axis: people who believe what they read/hear and those who try to discover the truth. Now you have four boxes, right? Liberal believers, liberal truthies, Republican believers, Republican truthies (if any).

Of those four groups, both groups of truthies believe there is Republican media bias. The Republican believers believe there is liberal media bias. The liberal believers don't believe much of anything - the TV/media they watch (not Fox) doesn't harp about media bias, and they don't quest for the truth on their own.
posted by jellicle at 1:25 PM on July 24, 2006

As my wife, the former newspaper copy editor has pointed out: 'the media' is owned by wealthy conservatives. Upper management tends to be well-paid conservative sons from wealthy conservative families.

Get down to the bottom rungs of actual journalists or copy editors, and you're more likely to find moderate or liberal people... whose best interests usually lie in pleasing He Who Signs The Paycheck.

But ultimately, the main goal of the media is to sell subscriptions and advertisements.
posted by Foosnark at 1:34 PM on July 24, 2006

yeah... here's an example of 'the media is biased both ways':

But most of the reasons for The Note's effective, if inadvertent, RNC shilling have to do with broader factors affecting the mainstream media in general. These include a consolidated media landscape in which owners are multinational corporations, many of which share interests with the GOP. Equally important has been a tight Republican grip on Congress and the White House, which, combined with hardball tactics, has allowed Republicans to intimidate the press corps. Adding to the chorus has been a deep-pocketed right-wing noise machine ready to pounce on any traces of "bias," which has caused the press to veer defensively to the right. (The Note frets whenever Rush Limbaugh takes issue with its work but scoffs whenever liberal critics do the same.) And journalists, despite their reputation for leftish politics, understand that advancing their careers will be difficult if they're perceived as being overtly left or contemptuous of Republicans. By contrast, being tough on Democrats ups their credibility and is rewarded.

By now, over a year into a second Bush term with almost three more to go, the consequences of media blindness and timidity -- and the role of outlets like The Note in perpetuating it -- have become clear enough. Counteracting it, however, is a different matter. Clearly, he-said, she-said conventions of reporting are inadequate when "he-said" is fact and "she-said" is fiction. And allowing the loudest partisans to set the parameters of debate can result in a very skewed view of left and right.
posted by the_savage_mind at 1:43 PM on July 24, 2006

What is interesting to me is that the comments are re-enacting the results from the experiments. In experiments, pro-genetic modification partisans found news to be biased against them, while anti-GMO people said it was biased against them - and it was the same news! Ditto pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian folks. That doesn't mean bias doesn't exist, but it does indicate that we are likely to see bias against our side regardless.

Most of us MeFi'ers are liberals, so we see a strong conservative bias in the media, which we then try to explain. And we assume that conservatives must be lying about seeing a liberal bias in the news, since it is clearly conservative to us. The results in the links in the FPP suggests that, many times, this bias is much more severe in our view than it is in reality.
posted by blahblahblah at 1:49 PM on July 24, 2006

But ultimately, the main goal of the media is to sell subscriptions and advertisements. - Foosnark

In order to drive ever-increasing value to shareholders. Yay!
posted by raedyn at 2:00 PM on July 24, 2006

What is interesting to me is that the comments are re-enacting the results from the experiments.

That's totally funny!

Especially when folks don't even bother to read the article and react just from the text of your FPP.

These are great articles bbb! Thanks for posting.

Here's one bit i liked from the articles:

"Ross and Perloff both found that what partisans worry about the most is the impact of the news on neutral observers. But the data suggest such worry is misplaced. Neutral observers are better than partisans at seeing flaws and virtues on both sides. Partisans, it turns out, are particularly susceptible to the general human belief that other people are susceptible to propaganda."
posted by storybored at 2:27 PM on July 24, 2006

I took a picture of media bias the other day. (Link, to the picture at my flickr account.)
posted by blacklite at 2:27 PM on July 24, 2006

The more you study statistical political science, and look at things like this, the more it becomes difficult to continue to believe that words like "left" and "right" have objective meaning. The fact remains the farthest right-wing and the farthest left-wing USer have more in common than, say, the farthest left-wing USer and the most idealist pro-EU pan-European German. Americans just like to think they're diverse in order to convince themselves that we're not all idiots over here.

What's more, that German I mentioned and the American leftie are best friends when compared to their former selves. Not that they'd notice; modern man is more isolated from his past than human beings have ever been before. That's a pity, because it's only by studying those that are as different from ourselves as possible-- and human beings a few hundred years back are good candidates for such study-- that we can begin to understand what right and wrong really are in society. "Left" and "right" aren't going to help at this point.
posted by koeselitz at 2:31 PM on July 24, 2006

The fact remains the farthest right-wing and the farthest left-wing USer have more in common than, say, the farthest left-wing USer and the most idealist pro-EU pan-European German.

What kind of drug are you smoking, and where can I get some? I have so much more in common with the average, leftist, peacenik German than I do with any rightwing, religious nut here in the US.
posted by the_savage_mind at 2:39 PM on July 24, 2006

Well obviously FOX news is biased, right? So if the question is "is the media biased" the answer must be yes. Some outlets are going to be more biased the others.
posted by delmoi at 2:43 PM on July 24, 2006

The more you study statistical political science, and look at things like this, the more it becomes difficult to continue to believe that words like "left" and "right" have objective meaning. The fact remains the farthest right-wing and the farthest left-wing USer have more in common than

The farthest right winger in the US wants statist control of government in order to sew up support for an all-out war in the Middle east in order to cause Jesus to come. The farthest Left Winger is a Died in the Wool Trotskite (I actually met one once)
posted by delmoi at 2:45 PM on July 24, 2006

I haven't finished reading, but my immediate thought was.. Well, user rik hine at the Mixing Memory blog says it well:

I'm aware that your main interest in this subject is about the cognitive mechanisms that might underlie HME. However, any theory you might offer will be woefully inadequate if it attempts an explanation based on the research about HME that you have cited. Several of the other commentators seem to have noticed this, particularly J.Alden. That there is mainstream media bias may be obscured if you are mis-identifying the axis on which the bias lies. As others have noted, the research you cite seems to explore bias based on a false dichotomy, i.e., Democrat vs. Republican, or 'liberal' vs. 'conservative'.
I'm surprised that no one has cited Herman and Chomsky's classic work in this field "Manufacturing Consent: the Political Economy of the Mass Media". In this work the authors present the 'propaganda model' to explain how the information, provided by mainstream media, is filtered before it is disseminated. This is surely one of the most empirically well supported theses in the social sciences. If the propaganda model is correct, and i'd be interested to hear some genuine counter-arguments, then the issue of HME dissolves; there is a perceived bias because there REALLY IS bias. Furthermore, there are some careful polls produced of late which clearly show the huge divide between public opinion and the agenda setters in mainstream media who pretend to represent their position.

Herman and Comsky's methodology, measuring column inches devoted to comparable subjects for example, seems to be less error prone than asking people for opinions. I guess comparing peoples reactions to stories is probably interesting in and of itself, but it is a very incomplete attempt to address the question of media bias in general.
posted by Chuckles at 2:58 PM on July 24, 2006

The fact remains the farthest right-wing and the farthest left-wing USer have more in common than, say, the farthest left-wing USer and the most idealist pro-EU pan-European German. - koeselitz

Do you mean American people, or American political parties? Both in Canada and the US at least, (the 2 countries I'm most familiar with) I see somewhat of a disconnect between the actual political opinions of citizens VS the available party options. In the US, I know Americans that are more left-leaning both socially and fiscally than either party platform at the federal level. And even though there's ostensibly more choice in Canada due to the larger number of parties, I still know actual Canadians that are both more left leaning and more right leaning.

it becomes difficult to continue to believe that words like "left" and "right" have objective meaning.

My poli sci never suggested that there were hard and fast rules about this, just that they were kind of relative terms, a good way to compare. That said, I did learn specific definitions for the terms conservative, liberal, socialist, etc, and the way these terms get misused has long irritated me. But I recognize it's a losing battle.
posted by raedyn at 2:59 PM on July 24, 2006

Another way of describing this 'hostile media effect' in terms that make it fit this case is: liberals think conservatives are stupid. Conservatives think liberals are stupid. (One of them might even be right; it doesn't matter. Hell, I think they're both right.) That's why, to a liberal, the media seems conservative, and to a conservative, it seems liberal. But if you look really closely, you'll notice that the media is just plain stupid. Why? Because, here in America, stupid sells.

delmoi: "The farthest right winger in the US wants statist control of government in order to sew up support for an all-out war in the Middle east in order to cause Jesus to come."

I begin to doubt whether you've met and talked to any such people. I grew up among pretty conservative evangelicals, and they were nothing like you describe. I don't say I agree with them, but they were nothing like you describe.

The reason politics is so stagnant in the US today is because there are very, very few Americans are interested in finding out how other people think about the world, much less using that discovery to understand themselves.

readyn: I don't say that conservative and liberal have no meaning; only that they have no objective meaning, or even that they aren't somewhat useful if you're aiming to describe changes in populations. But, for example, justice does have an objective meaning. And it has nothing to do with societal labels; perhaps we'd all be better off if we didn't act as those labels didn't give us a right.
posted by koeselitz at 3:09 PM on July 24, 2006

The farthest right winger in the US wants statist control of government in order to sew up support for an all-out war in the Middle east in order to cause Jesus to come. The farthest Left Winger is a Died in the Wool Trotskite (I actually met one once)

and some of the neo-cons who helped plan the initial moves toward war in the middle east were former trotskyites--so what is it the extreme left and extreme right in the US have in common? looks like militarism to me.

/derail
posted by saulgoodman at 3:11 PM on July 24, 2006

Chuckles has it. I don't quite see how we can learn much about bias in the media by measuring some people's reactions. It tells us nothing worthwhile about whether or not there is actual bias, what shape & form it might take, what causes it, how to spot it, how to fight it, etc. etc. etc. "HRE goes up." So what?
posted by muckster at 3:19 PM on July 24, 2006

By every objective standard--who's chosen as guests and "analysts" and given the most airtime and what they say, what anchors and reporters themselves actually say on air, and how closely it matches one side's talking points v. another's, etc--there can't possibly still be any doubt. Media Matters documents it all, daily.


Using bad words v. treason accusations and public calls for hanging: The distinction that eludes journalists
posted by amberglow at 4:39 PM on July 24, 2006

I don't know if media bias exists wholesale, but I am pretty confident about these two things:

1. The media may not be biased, but they are run far more like a business than they used to be. This has led to newsrooms more concerned with the bottom line than in rooting out corruption.

2. Fox news is the most blatently biased channel on the air. The sad thing isn't that Fox exists, but that so many Americans think that it is fair and balanced. Our distrust of the government and natural skepticism has vanished the last 5 or so years.
posted by UseyurBrain at 4:49 PM on July 24, 2006

I begin to doubt whether you've met and talked to any such people. I grew up among pretty conservative evangelicals, and they were nothing like you describe. I don't say I agree with them, but they were nothing like you describe.

Well, logically there is only one "farthest" right winger, so maybe you just didn't meet that particular guy.
posted by delmoi at 4:59 PM on July 24, 2006

I don't believe the media has a political bias. The media has a profit oriented bias. They are trying to SELL NEWS, or more accuratly, advertising around the news. So, naturally, the more likely a news story is to sell advertising, the more you are likely to hear that story. The question then becomes, what sorts of stories sell? Trust me, politicians aren't the only ones who pay very close attention to the polls.

The proclamations of "media bias", on the other hand, are attempts to sell political standpoints. I would wager that those people who hold the strongest political opinions also are among those who strongly believe their is media bias.
posted by Freen at 5:04 PM on July 24, 2006 [1 favorite]

Politics is the attempt to remove the debate over actual relevant issues from the public sphere and reduce decision procedures to simple brand evangelism.
posted by Freen at 5:20 PM on July 24, 2006

Freen, that phrasing you used: "removing the debate over actual relevant issues"

Not everything is a debatable issue, and the media's use of "he said, he said" and "balance" for everything has eliminated truth, and journalism's historic and important role in clarifying where the truth actually is.
posted by amberglow at 6:29 PM on July 24, 2006

posted by Foosnark and repeated in most media bias discussions: As my wife, the former newspaper copy editor has pointed out: 'the media' is owned by wealthy conservatives. Upper management tends to be well-paid conservative sons from wealthy conservative families.

Get down to the bottom rungs of actual journalists or copy editors, and you're more likely to find moderate or liberal people... whose best interests usually lie in pleasing He Who Signs The Paycheck.

It would be easy for one side or the other to point to one of these items while ignoring the other. And in my experience they do (I've never heard a conservative admit the former, and have only heard liberals point to the former as some kind of trump card to the fact that the reporters are in fact largely liberal and to point to a corporate/conservative oppressive bias). If this does, as I suspect, pan out in similar ways on most issues, such as how statistics are almost always cited in favor of ones opinions while the opposing ones are summarily explained for dismissal, then I'm thinking the root cause is a decline in either a willingness, or ability to be critically rational. And maybe the cause?:

Posted by slatternus: Prior to the internet, news sources were more limited, more homogeneous and their apparent bias tended to be more accepted, or even ignored. It's not just the diversity of opinion online that makes bias stand out more now, but the fact that people can completely immerse themselves in cultures of people whose world views are more or less identical to their own in almost every significant detail. That makes alien worldviews stand out in more stark relief than ever before - and people are becoming less tolerant of those alien worldviews.

Not that I want to ignore the possibility that the anti-critically-rational person could just be more noticeable in an information free world. Or that there are reactionary forces directly at work to try to discourage it. But has anyone else felt that sometime in the late 90s there was the beginning of the steady decline in the already somewhat rare rationalist, and the calm philosophically minded individual?
posted by kigpig at 6:31 PM on July 24, 2006

jonmc: I wonder something, when pollsters say 'the media' do liberals think 'news media' and think 'center-right bias,' and do conservatives hear 'the media,' and think 'entertainment industry' and think 'left-leaning' (socially anyways)?

Just an idea.

Just another related idea: if the news media bring about this "hostile media effect" in the audience, do entertainment media produce a different kind of reaction, such as a "friendly media effect", whereby whatever lifestyles & attitudes are portrayed are seen by the audience as endorsing their own?

It seems that news & current affairs will always unavoidably include at least a hint of an oppositional, partisan approach. In contrast, entertainment usually aims at the lowest common denominator of its target demographic, in other words, whatever will appeal to the broadest possible range of people within that target market. As such, it benefits most from doing all it can to flatter the lifestyles & values embodied by that market, or by its idealised self-projection.

This could result in entertainment media that soothe & coddle, as if to compensate for the news media that annoy & alienate.
posted by UbuRoivas at 7:31 PM on July 24, 2006

More on CNN's liberal bias:

It's been kind of interesting to watch the big news orgs struggle and strain to portray President Bush as an active, hands-on participant in resolving the mideast crisis. As I noted below, Newsweek got extraordinary access to Bush for days on end, and somehow managed to portray him as a decisive crisis manager without capturing him in the act of making a meaningful decision. Now check out this extraordinary paragraph on CNN's politics page:

"The Middle East crisis is giving President Bush a second chance to be a peacemaker and, however counterintuitive, an unexpected new chance to make headway on his grand goal of leaving the Middle East more democratic than he found it."

That one belongs in the time capsule, doesn't it? Anyone by chance recall Bush's first effort to be a "peacemaker"? Me either. I do, however, vaguely recall him initiating a war of choice on false pretenses that has left over 2,500 Americans dead and many tens of thousands severely wounded. Maybe in the world of CNN war is peace, as the Orwellian phrase has it. It's also worth pointing out that the Bush administration has actually rebuffed calls for the U.S. to push for a cease-fire.

The CNN paragraph links to this article in Time magazine which, while not as favorable as CNN's billing of it, doesn't even mention that the United States is speeding precision bombs to Israel, an act which is kind of at odds with Bush's alleged bid to be a "peacemaker." Meanwhile, the Time article takes readers through the usual things which are supposed to portray an active crisis manager at work, saying that Bush "initiated a series of phone calls from Air Force One and the Oval Office to leaders around the region." Yes, that's right, the President made some calls. And the article concludes on the following note:

"Aides say he is content for now to take steps toward transforming the region in less obvious but, they believe, more fundamental and lasting ways."

It's impossible to know what this actually means, or whether any aides actually said this, but accepting it for the moment at face value, it's reassuring to know that Bush is "content" with the impact his administration is having on the Middle East. For a moment there one might have thought things weren't going all that well over in that part of the world.
posted by the_savage_mind at 9:28 AM on July 25, 2006

when the AP (with Reuters, the source for most of the news we actually get) words things like this, bias is no longer a question, but a fact: AP headline, article dubbed embryonic stem cell research that would involve destroying embryos "killing"
posted by amberglow at 6:15 PM on July 25, 2006