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| Source: Birther Report |
Many factors have contributed to this decline, a major one being elections. The Gallup poll suggests a trend that approval of the media decreases during election years, as evident in the low percentage of trust from the public in 2004, 2008 and 2012. However, 2015 wasn't a major election year, and yet had one of the lowest percentage rates of trust in the media. Other factors, such as perceived media bias, have influenced this decline.
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| Source: Gallup |
Perceived media bias in partisans has led to a decline in trust in the media
Chris Cillizza, a writer for the Washington post, largely blames the "partisans - whether in politics or in the media - who have vested interest in casting the press as hopelessly biased," for the Gallup poll's finding of decreased trust in the media. Cillizza isn't necessarily wrong. Perceived media bias is largely evident in partisans who have strongly held beliefs on a certain topic, more so than in a person who is neutral in the situation.
According to Gunther and Schmitt, partisans systematically perceive information in the mass media as hostile to their own opinions. This is known as the hostile media perception theory. Perception of hostile content is largely due to the sense of broad reach and therefore, the sense of potential negative influence on others by the mass media. Partisans tend to believe that neutral others will be more negatively influenced by the mass media than they would themselves. This is known as the third person effect. The third person effect and the hostile media perception theory influence partisans to have a decreased sense of trust in the mass media.
Perceived media bias is especially evident in partisans who are strongly affiliated with a political party
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| Data from Gallup 2011 |
This difference in beliefs may be due to preferences of media outlets by partisans.
Preferences of media outlets change depending on political affiliation
According to a Pew Research Center study, liberals and conservatives are more likely than others to interact with like-minded individuals. This may be a reason why Democrats and Republicans seek news about politics and government from different media outlets that are generally consistent with their own beliefs. The study found that consistent conservatives tend to use just one news source for information regarding politics. 47% of conservatives cited Fox News as their main source of news and 88% of them said they fully trust Fox News. On the other hand, the study found that consistent liberals tended to use a larger range of news sources, including NPR and the New York Times.
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| Source: Patriot Update |
News source preferences also differ for those who are more neutral on the ideological spectrum. People who are more neutral tend to follow politics through CNN, local TV, and social media outlets such as Google News.
Ideological differences in media source preferences leads to a certain type of audience for many media outlets, and in order to maintain their audience and readership, news sources may be unintentionally creating media bias, which contributes to the perceived bias and distrust in media.
Media bias in major news organizations has also led to a decrease in trust in the media
The media plays a role in creating distrust among the general public as well. Whether intentional or not, media bias can include:
- bias by omission
- bias by section of sources
- bias by story selection
- bias by placement
- bias by labeling
- bias by spin
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| Source: pbs.org |
Major news organizations have been caught making serious mistakes in the past several years which have decreased the trust from their audience and the public. For example, in early 2015 former NBC News anchor Brian Williams was caught in a scandal for exaggerating and "misremembering" some of his firsthand accounts in Iraq. Other mass media scandals that violated the publics' trust include Judith Miller's inaccurate story in the New York Times on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and Jayson Blair, who plagiarized and fabricated facts in several articles for the New York Times.
These major mistakes by journalist and news organizations, in addition to the increased perception of media bias by partisans has inevitably led to the decreased trust in the mass media in the past several years.
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ReplyDeleteI found your piece very interesting! You did a good job with opening your article with your main idea that the trust in mass media is declining. Your articles were short were made your piece very readable and your images and data graphics correlated well with the adjacent text.
ReplyDeleteI think you have a great explanatory headline. The only part I would change would be clarifying what the “serious mistakes made by major news organizations” are. In your article, in the last paragraph, it seems like both the examples you used, for how major news organizations have made major mistakes, all fall under the category of reporters or anchors lying. You could possibly include this detail in your explanatory headline in place of the vague phrase “serious mistakes”
You provided great statistics that really exhibit how much the public’s trust is declining in mass media. I was honestly not surprised by the information you shared. Even before reading your article, I have believed mass media to be skewed by the varying political views of reporters, organization owners, etc. No matter what, everyone has his or her own personal beliefs, which can definitely give a biased approach to journalism. What I do wonder is why the trust of people have declined over time. Is it because people gradually started realizing how biased journalists can be? Or is it because people recognize corruption assembling in these news organizations? To satisfy my curiosity, I did some addition research and found some of my answers from an article title, “Confidence Lost” on the USNews.com. What I learned was that trust in the media is falling because media outlets are too focused on chasing their audience and not focused enough on giving the true story.
It is very interesting how the third person effect pertains to how partisans view media’s impact on society. I was unsure why partisans would believe that mass media would have a more negative affect of those who are neutral. I would think that those who are neutral would listen and expose themselves to both sides of a story. By doing so, I do not see how they would be negatively impacted by the media if they got the change to hear different perspectives and make a fair decision. I believe partisans, on the other hand, should be watchful of themselves being negatively influenced by the media. As partisans, as your article supports, they tend to choose one media outlet. By doing so, they are limiting themselves to varying perspectives and are blind to everything but what they want to hear.
Overall I found your article very informative. Your findings were not surprising to me but they definitely got me thinking and wanting to know more!
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ReplyDeleteI like how you use several examples to explain and illustrate to your reader why there may be bias in today's news sources. I have a broader understanding about what bias in the media means as well as how prevalent it may be in various situations. In addition, this post leads me to think about what news sources I generally go to for information and how I could change those habits to widen my perspective about the various stories that are being reported.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Felicia and think that your initial headline could be a bit more precise by specifying an example of a serious mistake instead of generalizing the statement. There are two routes that could be taken regarding this information: you could focus on the public's ignorance towards identifying bias and you could focus on the problems that exist in the news.
Regarding your inverted pyramid, I think the story about Brian Williams in the last paragraph should be brought higher up in the post to give your reader that visual of a "serious issue". I think bringing up an example about how the news makes mistakes in addition to how the public makes mistakes would be an effective way to connect both the hostile media perception theory and the third person effect.
After some research about this topic, I found another point of view that could be connected to the ideas you mentioned in your post. According to Kelly Riddell in the Washington Times, only "7% of journalists identify as Republicans". In addition to analyzing the mistakes in the press and the reader's individual bias, one may look directly to the journalists who are writing up the stories about current events. More journalists are "identifying as independent" since the 1970s and this shift may also have an impact on the bias people perceive in the news.
There are a few grammatical points that I would consider changing, but overall I think your piece is well written and thought out. Great job on your post!