Media Bias

     In our modern society, it's nearly impossible to avoid the influence of media bias, primarily because media is everywhere. Even if you don't have a television, subscribe to a newspaper, switch on the radio talk show, or have internet access, political advertisements and product placements are everywhere. On your morning commute, you see billboards on the highway or panel ads at the bus stop. When you go grocery shopping, there are people waiting for you just outside the door, asking for your signature, or a small donation to their cause. And even if you never leave your house, if you have a cell phone number or land line, organizations can call you. And the organizations that are most often heard from are almost invariably linked to someone's political campaign.
   
     Information publicized directly from a political campaign office is always publicized with a spin. It's always self-promotion, and any sort of self-promotion is based in fact and wrapped in embellishments or slanted impressions to make the publisher look favorable. Often, this information alludes to facts and figures related to political opponents, in an effort to make said opponent seem somehow less desirable. The intent of any shard-like media contributions made in this manner is to make the receiver sympathize and agree with the deliverer. As such, it's always presented with a spin in that direction, and should be taken with a grain of salt. When a campaign ad is televised, it's important to understand that it's purpose is not to inform, but rather to gain support.

     Even when the factual core of these media shards is presented by organizations whose purpose is to present hard, cold facts, there's some sort of bias attached. When you switch on the nightly news and watch the press coverage of so-and-so's public speech that happened earlier that day, you're getting the bias written into the speech by the political candidate and the bias that's carried over through the news company. They don't have enough cameras or time to present you with every little thing that happened, and often times they elect to show certain things and omit others in order to make the story more interesting. Though it's the obligation and purpose of these media companies to present the public with the facts they don't have time to find for themselves, it's their priority to keep their companies at the forefront of the industry, and they do that through public popularity and show ratings. Therefore, they do whatever they can to keep people tuning in to watch every night, and often that results in a much more dramatic portrayal of events than is necessary or strictly true. So while they present coverage of so-and-so's speech, they'll include the handful of people in the crowd that get whipped up into a frenzy, for example, and pay little attention to the hundreds who stay calm, and therefore make the speech seem more poorly-received than it may actually have been.

     Nowadays, though, there are many other sources to get coverage of political events, sources that don't necessarily care about how they're received or how popular they become because they don't make their living that way. There are hundreds, even thousands of people on the internet, posting their own take on things in blogs like this one, or starting their own sites, or filming series of youtube videos. Many of them do this with the same intent as the campaign directors, to get support and find someone to agree with them. Some others try very hard to be impartial deliverers of fact in an effort to offset the bias attached to media that comes from other angles and sources. But even though they try to present everything as impartially as possible, they still have their own opinions on everything they present, and this always comes across somehow, very subtly, in tone of voice or choice of words. So by virtue of humanity's nature to ascribe meaning to experiences, it's virtually impossible to present an account of an event without some sort of small personal bias attached.

     Because it's unrealistic to try to avoid any sort of public media related to the political environment, it's more advisable to develop a strategy for weeding legitimate information out of the mess of opinionated sources available. This can be done in a multitude of ways. Probably the best way is to consult multiple sources, and as many with differing views as possible. That way, it can become clearer what the common factor is among them. When one site's article presents a certain spin to an event, and another article presents the opposite view, it's much easier to tell what is fact and what is embellishment. It's also valuable to be able to filter media based directly on the source. If you find out what a party is trying to achieve, whether they're a political candidate or a media company or a blogger, you can come closer to guessing the type of spin they may try to implement and compensate for it when you get information from them. It is possible to filter media outlets and form your own opinions on political happenings, it just takes some level of awareness and effort to think independently.