Bias, agenda and the construction of reality

Reality is a fickle term. We have a pretty clear idea on what is real, and yet we are simultaneously aware of the fact that every media producer fights to put forward her ideology in every media product.

Therefore it is often argued, representation is not reality. Taking Donald Trump for an example, a man who I am certain Long Road Media students have never met or are ever likely to meet, we probably still have a very definite view of the man. Where did this interpretation come from? It is created through re-presentation.

However, we also need to take into consideration the possibility that representation constructs reality. Beliefs and attitudes are repeated, reinforced and legitimised. Audiences can often reach their own conclusion on media products, but there is generally a dominant ideology or 'right' way to think presented. As British citizens, our perception of other countries may entirely be created through carefully constructed representations. 

Therefore, we need to be wary of bias and agenda when analysing a media product. 

Bias/media bias - Where the producers of a text demonstrate a prejudice towards a certain group, or favouritism towards another. A one sided perspective.

Agenda - the ideological goals of a media product. Often a media product will attempt to change the ideology of an audience, for example in a party political broadcast

 Is it biased?

Discerning newspaper bias can be done through the following ways:

• Bias through selection and omission 
• Bias through placement 
• Bias by headline 
• Bias by photos, captions and camera angles 
• Bias through use of names and titles 
• Bias through statistics and crowd counts 
• Bias by source control 
• Word choice and tone 

(list created by Vicki Peers)

Analysing bias and the construction of representation in The Times and The Daily Mirror

1. Create a new blog post called 'analysing bias and the construction of representation in The Times and The Daily Mirror'
2. Right click here, open in a new tab, save the images and insert them in to your blog post.
3. Open your newspaper key terms post in a new tab, and bullet point list as many examples of these from the newspapers as possible (not every key term will crop up!)
4. Broadly what political beliefs do these newspapers have? Use the 'bias list' above to identify how the newspaper presents it's political bias. 
5. What representation of America is constructed in these newspapers? Use explicit examples from the newspapers.