The question “are media in the United States politically biased?” has persisted for many decades. Findings on different media effects, such as the hostile media phenomenon, have helped work toward an answer to this long-lasting question. The hostile media phenomenon (HMP) is “the tendency for people who are highly involved in an issue to see news coverage of that issue as biased, particularly as biased against their own point of view” (Choi, Yang & Chang, 2009) Research regarding the existence of the HMP in society rejects the idea of bias within the media and points toward biases within individuals. By interviewing two people possessing opposing political ideologies, one especially liberal and the other exceptionally conservative, this has
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Both individuals went on to speak about issues they believed to be important in the current presidential election, which were, for the most part, directly aligned with their affiliated parties’ views. The first interviewee was Kyle Burns, a conservative, male, prior high school classmate. One issue he stated as most important to him was immigration and ensuring repercussions if not done legally. Because of this, it was not surprising that he believed CNN to possess media bias when discussing the topic of immigration due to his high outcome-relevant involvement (K. Burns, personal communication, October 25, 2016). This involvement was equally apparent throughout the interview with Jennifer Grandi, my mother who identifies as particularly liberal. A topic she felt to be of importance was access to affordable health care for everyone; She went on to discuss her belief that stations such as Fox News report unfairly and negatively regarding Obamacare, which again …show more content…
For example, most journalists identify as politically liberal, so it is assumed by many that they will chose to report on certain stories in specific ways reflecting those beliefs. It is common that conservatives feel this to be true, resulting in the feeling that the media is against them. On the contrary, publishers and owners of news companies are business people who generally possess conservative ideologies, so liberal media critiques often feel that this gives conservative viewpoints more power to prevail into news stories (D’Alessio et al., 2000). This was, again, demonstrated by both individuals in their separate interviews. Kyle specifically stated, “I favor some (news sources) over others because they have different political views, and the ones I don’t like are unfair,” while Jennifer stated that she felt Fox News was more biased because it promoted political agendas. The perception of bias is likely due to selective perception and/or instance confirmation; Selective perception is when two people receive the same message but interpret it differently, while instance confirmation is when someone searches for specific examples of messages that offend their beliefs and uses those few
Both individuals went on to speak about issues they believed to be important in the current presidential election, which were, for the most part, directly aligned with their affiliated parties’ views. The first interviewee was Kyle Burns, a conservative, male, prior high school classmate. One issue he stated as most important to him was immigration and ensuring repercussions if not done legally. Because of this, it was not surprising that he believed CNN to possess media bias when discussing the topic of immigration due to his high outcome-relevant involvement (K. Burns, personal communication, October 25, 2016). This involvement was equally apparent throughout the interview with Jennifer Grandi, my mother who identifies as particularly liberal. A topic she felt to be of importance was access to affordable health care for everyone; She went on to discuss her belief that stations such as Fox News report unfairly and negatively regarding Obamacare, which again …show more content…
For example, most journalists identify as politically liberal, so it is assumed by many that they will chose to report on certain stories in specific ways reflecting those beliefs. It is common that conservatives feel this to be true, resulting in the feeling that the media is against them. On the contrary, publishers and owners of news companies are business people who generally possess conservative ideologies, so liberal media critiques often feel that this gives conservative viewpoints more power to prevail into news stories (D’Alessio et al., 2000). This was, again, demonstrated by both individuals in their separate interviews. Kyle specifically stated, “I favor some (news sources) over others because they have different political views, and the ones I don’t like are unfair,” while Jennifer stated that she felt Fox News was more biased because it promoted political agendas. The perception of bias is likely due to selective perception and/or instance confirmation; Selective perception is when two people receive the same message but interpret it differently, while instance confirmation is when someone searches for specific examples of messages that offend their beliefs and uses those few