Community Problem Report Media Bias

G. Felton McCarty
University of Texas at El Paso

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Abstract

Medias influence on the world critically places people in groups of despair or power
giving extreme media bias between one another form political standings, to race or even gender.
This community problem report explains three groups of individuals associated with media bias.
It is written using key points of liberal bias statistics to describe the unaware groups, Racial
biases to explain and give an example of groups affected, and gender bias within media resulting
in an explanation of a third group being the ones who have power to change. The report
concludes that all people may be able to correct this problem through awareness, scrutiny of
information that they may intake and media literacy to combat all bias. Recognizing first there
is a problem and not just one but many , it promotes ways to achieve that understanding and real
world current biases that the reader may or may not know and use to help further its cause of
spreading awareness.

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Introduction

Correcting a wrong turn is nothing cosmic; it could be a bit troublesome with now added
time to your destination but normally has no significant repercussions to it. That effect changes
though when it is constantly done. Once something is repeated an excessive amount of times it
can become a serious problem. I say this because this can specifically be applied to media. For
example there are things being initially covered as just a story to get news out, but when a view
is repeated let us say a race is always portrayed in none authority figures it then becomes a
problem with in the community that they begin to associate one with the other. Having viewers
exposed to a repeated outcome these individuals will start to psychiatrically associate certain
stereotypes creating a bias. If it goes on unchecked we risk extreme racial bias being inflicted on
the community. A Journal of Academic Librarianship states The increasing use of social media
for information sharing has elevated the need for information literacy (2015, p.7) We need to
check this imbalance and a way to combat this starts by knowing what group youre connected
to, the effected, the unaware and those who can have an effect in media bias. Well need
information literacy (IL) or media literacy (ML) and awareness to combat this community
problem. Ill describe some major media biases like liberal bias, racial bias, Sexism or gender
bias with in the three groups so that you may be able to scrutinize the credibility of media bias in
and have an understanding of their affects.
Unaware
Unless someone tells another they are offended most people blissfully say whatever they
want and will continue until they are corrected. They unknowingly create a difference between
one another and these acts in media are then magnified because of the level at which so many
can see. There is a large portion of the world that can be describe as ignorant of media bias if not

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all because we usually only know of the ones we are effected by. An example of the unaware
would be given by Groseclose, T., Milyo, J. who researched if there was any liberal bias in the
nation accumulating the number of times congress men referenced think tanks. Their results
show a left on multiple if not the majority of news stations being more liberal than conservative.
If you are unaware that your favorite news station has a preference of political views you end up
also inclined to pull more towards whatever views the news station has broadcasted. You agree
with most of the views already but this could further effect your own bias because you are not
getting a full representation of all news being broadcasted just a favored opinion that you might
agree with. This could affect presidential candidacy in favor of a liberal presidential running over
a conservative one. Continual liberal candidacy may or may not be great for this nation but cant
really know if people are not exposed to any other views. Groseclose and Milyo also state in
their research While research disagrees on the extent and type of influence, it is unquestionable
that mass media, particularly television, exert a significant impact on the way we understand,
interpret and act on our world.(2004). Ending with us needing to learn media literacy in order to
recognize the validity of the information being presented to us.

Effected Group
When youre in this group you are usually well aware because you feel the actual affects
from being targeted. Ill use racial media bias to clarify. Using research from Entman and Gross
article It distinguishes between news reporting and news commentary and between national and
local coverage of a court prosecution of a lacrosse team.. (2008 ) the reporting also distinguishes
between two phases, before the exonerating DNA evidence and post DNA evidence. The lacrosse
team was accused but the prosecution was not looked at thoroughly until after the DNA post

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period. During the period
before DNA evidence the
team is being neglected of
the innocent until proven
guilty side of justice all
because of overreliance
on public officials, overuse
of standardized story
scripts and familiar

stereotypes, and pack journalismthe tendency of reporters from nominally competitive news
organizations to converge on the same framings. In the case of crime coverage, these media
routines can facilitate a pro-prosecution slant (2008 ) A strong Racial bias is presented when
searching for the news story. News stations using Figure.1 headlines aided the attention to the
story. The amount of times focused on how often hooligan, a term Nifong applied to the
players(2008), appeared in the coverage of critical content. This is all research showing the
effect of media using racial bias effecting nonwhite Americans. If before the DNA evidence
wasnt a huge contributing factor the teams out look would have been drastically different all
based from stereotypes flooding the media even now that would end up pre judging character
on past although partially true misleading information. This misrepresentation of the team was
quick reporting Entman and Gross have a quote in their article saying Being unaware [2000, p.
188] One might hypothesize instead that reporters respond to the cues of those who pay their
salaries and mask their own ideological dispositions. Another explanation would hold that norms

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of journalism, including `objectivity and `balance blunt whatever biases exist. stating an
effected group from this is caused by leading news stations not general individual reporters.
Those who can have an effect
This group oddly enough can be described as everyone as well. Since I am speaking all
media bias theres some demographic group that everyone is apart of as well as not and can
greatly impact another. Using an example of sexism in media bias I will give a clear example of
who can change what is happening through it. If you watch sports you could list all the stats to
your favorite player or at least notable statistics related to him. I say him because Female
athletes are simply not marketed the way their male counter parts are. Unless they are beautiful
and especially playing a more feministic sport they arent as marketable (2008) exclaims Marci
Where are the female heroes? if your daughter wanted to are her favorite basketball player
shed have to search compared to her having a male athlete. Simply put by Marci its a boys
Club (2008) and although there are opportunities gradually increasing through media we should
have request of female sports and the stigma of instead of placing them as not the real
competitors (2008) to avoid placing them as a sub category. When it comes to a male dominated
area like sports, the key lies within men being more interested in females to cause the change
needed.
Face book as a company has the right idea when addressing the problems of stereotyping
and promotion of diversity within its own work place. Since Facebook is heavily related to
media, the bias that the company holds with in its own infrastructure causes great reason to
question why none of their senior leading positions was as diverse as their users. Facebook team
run by Groper L. (2015) created a means to address and combat this with training to help
alleviate this problem from gender to racial stereotyping within the corporation. Watching the

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modules of this training really affects their members on understanding whats going on around
their work environment and ways to combat it by recognizing it. I implore you to watch one
module if not all from the site to grasp a visual demonstration of these problems being addressed.
Conclusion
Knowing groups for this community problem as, unaware, effected, or have the power to
change, will reduce so many current bias groups within our nation. From political standings to
racial or even gender bias if people of this nation focus down each bias by first recognizing
misinformation and using media literacy, national progression from what we are now can be
achieved. Because so many are unaware I start by using the modules from Facebook since most
are on media all day. Regarding effected groups of media bias enlightening the ones unaware
immediately changes them into the group that have efficacy to alter a bias.

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References
Chen, X., Sin S.J., Theng. Y., Lee C.S. (2015) Why Students Share Misinformation on Social
Media: Motivation, Gender, and Study-level Differences. The Journal of Academic
Librarianship, 41(5), 583592. Retrieved from
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0099133315001494
CML. (2015). Center of Media Literacy. Education for a Technological Age. Retrieved from
http://www.medialit.org/reading-room/media-literacy-education-technological-age
Color Of Change (2015 March). Not To Be Trusted. Dangerous Levels of Inaccuracy in TV
Crime Reporting in NYC. Color Accuracy Report Card. Retrieved from
https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.colorofchange.org/images/ColorOfChangeNewsAccuracyR
eportCardNYC.pdf
Entman R.M. & Gross K.A. (2008). Race to Judgment: Stereotyping Media and Criminal
Defendants, Law and Contemporary Problems Vol.71, 93-133 Retrieved from
http://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1495&context=lcp
Goper L., People Team Facebook. (2015). Facebook. Managing Unconscious Bias. Modules
Retrieved from https://managingbias.fb.com/
Groseclose, T., Milyo, J. (2004). A Measure of Media Bias. Forthcoming in the Quarterly
Journal of Economics. Retrieved from
https://mospace.umsystem.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10355/2637/MeasureMediaBias.p
df
Marcie. (2015, May 5). Media coverage of female athletes. Will Anything Change?. Retrieved
from https://femaleathletes.wordpress.com/

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