Bias

Gerard Matthews

The subject of media bias has become a hot topic of contemporary political discourse. Conservatives have succeeded in making the phrase “the liberal media” a staple of the American vernacular while other scholars argue the media promote a more conservative, pro-American, pro-free-market bias. In recent years, best-selling books on the topic have further driven public debate. However, these works rely heavily, if not exclusively, on anecdotal evidence and lack coherent, quantitative analysis to back up their claims. Scholarly studies of media bias have focused largely on elections; empirical research on bias, or slanted presentation, in domestic political issues, such as health care, is lacking. In a 2007 article called “Framing Bias,” Robert Entman suggested that future studies on media bias should incorporate previous work on the effects of agenda-setting, priming, and framing. Agenda-setting research has shown a strong, positive relationship between the amount of attention the media give certain issues ...

Users without subscription are not able to see the full content on this title. Please, subscribe or login to access all content on this website.