Media, What Bias?

What is the media’s responsibility with neutral, objective reporting? There seems to be an unwritten belief that media must be unbiased and objective. But where does this idea come from? Is it better to have a news outlet like Fox News which claims to be “fair and balanced” yet is center-right, or to have a news outlet like MSNBC which makes neither claim to neutrality nor bias, yet is center-left? It can be safely said that media bias is likely a reflection of consumer bias.

Media Objectivity

At some point in our cultural history, the idea of objective news reporting was created. Whether this idea was created as a way to further democracy in the Western world, or as a way to manufacture consent and control the masses (Herman & Chomsky, 1988), will probably be debated for centuries. Conventional wisdom in America is that Fox News has a center-right, or conservative, bias and that its “Fair and Balanced” tag line is more of a marketing tool than an ethical guideline. This same wisdom claims that major media outlets such as ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC and “the paper of record,” The New York Times have a center-left, or liberal, bias.

Yet, despite the claims of liberal media bias, research does not fall in line with popular belief.

“Whether the news media have a liberal bias has interested politicians, journalists, scholars, and the public. Many seem to believe that a political bias exists. According to a … survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press (2002), 47% of those who answered a question on media bias believed news organizations in general are politically biased in their reporting. In comparison, 35% of respondents disagreed” (Lee, 2005, p. 43).

Whether news media contains more liberal or conservative bias is indiscernible and a topic of debate among scholars (Lee, 2005).

What does this all mean? Meaning is in the ear of the beholder, literally. “…[P]eople‘s perceptions of trust in media and bias in news are related to their political predispositions” (Vraga, Tulley, & Rojas, 2009, p. 71). Thus, there is not a whole lot that journalists can do to reduce perceived bias by consumers. However, this does not mean that perceived media bias has to remain forever. Media literacy education may be the answer.

Media literacy education is designed to help consumers understand how media is constructed and consumed. It does this by teaching people “how to decode contextual media messages in film, music, television, corporate advertising and communications technology to understand better the range of influence and impact the media have on their lives” (Vraga, Tulley, & Rojas, 2009, p. 71). Does media literacy education really work?

“[The] findings lend partial support to the idea that news media literacy can affect perceptions of the media. While exposure to a news media literacy presentation decreased perceptions of bias in the subsequent news story, it did not appear to increase trust…. The analysis of the very liberal and conservative clarifies these results: these groups reported different levels of bias and trust based on their political predispositions. When dealing with the media and political issues, political ideology plays a central role in how individuals respond to a media message, as well as to a presentation about the media” (Vraga, Tulley, & Rojas, 2009, p. 77).

Clearly, the claim of objectivity, or lack thereof, matters little to news media consumers. Does news media have to be neutral and objective? I think not. What is important, however, is that consumers are knowledgeable regarding what they are consuming and how to best interpret and understand it.

Works Cited

Herman, E. S., & Chomsky, N. (1988). Manufacturing Consent. New York: Pantheon Books.

Lee, T.-T. (2005). The Liberal Media Myth Revisited: An Examination of Factors Influencing Perceptions of Media Bias. Journal of Boradcasting and Electronic Media , 43-64.

Vraga, E. K., Tulley, M., & Rojas, H. (2009). Media Literacy Training Reduces Perception of Bias. Newspaper Research Journal , 68-81.

 

Why Originalism Is Important

Welcome to another round of “let’s understand the US Constitution.”  There has been some discussion in the media lately about President Obama “invoking the 14th Amendment” to the US Constitution as a way to increase the debt ceiling with out going through Congress.  The specific article in question is this:

The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Most of the news stories that I’ve read read this way, “The validity of the public debt… shall not be questioned.”  Others do a bit more thorough job, “The validity of the public debt…, including debts incurred for payment of pensions…, shall not be questioned.”  Both of these short cuts are misleading. 

This is why originialism is so important.  The 14th Amendment to the US Constitution is one of three amendments ratified shortly after the end of the American Civil War and the article clearly pertains to the debt incurred by the United States during the war and the debt incurred by the Confederate States during the war. 

Later when congress created the debt ceiling in 1941, it established a way to systematically authorize (and increase) debt by law.  Debt authorized by law remains valid and meets the requirements of the 14th Amendment.  Can the president just go around it?  I would argue that if he did, the debt he extended would not be viable because it was not authorized by law.  Article 1 Section 8 of the US Constitution clearly gives CONGRESS, not the president, authority “to borrow money on the credit of the United States.” The 14th Amendment does not take that authority from congress and give it to the president.

Is the debt ceiling constitutional?  That’s not the question here and could be discussed another time.  The 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, as will all other articles and amendments to the constitution, must be read from an orignialist perspective, meaning how the average person would have understood it at the time of its ratification.  If the US Constitution is a “living document” as many on the left proclaim, and the meanings of the words there contained change with time, what is the point of having a writing constitution?

 

Fun With Technology

from WMPoweruser.com

 

Seen in the Wild

Back in May, Uncle linked to this crazy story about license plates in Tennessee being issued with WTF suffixes.  Oddly enough, I saw one of them today at the Smith’s Market Place in Bountiful.  I think the Blackwater (now Xe) license plate holder adds a little bit of pizazz, don’t you?

 

What He Said

Marko was asked:

what are collective rights?

Something that exists only in myth and legend.  There’s no right you gain by joining a mob, no matter how large the mob, how shiny their badges, or how many guns they have.  No group has more rights than those of its individual members.  The term “collective right” is only ever used when the person using it doesn’t like the right in question, and wants to make it subject to majority vote.

 

Snickers: Get Some Nuts!

 

The New S&W SD9 and SD40

Gun Nuts Media points out that Smith & Wesson have revamped their Sigma line into a dedicated self defense pistol called the SD9 (9mm) and SD40 (.40S&W).  Web page here, PDF spec sheet here.  While these new pistols don’t get me too excited, the language on the spec sheet does.

The models are described as being either Standard Capacity or Low Capacity.  Why does this matter?  Up until this point any handgun that can hold more than 10 rounds in the magazine has been commonly referred to as High Capacity.  Today, high capacity is actually standard capacity and anything less than 10 rounds in a full sized pistol is low capacity.

Finally, a firearm manufacturer is using appropriate terminology regarding magazine capacity in published materials.

 

I Don’t Like Their Music Either

But I don’t think the Jonas Brothers need to be threatened.  Apparently President Obama thinks that accusing Joe, Kevin and Nick of being pedophiles then stating that he’ll send Predator Drones after them is funny.

 

More Hate Speech From the Left

Looking for something to write about, I found this article on Fox News: Black Tea Party Activists Called ‘Traitors’.  What I find interesting is the liberals are constantly accusing conservatives of hate speech and in fact want to further restrict the 1st Amendment via the fairness doctrine and other “hate speech” laws.

And yes, hippies, I know what you’re thinking – “But Fox News leans right so the story is biased!!!”  In defense CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, and MSNBC  all lean left and all claim that the Tea Party movement was created by and is only inclusive of racist, cousin-humping rednecks.

 

Same Act, Different Name?

So, if two women in Iraq strap bombs to their chests and blow themselves up they’re called suicide bombers.  But when two women in Russia do it they’re called homicide bombers?  I’d like to know why the difference in language.

 

Amazon Oddities

I received an email from Amazon.com today with a recommendation to read Said bin Sultan, Sultan of Muscat and Oman: Sayyid, Muscat and Oman, Shaikh, Isa Bin Tarif, Mombasa, Al Bin Ali, Fort Jesus, Utub, Kenya. I was informed that I was getting this recommendation because I’d previously purchased a book on the 9th President of the LDS Church, David O. McKay.

Wondering what a Utah Territory born son of Scotch-Irish ancestry has in common with a 19th Century Sultan, I decided to investigate.  What did my investigation yield?  David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism by Gregory A. Prince is listed in Amazon’s Middle East – Oman section because of President McKay’s middle name, Oman (it’s pronounced Oman, not Oman).

 

Understanding the Obama Rhetoric

While thinking about President Obama’s 2008 campaign promises and what he’s failed to do over the last year, and then thinking about all of this talk on “health care reform,” it sparked a memory from my Communication Theory class at the University of Utah.  Ernest Bormann’s Symbolic Convergence Theory, which focuses on what Bormann calls Fantasy Theme Analysis, can be used to see right through President Obama’s health care reform message and every other piece of ideologically driven policy that he has presented.  Em Griffin, a noted Comm Scholar, while discussing this theory in his book says:

Sharing common fantasies transforms a collection of individuals into a cohesive group. Symbolic convergence occurs when group members spontaneously create fantasy chains that display an energized, unified response to common themes. A fantasy theme analysis across groups can reveal a rhetorical vision that contains motives to enact the joint fantasy. (Rhetorical and socio-psychological traditions)

To explain why this theory is legit, Griffin continues:

Bormann’s theory has roots in both the scientific and rhetorical traditions.
Bormann maintains that the sharing of group fantasies creates symbolic convergence.
During symbolic convergence, fantasy chain reactions build community or group consciousness and transform a collection of individuals into a group.
Fantasy themes voiced across many groups create a shared social reality, labeled a rhetorical vision.

Okay, so let’s take this one step at a time.  A small thought of “Hope and Change,” with a catalyst of “Yes We Can” was all that was needed to propel Barry O into the White House.  The fantasy of Hope and Change transformed a collection of voters into a cohesive group of supporters.  Got that?  When an energized, unified response (Yes We Can) to a common theme (Hope and Change) was created, a symbolic convergence happened for all Obama supporters – they could be the means of bringing change to the country and the agent for change was Barry Sotoro Barack Obama.

Another useful tool is looking at how President Obama frames his issues.  When framing as issue there are three levels:

Level 1: expression of overarching values, i.e. fairness, responsibility, equity, equality
Level 2: general issue being addressed
Level 3: details re. policy, tactics

Level 1 is the most important because it is the most difficult to change!  During the 2008 campaign, the level 1 expression was “Hope and Change.”  Once this fantasy theme started to snowball, “[various groups] spontaneously create[d] fantasy chains that display[ed] an energized, unified response to [a] common theme,” Hope and Change.  Now, Obama is trying to do the same thing with health care reform but he doesn’t have a catchy phrase so he needs to use overarching values – “everyone will be covered;” “costs will be held down;” “we will control the eeeeeevil insurance companies;” etc.

When you can see through the rhetoric and understand how he uses it, his message falls apart and doesn’t hold any water.  The problem is that many in congress are actually giving in to this empty suit, while a majority of the average American citizenry, has gotten wise to the man behind the curtain.

 

Constructed Reality

My only complaint about WordPress is that I can’t track how people are finding this site.  I can see what phrase they searched and ended up here, but that is the extent of the info.

Over on the old site, which is still running, my sitemeter has recently been active with people searching for information on “constructed reality”  – more specifically, movies, tv shows, and other media containing examples of constructed reality.  Several of these searches have come from Canadian school districts so I figured I’d post this to help, in case they find their way to this site again.

Theory

The idea of constructed social reality has grown out of several communication theories.  The first thing I was taught in my Communication Theory class at the U was,

Communication is a symbolic/relational process whereby social reality is produced, maintained, repaired, and transformed.

The symbolic process is:

1. Rule-governed, interpretive activity.
2. Process of assigning meaning and intention to the acts of others.

Social Reality is:

1. Sum total of communicative acts within it.
2. Persons both produce and are shaped by their communicative activity.

There are certain assumptions:

1. Symbolic production of reality
2. Reality is not given but supplied
3. Symbolic maintenance (repair and transformation) of reality

The basic idea is that human language is symbolic.  Humans have the cognitive capacity to take a symbol and assign meaning to it.  That symbol holds no inherent value outside of the meaning assigned to it.

Example:  One of my favorite professors, Norm Elliott, loved using this example:

• Red grapes make the best wine.
• He pulled a red hot poker out of the fire.
• I like my steaks red in the middle.
• She’s a tall woman with red hair.
• When Elliott noticed his fly was open during lecture, his face turned red.

The word “red” is made up of three symbols, “r”, “e”, “d,” and together they form another symbol, the word “red.”  But the word “red” has no inherent value until we assign it meaning, and as you can see in the above example, the word “red” can mean at least five different things, or express five different thoughts.

So it is with the rest of our world.  Yes, there is physical reality but even our understanding of physical reality is symbolic.  A rainstorm is a physical reality.  If it’s raining, it’s raining.  Though the meaning may differ between people – a ruined day for a hiker or water for the farmer’s crops.

The easiest theory to study would be George Herbert Mead’s Symbolic Interactionism.  Mead’s main theory is that we interact with objects based on the meaning that we’ve assigned to them.  This applies to objects – guns for example – and people – homosexuals; race relations.  What meaning(s) has your life experience created for a specific person/object?

I highly recommend A First Look at Communication Theory, by Em Griffin, or go to his website.

Media

As for media containing constructed reality, all media contains constructed reality.  A great film on the subject is “Ordinary People.”

You can easily take this basic idea and quickly expand it.  Are you in favor of or against Obamacare?  Why or why not?  What experiences have shaped your world view on the subject?  Are you willing to understand the other side (I didn’t say agree with it)?  What is your opinion on gun-owner rights and why?  Are you a hoplophobe and if so, why?

 

McDonald Follow Up

Okay, so the oral argument for McDonald vs. Chicago was earlier today.  Click here to read the transcript.  To put things simply, incorporation seems forthcoming via the Due Process clause of the 14th Amendment.  The justices didn’t really get on board with Gura’s argument for incorporation via Privileges and Immunities.

Privileges and Immunities was a long shot because the argument focused around enumerated rights, but also on constitutionally protected unenumerated rights (such as the right to self defense; rights to contract; etc).  SCOTUS, and all U.S. Courts, will try to rule as narrowly as possible and P&I might contain too much gray area.

Gura, however, had a great rebuttal for the gray area – that constitutional law is based around the text of the constitution and America’s history and traditions.  Thus federal judges would not have free license to simply claim anything to be an protected unenumerated right.

Read the transcript.  I learned a ton!  It will be interesting to see what decision is handed down.

________

Update: Caleb at Gun Nuts Media points to an hilarious summary of McDonald vs. Chicago.  Warning, contains some adult language.

 

Joe Huffman

This is why The View from North Central Idaho is on my daily read.