Topic > Bias in the news media

The news media brings what is happening in the world to the public. Especially when the public has no direct experience or knowledge of the events that occur, they tend to rely mostly on the media for information. This may not mean that the media tells us what to think: “people do not absorb media messages uncritically.” The media, however, sets the public's agenda and brings particular issues to its attention, thereby limiting the range of controversies and mindsets. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay As stated by Lippman (1921), media is the most significant means of establishing connections between the public and the invisible environment. In particular, we start from the assumption that the media should present us, twice a day, every day, the true image of the outside world, the world that interests us. We expect them to provide us with the truth, “however useless the truth may be.” ”. But we know that this expectation is not always met. Happer and Philo (2013) state that mass media make it possible for information to flow between different audiences effectively. The point, however, is that the media "systematically edit and interpret the mass of information, making sense of the world for the public." As some information is supported more than others, it becomes privileged as authoritative and sometimes even truthful. .There is also a popular belief that news simply presents the facts. In particular, some Iranians believe that Western news agencies such as the BBC and CNN, unlike national ones, present only facts; and what's more, they perceive it as the truth. However, contrary to this popular belief, there are those such as Mencken (1975) and Goldberg (2002) who argue that the news media do not necessarily report clear facts, and are usually biased. Georgiy Revyakin, a financial analyst, also believes that all major news agencies and websites are influenced by the particular point of view of their owners, but in different ways and to different extents. Furthermore, today's relatively traditional mass media are engaged in politics and are usually sponsored by a small circle of people who lobby to serve their own interests. Revyakin (2015) suggests that all information is subjective because it was written by certain people. A series of influential studies called "the bad news" were conducted by the Glasgow University Media Group and examined television news programmes. Systematic analyzes of program content, interviews and the visual dimensions of news revealed that, among other things, the assumption or prescription of impartiality of news representation (of public broadcasters such as the BBC) is challenged by biases in favor of the powerful which are sometimes present in subtle details such as style, turns in interviews, camera shots, etc. These biases often exist in the smallest linguistic details of the news where power relations and political ideologies are hidden. However, major news agencies such as Reuters, BBC, Guardian and the Associated Press, which have news manuals providing guidance to their editors and publishers, make claims contrary to the above. In these manuals, news agencies explain their preferred style, principles, policies and code of conduct. For example, the Reuters Handbook of Journalism (2016) states that: Everything we do as Reuters journalists must be independent, free from bias and executed,.