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Writing 005

12/03/13

Essay 4 (1st Draft) – Media Bias.

The media is an important source of information, and it has a powerful impact on how people view the world, especially when it has become easier to get any information from a variety of sources, such as broadcast media, printed media and web media. The importance of the mass media in either reforming communities or ruining them, lies on the way of conveying the News, so it has to be in safe hands and it must be under strong and fair censorship because it is a huge responsibility, especially in times of crisis. It’s the media’s obligation to impart the issues as transparent as possible, as well as to pass on the news in an impartial way, and not to be biased. Mass media plays an important role on societal and individual behaviors, it is a fundamental aspect in term of continuing the safeness in a country, and it can be very influential to people’s viewpoints and believes.

Firstly, we have to know, what is Media Bias? Media bias is, as written in Wikipedia “the bias or perceived bias of journalists and news producers within the mass media in the selection of events and stories that are reported”*, surely for their own advantages, it could be for a political advantage to a certain regime, social advantage to someone who wants to be famous or someone wants to be elected. So it’s important to be careful and sure about the accuracy of the news reported, because we can be easily convinced on something while it’s being presented to us one sided, which that against the objectivity, impartiality and fairness. The Bias in the media is an old issue, therefore it has become known that all mass media are measured by balance, and objectivity standard, and as Joel Kaplan says, “the value of having an objectivity and balance standard and the difficulty of measuring those values, one can still come up with a set of ―best practices” that would allow a news organization or other programming to attempt to achieve this goal” (objectivity & balance: Today’s Best Practices in American Journalism, page 8). So it has become an important criteria for a media organization to present the two sides for a certain issue with their interpretations in order to achieve its goal of fairness and not being biased, and then let the viewers evaluate what is presented. However, biased media in the opposite side, present one side of an issue and their interpretations which serve their advantages and interests whatever their interest are.

Secondly, the media is an important part of the security of any nation, it has a significant role in economic and social security, which in turn aims to create and provide an appropriate conditions to ensure a stable life. Therefore, the purpose of the media is to bring awareness to people by revealing true facts without being biased and fabricating the news and the facts to their own benefits and interests. TV producer Danny Schechter said “The Media has the power to do it and we have the power to move them to do it” *2, in many situations, media can either escalade the situation or to pacify it. We all know the alleged Iraqi WMD, and we have seen how the media had affected the public opinion even without a conclusive evidences, and the truth revealed after the war. However, nearly two years after the start of the war, Harris Poll in February 2005 found that 36 percent of Americans continued to believe that Iraqi regime had WMD*3. Therefore, the result was a destruction and terror everywhere in Iraq. In addition, we have seen how the modern mass media or social networking had played a significant role in the times of Arab spring, where it was the main tool to overthrew many autocratic governments in peaceful and clear way, all that was organized by the social media like Facebook and twitter, a political activist Saleem Kassim said “In countries like Egypt, Tunisia, and Yemen, rising action plans such as protests made up of thousands, have been organized through social media such Facebook and Twitter”*4. However, when it happened in countries like Syria, Bahrain or Jordan, many Arabs media had become biased and changed its policy according to a certain regime’s interests, and also as a way to spread a certain country’s leverage, all that requires the media to be biased, which that led to contradict news and to more complexity which at the end caused losing many people lives. It’s important to understand that mainstream media might be biased sometimes and that could mislead us to the truth.

Thirdly, the most effective way to change the public opinion on a certain issue is the media. In our daily life, the media can be very biased about a story, advertisements, coverage on different social issues, and based on that, stereotypes will be created in public minds about someone, group of people or even an entire nation, because the media has become the main source of all our thoughts and perceptions about countries, cultures and religions, we could be easily convinced by biased and irrational judgment or opinion even without hearing from the other side. However, the dangerous of stereotyping increases with the expansion of biased media impact on people, therefore, results of reactions and behavioral changing towards the stereotyped group or more precisely the targeted group, usually the targeted group would be the minorities. Bryant and Beth said that “the media can prime aggressive thoughts, feelings and behaviors”5. For example, media biased escalation between Suni and Shia Muslims (Muslims sects), the escalation reached them to kill each other in countries like Iraq and Syria and led to a sectarian warfare. Likewise, what occurred in the War between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism (thirty years war) in the middle Ages. Furthermore, the case of African American, Abraham and Appia (2006) found that pictures of African American in newscast about crime primed the racial stereotype of African American*6. The bias in the media today is not just to take permission from people by (convincing public opinion), but also to take an irrational action towards a group of people or even a certain concept or idea, and that could mislead to bad reactions and unsatisfied consequences.

In conclusion, the bias in the mass media is a doubled-edged sword, the truth could be outward, but the lies and fabrications from inward, and that lies could last for long time, and then could be a belief. If the media took that direction that depends on the excitements and irrationals judgments, there is no doubts it will lead to chaos and confusion, and it’s also a tool of sabotage, despite its development. The media must be in safe hands, managed by educated, trusted and rational people in order to achieve its goals in educating people, contributing in solving their problem and forming the right enlightened public opinion towards internal community issue and also the external. Media carries a great task of conveying and developing the “cultural and social heritage” from one generation to another, and that task could not ever never lasts in a biased media.

Works cited

Joel Kaplan, Objectivity & Balance: Today’s Best Practices in American Journalism. Syracuse University: 2000, page 8.print. _

http://www.cpb.org/aboutcpb/goals/objectivity/whitepapers/cpb_BestPractices_Kaplan

Dadge, David. “The war in Iraq and why the media failed us.” Books.Google. google Scholar. N.d.

Web. 2nd Dec 2013

N.D. “Percentage of Americans Believing Iraq had WMD Rises.” Worldpublicoppinion.org. World public opinion, n.d.

Web. 2 Dec 2013. <

http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/brunitedstatescanadara/238.php

>

Seleem, Kassim. “Twitter Revolution: How the Arab Spring was helped by social media.” Policymic.com. politics, 3 July 2012.

Web. 02 Dec 2013 <

http://www.policymic.com/articles/10642/twitter-revolution-how-the-arab-spring-was-helped-by-social-media

>

Bryant, Jennings, and Mary Beth Oliver, eds. Media effects: Advances in theory and research. Taylor & Francis US, 2008.

Web. 2 Dec 2013

Richardson, John D. “Switching social identities: the influence of editorial framing on reader attitudes toward affirmative action and African Americans.” Communication Research 32.4 (2005): 503-528.

Web. 2 Dec 2013