Media Bias - Tools For Measuring and Evaluating Media Bias

Tools For Measuring and Evaluating Media Bias

Richard Alan Nelson's (2004) study cited above on Tracking Propaganda to the Source: Tools for Analyzing Media Bias reports there are at least 12 methods used to analyze the existence of and quantify bias:

  1. Surveys of the political/cultural attitudes of journalists, particularly members of the media elite, and of journalism students.
  2. Studies of journalists' previous professional connections.
  3. Collections of quotations in which prominent journalists reveal their beliefs about politics and/or the proper role of their profession.
  4. Computer word-use and topic analysis searches to determine content and labeling.
  5. Studies of policies recommended in news stories.
  6. Comparisons of the agenda of the news and entertainment media with agendas of political candidates or other activists.
  7. Positive/negative coverage analysis.
  8. Reviews of the personal demographics of media decision makers.
  9. Comparisons of advertising sources/content which influence information/entertainment content.
  10. Analyses of the extent of government propaganda and public relations (PR) industry impact on media.
  11. Studies of the use of experts and spokespersons etc. by media vs. those not selected to determine the interest groups and ideologies represented vs. those excluded.
  12. Research into payments of journalists by corporations and trade associations to speak before their groups and the impact that may have on coverage.

Read more about this topic:  Media Bias

Famous quotes containing the words tools, measuring, evaluating, media and/or bias:

    “A life I didn’t choose
    chose me: even
    my tools are the wrong ones
    for what I have to do.”
    —Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)

    “We recognize caste in dogs because we rank ourselves by the familiar dog system, a ladderlike social arrangement wherein one individual outranks all others, the next outranks all but the first, and so on down the hierarchy. But the cat system is more like a wheel, with a high-ranking cat at the hub and the others arranged around the rim, all reluctantly acknowledging the superiority of the despot but not necessarily measuring themselves against one another.”
    —Elizabeth Marshall Thomas. “Strong and Sensitive Cats,” Atlantic Monthly (July 1994)

    “Evaluation is creation: hear it, you creators! Evaluating is itself the most valuable treasure of all that we value. It is only through evaluation that value exists: and without evaluation the nut of existence would be hollow. Hear it, you creators!”
    —Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)

    “Never before has a generation of parents faced such awesome competition with the mass media for their children’s attention. While parents tout the virtues of premarital virginity, drug-free living, nonviolent resolution of social conflict, or character over physical appearance, their values are daily challenged by television soaps, rock music lyrics, tabloid headlines, and movie scenes extolling the importance of physical appearance and conformity.”
    —Marianne E. Neifert (20th century)

    “The solar system has no anxiety about its reputation, and the credit of truth and honesty is as safe; nor have I any fear that a skeptical bias can be given by leaning hard on the sides of fate, of practical power, or of trade, which the doctrine of Faith cannot down-weigh.”
    —Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)