Being Biased is to be unfairly prejudiced for or against someone or something.
Right Winged Political Beliefs associate with capitalistic parties such as the conservatives who are very money orientated and believe there should be classes of people.
Left Winged Political Beliefs associate with communist parties, they are more about the idea of equality and people helping others in daily life as promoted in the Labour party.
Liberal democrats are in the middle of these two wings.
- Bias through selection and omission - What they selectively choose to ignore opposed to influential aspects of which they leave in.
- Bias through placement- In order to subliminally associate stories they can align certain pictures and titles.
- Bias by headline - Headlines are one of the first things you see, hence their view and wording will be your first impression on that matter.
- Bias by photos, captions and camera angles - Photos taken and used in the media can be unflattering to those who the articles go against, they can make a consumer change views on a situation just by seeing someone looking vulnerable.
- Bias through use of names and titles - Titles more often than not, show power and by not using someones title you're almost stripping them of this power whether it has been earned or not.
- Bias through statistics and crowd counts - facts and statistics seem to solidify a persons viewpoint on a situation as it makes it a lot more real to them. Once numbers come into play its as though you can visualise for example a percentage of people affected by an incident in a particular area.
- Bias by source control - for a newspaper, the source of which it retrieves its information should be right in accordance with their choice of wing as they need the correct stories for example a right winged newspaper may chose to feature political articles concerning Theresa May's bad choices on a particularly tender issue such as education or welfare.
- Word choice and tone - word choice can change a consumers whole perception of a story as consistently using negative words when referring to someone will create an overall negative tone around them. whereas, using positive and congratulative words will deem them honest in the public eye. This is why all politicians need the media to build up their image.
This Daily Mail front cover was seen as particularly biased in portraying our PM in such a sexual manner. This photograph was clearly not intended to be misconstrued in this way as these women are both powerful and much more than just a pair of legs.
The Metro:This article is biased towards the law and its ethics; in its biased headline as "poor sweet Sky", the unfortunate dog "suffered ruff justice". This play on words makes the dog seem even more harmless as we would associate a dog's 'ruff' with playfullness opposed to a bark of a dog which needs to be put down. The sibilance in the first section of the headline almost mimics a whistle helping us to picture this trained pet being attentive and loving to its owner.
This photo also seems to be biased in favour of the dog as it was clearly taken by the owner in admiration of their pet, the high angle makes the dog seem weak and less likely to do any damage to anyone. They've chosen a picture that does not show it's teeth to decrease the look of savageness, this dog looks harmless. Moreover, statistics presented in the text seem biased as the verb "soared" is used when describing the increase in crime over the past year (not including dogs). They do this opposed to showing a percentage or statistic showing attacks by dogs over the past year, this would surely change the consumer's views on the situation, especially if they have children.
Hi Trinity,
ReplyDeleteThis is a great example of how newspapers can use media language to seem bias... well done! Can you now find another example of how Van Zoonen's theory can be applied to newspapers articles too? Make sure you include in your analysis evidence of bias and counter-feminist approach.