Is Britain\'s Print Media More Politically Biased than its Broadcast Media essay PDF

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An essay on the political bias in media...

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Is Britain’s Print Media More Politically Biased than its Broadcast Media?

Britain’s print and broadcast medias are often accused of bias, and there are key distinguishing features held by these two types of media which mean that their biases are manifest in different ways. Britain’s broadcast media seeks to operate with impartiality, and as must be explored this creates differences in how biases can appear and be measured. The print media operates differently; political views are clearly held by different newspapers which can make biases seem much more obvious on the surface. How these two different forms of media can show political biases must first be understood to assess which is more guilty of it. Then measurements can be found from studies by those who have undertaken this issue to compare empirical data that can demonstrate the biases used by each media form. Both forms of media can be found to show political bias in different ways, but the print media’s biases are often displayed more openly. Therefore, the expected conclusion is that Britain’s print media is typically more politically biased than its broadcast media.

First, the potential forms of media biases must be understood. Lichter (2014,p.406) suggests that the nature of bias focuses primarily on political ideology or partisanship, negativism, and various structural elements built into operational definitions of news. Crawford and Levonyan (2018,p.1-2) highlight that there is a difference between supplydriven and demand-driven biases. Demand-driven bias is when media outlets seek to present news more in line with the preferences of their consumers, whilst supply-driven bias arises when news reporting is influenced by the ideological positions of the media owners, regulators or journalists. Lichter (2014,p.406) explains that media biases often involve favouring the existing power structure, hindering civic participation or democratic outcomes, and failing to provide audiences with the information they need to make rational decisions

about public affairs. These are supply-driven issues, and this essay will approach supplydriven biases - the idea that the media’s bias is structured to impress certain beliefs on their consumers - as the form of bias being investigated, and this investigation will be approached as an empirical matter.

There are distinguishing features had by Britain’s broadcasters which mean they are generally assumed to be less politically biased than the print media. A key difference is that the broadcasters are heavily regulated, while the print media is not. Broadcasters are regulated by Ofcom, and regulations include bans on political advertising, and fair balance to be given to different parties during election campaigns. A central value of the BBC, the oldest and largest Public Service Broadcaster, is stated to be "...independent, impartial and honest." (Crawford and Levonyan,2018,p.22) Ideally, these regulations and ideals mean that key broadcasters like the BBC should be an example of free and fair public opinion being expressed without partisan bias, in order to facilitate debate and create wider engagement in politics. On the surface, the model used by the print media allows for more bias. This is because the printed press is treated more like an open market and is not subject to the same restrictions to create impartiality. Newspapers are free to take sides in political debates and endorse political parties, and sharing opinions is considered an important part of their journalism. The clearness of their biases can be easily illustrated by the front pages of the different papers, for example the clear endorsements of the Sun and Daily Mirror on election day in 2017:

However, whilst on the surface it would definitely appear that the print media is more biased than the broadcast media, the broadcasters have a type of influence which allows biases that are less obvious. Broadcasters are undoubtedly responsible for agendasetting, framing and priming, where editorial decisions determine and guide public debate and lead politics in a certain direction. The power held by broadcasters to drive political outcomes can be assessed by the allotted airtime given by them to different ideas and parties, and the words and phrases used to portray these interests. Due to their unique status as a broadcaster, the BBC will be used in this examination of bias in broadcasting. The BBC has often been accused by either side of politics to be biased in favour of the other. Two studies will be used here as examples of measuring and demonstrating such biases.

The first study is by Dr Mike Berry in 2013, titled: “Hard Evidence: How Biased is the BBC?” and uses a method of measuring the percentage of airtime dedicated to each of the two major parties. The study takes data from both 2007 and 2012 and notes that as political sources, Labour and Conservatives dominate with 86% of appearances. Data was then used to demonstrate the difference in coverage of the party leaders, finding that in the reporting

of immigration, the EU and religion, Gordon Brown outnumbered David Cameron in appearances by a ratio of less than two to one (47 vs 26) in 2007. Then In 2012 David Cameron outnumbered Ed Milliband by a factor of nearly four to one (53 vs 15). Labour cabinet members and ministers outnumbered Conservative shadow cabinet and ministers by approximately two to one (90 vs 46) in 2007; in 2012, Conservative cabinet members and ministers outnumbered their Labour counterparts by more than four to one (67 to 15). In their second strand, of reporting of all topics, Conservative politicians were featured more than 50% more often than Labour ones (24 vs 15) across the two time periods on the BBC News at Six. All this data is taken from Berry’s report and his conclusion was that the evidence is clear the BBC does not lean to the left, it actually provides more space for Conservative voices.

The second similar study to compare was taken in 2018 by Crawford and Levonyan, to assess the bias of the BBC during the period of 2013-2016. Their study was not dedicated to airtime, but instead took a measure of different words and phrases used on the BBC and weighted them as a topic favourable to the Conservatives or Labour. Words purely related to Labour were marked as -1, and to the Conservatives valued at 1, with neutral words valued at 0 or close to it, and anything valued -1 to 0 as marginally pro-Labour, and 0 to 1 as proConservative. The results shown on the following table demonstrate a very slight preference of Labour-leaning words and phrases during this period:

Crawford and Levonyan’s conclusion stated: “We find consistent pro-Labour bias relative to Conservative party, for all but the period after the 2015 election, where we find a pro-Conservative bias” (p.1). Essentially, the study found a regular, subtle bias in the BBC. This bias was also developing and changing, responsive to factors such as the Conservatives surprise 24 seat gain in 2015 and their threats to reform public service broadcasting (p.3). An important note from both studies is that investigating biases in the BBC or similar broadcasters can find different results if they are using different methodologies. Berry’s study uses airtime as a measurement to find a Conservative bias in 2012, but Crawford and Levonyan’s study of language found a Labour bias in 2013, and Conservative later again in 2015. It is also essential to consider that because the studies can find different biases over different time periods, there is a changing nature in broadcaster bias which is more responsive to current issues, recent events and popular opinion. This means a conclusion can be taken that whilst the BBC may display a variety of biases, these biases are not

consistent for one ideology or party as opposed to the other. If biases can be proven in the BBC for both sides, then presumably it is not that biased at all.

Bias in the print media is a different matter, especially in terms of empirical measurement. Much of the discussion surrounding the print media is had by voices within this medium. In an opinionated article arguing the press is not impartial, Owen Jones of the Guardian (2017) firmly claimed: “Britain’s press is not an impartial disseminator of news and information. It is, by and large, a highly sophisticated and aggressive form of political campaigning and lobbying.” This is an interesting statement in that it clearly highlights a distinction between the role and objectives of the print media from the broadcast media. Whilst the broadcasters claim impartiality, the press has a political agenda, and its contributors are prepared to use their power to be heard.

An important question when comparing biases would be to ask which media, print or broadcasting, is more likely to favour the existing power structure, as Lichter described (2014,p.406). Crawford and Levonyan (2018,p.1-2) highlight a key issue, that “the organizational structure and funding of public service broadcasters suggests a potential political bias: PSBs’ main revenue streams are typically controlled by government bodies and their executive boards are usually appointed by the ruling party.” Due to their funding methods, it would make sense to assume that broadcasters would favour the government, however, as was shown in Berry and also Crawford and Levonyan’s empirical studies, broadcasters are typically responsive to the government but not always biased towards them. Thanks to their free and independent statuses, the press could be assumed to freely speak against and challenge the government, thereby playing an important role in democratic accountability without any bias towards the established order. However, there

are reasons why this is not always the case with the print media. Owen Jones (2017) argued that the print media “uses its extensive muscle to defend our current economic order which, after all, directly benefits the rich moguls who own almost the entire British press.” An article by Ed Jones for Open Democracy in 2019 highlighted reasons why he believed the British press was not free and independent as it should be. Foremost were his statistics that a handful of billionaires owned a majority share of the most widely circulated newspapers in the UK. Lord Rothermere’s Daily Mail and Metro combined have a weekly readership of over 20 million and Rupert Murdoch’s The Sun and The Times combined have over 13 million (Jones,2019). These newspapers dominate the news circulation and officially endorse or align with the Conservatives, as of 2019. Despite the strength of this argument, that the press is biased towards maintaining the establishment because of its powerful rich owners, it must be noted that these arguments are being made by journalists from a left-of-centre perspective with a bias towards significantly reforming such establishments. The print media as a whole therefore cannot be labelled as entirely biased towards one direction or another, because different voices can still be found and heard openly. Different biases within the print media are very clear but are not fixed and are rarely united.

In conclusion, the biases of the broadcast and print medias manifest themselves in different ways. Their differences are often the result of their contrasting objectives, with the broadcasters seeking impartiality while the press is more likely to seek specific political outcomes. This means that in terms of ideology and partisanship, the print media will consistently be found to have more biases than the broadcast media. In terms of agendasetting, public service broadcasters seem to hold greater influence, and the empirical data shows their biases are subtle and also subject to regular change. As for bias towards the

existing political establishment, it could be argued that both forms of media are equally guilty of naturally favouring the current established order because of their means of funding, but the print media is sometimes more vocal in opposing the establishment. What must be noted from the empirical studies detailed in this essay are that the political biases of the broadcast and print medias are often more nuanced than expected and should be approached with scepticism and contrasting evidence, for evidence of bias is easily found, and biases are also inherent already in each study. Overall, because the print media has greater freedom to do so, it is typically more politically biased than the broadcasters.

Bibliography: - Berry, M., n.d. Hard Evidence: how biased is the BBC? [WWW Document]. The Conversation. URL http://theconversation.com/hard-evidence-how-biased-is-the-bbc17028 (accessed 2.14.20). - Crawford, G.S., Levonyan, V., n.d. Media Bias in Public Service Broadcasting: Evidence from the BBC 31. - Jones, E. 2019, Five reasons why we don’t have a free and independent press in the UK and what we can do about it [WWW Document], n.d. Open-Democracy. URL https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/five-reasons-why-we-don-t-havefree-and-independent-press-in-uk-and-what-we-can-do-about/ (accessed 2.14.20). - Gavin, N.T., 2018. Media definitely do matter: Brexit, immigration, climate change and beyond: The British Journal of Politics and International Relations. https://doi.org/10.1177/1369148118799260 - Jones, O., 2017. We can no longer pretend the British press is impartial | Owen Jones. The Guardian. - Lichter, S.R., 2017. Theories of Media Bias. The Oxford Handbook of Political Communication. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199793471.013.44...