News Content: Four Information Biases That Matter

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News Content Four Information Biases That Matter

•     Madison Papple    Peter Organisciak    CMST
  4N03

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Introduction

• Information Bias a type of news bias that
  favours simplified, surface details over more
  complex realities.
• 4 Biases
• Personalization
• Dramatization
• Fragmentation
• Authority-Disorder Bias

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Personalization

•  Personalized News - the journalistic bias that
  gives preference to individual actors and
  human-interest angles in events over larger
  insttitutional, social, and political contexts
  (Bennett, 2004).

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Personalization cont.

• Downplays the bigger picture, emphasizes key
  players
• Creation of the passive audience
• Main Problem Shallow portrayal of current events
• How?  1. The Brand Identity  2. Personal Life
• Example Bill Clinton to aid Hillary's campaign

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Dramatization

• News dramas emphasize crisis of continuity, the
  present over the past or future, and the
  personalities at their center (Bennett, 2004).
• Flashy headlines and shocking photographs
• "Live Action"
• Serious social problems lost in the drama
• Crises
• Example "Tornado cluster kills at least 50 in
  U.S."

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The Bet

• 2002 - "In a Google search of five keywords or
  phrases representing the top five news stories of
  2007, weblogs will rank higher than the New York
  Times' Web site."

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The Result

• Wikipedia wins?!
•     Why?

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Fragmentation

• the isolation of stories from each other and from
  their larger contexts (42)
• individuals over the broader scope
• erases history by making events self-contained
• details are brushed aside or retold through
  archetypal frames

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Authority Disorder

• News is preoccupied with order and how is it
  challenged
• evening news syndrome death, mayhem, political
  crisis, failures in the system, doubt...
• politicians over policies
• Concentration on authority figures
• Example Huckabee's Happy Spears Is Keeping Her
  Baby

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Why does it happen?

• Consider these 3 Propositions
• Journalists try to simplify complex stories
• Journalists try to be (or appear) objective
• Journalists must be able to keep stories alive
  even when there are no new developments

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The Future Is there hope?

•     Bennett says it doesnt look good
•     Why not?
•     But, what about...
• Civic Journalism gtgt Citizen Journalism gtgt Pro-Am
  Journalism

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Conclusion

•     To Summarize
• News tends to prefer the personalized drama, at
  the expense of context
• These information biases naturally follow current
  journalistic practices
• To change the biases, the method needs to be
  considered