How can bias influence public opinion?

Answer 1

One international issue that affects us every day while we are oblivious to its effects is media bias. We see it in the news. We see it on our favorite sitcoms. Media bias is evident in many aspects of the media, yet the problem is that we don't even recognize it when it is right in front of our faces. Are the impressions and opinions that we form about individuals based solely on the media's opinions that we see and hear in the news? . In the following paper, I will give specific instances where media biases have occurred as well as show that it is a common occurrence that we may not realize, and

What exactly is it?

Media bias is the tendency of the media to represent different people or organizations in a specific way based on their own personal views and the views of the society. One way this is done is that a specific viewpoint is pushed or someone or something is favored over another, instead of reporting news or airing programs in an objective and honest way. Such bias usually refers to the media as one whole group, such as a given television network, instead of individual reporters or writers of television shows. Media bias could be blatant, but usually it is ingeniously indirect like word choice, time limits on programming, and suggests that the organization isn't neutral. It can be expressed in the language used on shows, and that is written in the newspaper and magazines, of which there will be further discussion upon in this essay. One form of bias occurs when the media promotes stereotypes that portrays individuals to society in a certain way that leads to the ignorance of individuals in society

Types and Reasons for media bias

There are a number of types of media bias that have contributed to influencing people's thoughts, some of which are: political bias, religious bias, information bias, mainstream and corporate bias. Religious bias has been conducted innumerable times, where certain corporations highlight a religion and speak ill of it indirectly. One example of this is how Muslims are sometimes portrayed as terrosists.Political bias is the most common form of media bias where certain political party or individual is often attacked or even if it is supported by the media, it may get more "light" in the news.Sometimes, certain media companies may show a political bias towards certain news events.This usually occurs if the channel or reporter is in favor of a particular candidate.

Some media companies intentionally leave out certain information that they see the audience shouldn't come to know. There can be many reasons to this such as personal grudges, or for promoting stereotypes.etc. This ties in with corporate bias.Obvoiusly, the media is always hoping to please someone and in many cases, it may be another major corporation that the media company relies on for funds, advertisement or exposure to society. Mainstream bias occurs when the media decides to simply report what everyone else is reporting in order to not offend anyone or gain infamous popularity.

Media bias can occur due to various reasons, one of which is that it can happen with the reported being unaware of it himself by using negative word choice to describe a certain person for example. , but the main cause of it is prejudice. When the journalist or the company reporting the story has a personal, prejudiced opinion about certain aspects, which results in an altered version of the story.

Answer 2

If an item only presents one side to a issue then it can influence public policy. The perfect example is the recent election and the Russians ads on social media.