Political Bias

Political Bias

Bias= being in favour of one point of view over another
(lowkey impossible to not be bias)  

What benefit is there to a newspapers demonstrating particular bias?

• allows newspaper to target certain audience (right/left)
• financial befits if preferred political party were to win

Broadsheet VS Tabloid 

• font size of headlines giving news dramatic presidency
• font/ size of mast head eg. red top 
• use of images taking up whole front compared to small image relating to text
• by using explicit recognisable images of cereal killers people are interested
• quality or serous press eg aimed at high social group vs thrilling layout 
• longer articles with serous head lines compared to alliteration and jokey lines 

Polysemy= two or more possible meanings can be suggested by a media product 

not everything has a single meaning, one of the best ways of applying this is through suggesting two or more meanings through a media product. In creating a newspaper, producers typically attempt to avoid polysemic readings> this forces the audience in to a particular reading is called anchoring.

Anchoring= the fixing of a particular meaning (often done by through the head line) 

How is the audience pushed into agreeing or disagreeing?

Similarities:
use of bullet points 
large white titles
master head at the top
image of party leader
smaller and more insignificant text 

Differences: 
photo vs cartoony image 
jokey headline vs straight to the point
explicit vote instruction vs more subtlety

Can Representations construct reality? yes! eg. representation of people in the press  like current sexual assault stories 

Agenda= specific target or gaol that needs to be completed 

Bias through selection and omission 

Bias through placement

Bias by headline

Bias by photos, captions and camera angels 

Bias though use of names/titles 

Bias through statistics 

Bias by source control 

bias by word of mouth