The left-liberal skew of Western media

Authors

  • Emil O.W. Kirkegaard Ulster Institute for Social Research, Denmark
  • Jonatan Pallesen Independent researcher, Denmark
  • Emil Elgaard Independent researcher, United States
  • Noah Carl Independent researcher, United Kingdom

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.30564/jpr.v3i3.3282

Abstract

We gathered survey data on journalists’ political views in 17 Western countries. We then matched these data to outcomes from national elections, and constructed metrics of journalists’ relative preference for different political parties. Compared to the general population of voters, journalists prefer parties that have more left-wing positions overall (r’s -.47 to -.53, depending on the metric used), and that are associated with certain ideologies, namely environmentalism, feminism, social liberalism, socialism, and support for the European Union. We used Bayesian model averaging to assess the validity of the predictors in multivariate models. We found that, of the ideology tags in our dataset, ‘conservative’ (negative), ‘nationalist’ (negative) and ‘green’ (positive) were the most consistent predictors with nontrivial effect sizes. We also computed estimates of the skew of journalists' political views in different countries. Overall, our results indicate that the Western media has a left-liberal skew.

Keywords:

Media, Journalists, Media bias, Political bias, Cross-national, Survey, Poll

References

[1] Farhi, P. (Apr. 27, 2012) How biased are the media, really? Washington Post.

[2] Eberl, J.-M. (2018) Lying press: Three levels of perceived media bias and their relationship with political preferences [J]. Communications, Vol. 0, No. 0, Art. no. 0. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/commun-2018-0002.

[3] Stern, K. (Oct. 21, 2017) Former NPR CEO opens up about liberal media bias. New York Post.

[4] Gainor, D. (Apr. 21, 2018) Media war on Trump continues around the clock, and other proof of media bias. Fox News.

[5] Alterman, E. (2003) What liberal media? the truth about bias and the news [M].

[6] Hassell, H. J. G., Holbein, J. B., and Miles, M. R. (Apr. 2020) There is no liberal media bias in which news stories political journalists choose to cover [J]. Science Advances, Vol. 6, No. 14, eaay9344. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aay9344.

[7] Groseclose, T. (2012) Left Turn: How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind [M].

[8] Tsfati, Y. and Ariely, G. (Aug. 2014) Individual and Contextual Correlates of Trust in Media Across 44 Countries [J]. Communication Research, Vol. 41, No. 6, Art. no. 6. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0093650213485972.

[9] Miljan, L. A. (2000) The backgrounds, beliefs, and reporting practices of Canadian journalists [D].

[10] Boatsinker, C. (Mar. 11, 2018) Bonniers terrorkampagne mod alternative medier. Dagens Blæser.

[11] MacDonald, K. (2002) A People That Shall Dwell Alone: Judaism as a Group Evolutionary Strategy, with Diaspora Peoples [M]. First edition.

[12] Maranto, R., Hess, F., Redding, R., Agresto, J., Balch, S. H., Brown, H., et al. (2009) The Politically Correct University: Problems, Scope, and Reforms [M].

[13] Eberl, J.-M., Boomgaarden, H. G., and Wagner, M. (Dec. 2017) One Bias Fits All? Three Types of Media Bias and Their Effects on Party Preferences [J]. Communication Research, Vol. 44, No. 8, 1125– 1148. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0093650215614364.

[14] Hamborg, F., Donnay, K., and Gipp, B. (Dec. 2019) Automated identification of media bias in news articles: an interdisciplinary literature review [J]. International Journal on Digital Libraries, Vol. 20, No. 4, Art. no. 4. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00799-018-0261-y.

[15] Groseclose, T. and Milyo, J. (Nov. 2005) A Measure of Media Bias [J]. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 120, No. 4, Art. no. 4. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1162/003355305775097542.

[16] Gentzkow, M. and Shapiro, J. M. (2010) What Drives Media Slant? Evidence From U.S. Daily Newspapers [J]. Econometrica, Vol. 78, No. 1, Art. no. 1. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3982/ECTA7195.

[17] Budak, C., Goel, S., and Rao, J. M. (Jan. 2016) Fair and Balanced? Quantifying Media Bias through Crowdsourced Content Analysis [J]. Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 80, No. S1, Art. no. S1. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfw007.

[18] Patterson, T. E. and Donsbagh, W. (Oct. 1996) News decisions: Journalists as partisan actors [J]. Political Communication, Vol. 13, No. 4, 455–468. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.1996.9963131.

[19] Feldman, S. and Johnston, C. (2014) Understanding the Determinants of Political Ideology: Implications of Structural Complexity [J]. Political Psychology, Vol. 35, No. 3, Art. no. 3. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12055.

[20] Kirkegaard, E. O. W., Bjerrekær, J. D., and Carl, N. (Feb. 2017) Cognitive ability and political preferences in Denmark [J]. Open Quantitative Sociology & Political Science, Vol. 1, No. 1, Art. no. 1.

[21] Malka, A., Lelkes, Y., and Soto, C. J. (Jul. 2019) Are Cultural and Economic Conservatism Positively Correlated? A Large-Scale Cross-National Test [J]. British Journal of Political Science, Vol. 49, No. 3, Art. no. 3. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007123417000072.

[22] D’Alessio, D. and Allen, M. (Dec. 2000) Media bias in presidential elections: a meta-analysis [J]. Journal of Communication, Vol. 50, No. 4, Art. no. 4. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2000.tb02866.x.

[23] Peng, Y. (Oct. 2018) Same Candidates, Different Faces: Uncovering Media Bias in Visual Portrayals of Presidential Candidates with Computer Vision [J]. Journal of Communication, Vol. 68, No. 5, Art. no. 5. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqy041.

[24] Langbert, M. (Apr. 24, 2018) Homogeneous: The Political Affiliations of Elite Liberal Arts College Faculty.

[25] Agnoli, F., Wicherts, J. M., Veldkamp, C. L. S., Albiero, P., and Cubelli, R. (Mar. 2017) Questionable research practices among italian research psychologists [J]. PLOS ONE, Vol. 12, No. 3, Art. no. 3. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0172792.

[26] Gervais, W. M. and Najle, M. B. (Jan. 2018) How Many Atheists Are There? How Many Athe ists Are There? [J]. Social Psychological and Personality Science, Vol. 9, No. 1, Art. no. 1. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550617707015.

[27] Moore, D. A. (2016) Preregister if you want to [J]. American Psychologist, Vol. 71, No. 3, Art. no. 3. 10.1037/a0040195.

[28] Białowolski, P., Kuszewski, T., and Witkowski, B. (Feb. 2014) Bayesian averaging of classical estimates in forecasting macroeconomic indicators with application of business survey data [J]. Empirica, Vol. 41, No. 1, 53–68. 10.1007/s10663-013-9227-x.

[29] Jones, G. and Schneider, W. J. (Mar. 2006) Intelligence, Human Capital, and Economic Growth: A Bayesian Averaging of Classical Estimates (BACE) Approach [J]. Journal of Economic Growth, Vol. 11, No. 1, Art. no. 1. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10887-006-7407-2.

[30] Sala-I-Martin, X., Doppelhofer, G., and Miller, R. I. (2004) Determinants of Long-Term Growth: A Bayesian Averaging of Classical Estimates (BACE) Approach [J]. American Economic Review, Vol. 94, No. 4, Art. no. 4.

[31] Simo-Kengne, B. D. (2016) What explains the recent growth performance in Sub-Saharan Africa? Results from a Bayesian Averaging of Classical Estimates (BACE) Approach. Working Papers, No. 578.

[32] James, G., Witten, D., Hastie, T., and Tibshirani, R., Eds. (2013) An introduction to statistical learning: with applications in R [M].

[33] Vaitsiakhovich, T., Drichel, D., Herold, C., Lacour, A., and Becker, T. (Jan. 2015) METAINTER: meta-analysis of multiple regression models in genome-wide association studies [J]. Bioinformatics, Vol. 31, No. 2, Art. no. 2. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/bioinformatics/btu629.

[34] Zeugner, M. F. and S. (2015) BMS: Bayesian Model Averaging Library [M].

[35] Duarte, J. L., Crawford, J. T., Stern, C., Haidt, J., Jussim, L., and Tetlock, P. E. (Jan. 2015) Political diversity will improve social psychological science [J]. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, Vol. 38, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X14000430.

[36] Zigerell, L. J. (Jan. 2017) Reducing Political Bias in Political Science Estimates [J]. PS: Political Science & Politics, Vol. 50, No. 1, Art. no. 1. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049096516002389.

[37] Carl, N. (Jan. 2018) The Political Attitudes of British Academics [J]. Open Quantitative Sociology & Political Science, Vol. 1, No. 1, Art. no. 1.

[38] Werfhorst, H. G. (Jan. 2020) Are universities leftwing bastions? The political orientation of professors, professionals, and managers in Europe [J]. The British Journal of Sociology, Vol. 71, No. 1, 47–73. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-4446.12716.

[39] Chapman, S., Nguyen, T. N., and White, C. (Feb. 2007) Press-released papers are more downloaded and cited [J]. Tobacco Control, Vol. 16, No. 1, 71–71. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1136/tc.2006.019034.

[40] Liang, X., Su, L. Y.-F., Yeo, S. K., Scheufele, D. A., Brossard, D., Xenos, M., et al. (Dec. 2014) Building Buzz: (Scientists) Communicating Science in New Media Environments [J]. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Vol. 91, No. 4, 772–791. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1077699014550092.

[41] Manisha, M. and Mahesh, G. (2015) Citation pattern of newsworthy research articles [J]. Journal of Scientometric Research, Vol. 4, No. 1, 42. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4103/2320-0057.156022.

[42] Shafer, J. and Doherty, T. (Apr. 25, 2017) The Media Bubble Is Real — And Worse Than You Think. POLITICO Magazine.

[43] Silver, N. (Mar. 10, 2017) There Really Was A Liberal Media Bubble. FiveThirtyEight.

[44] Asp, K. (2012) Journalistkårens partisympatier. Svenska journalister 1989–2011.

[45] Willnat, L., Weaver, D. H., and Wilhoit, G. C. (Feb. 2019) The American Journalist in the Digital Age: How journalists and the public think about journalism in the United States [J]. Journalism Studies, Vol. 20, No. 3, 423–441. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2017.1387071.

[46] Lambert, B. (Jan. 29, 2007) Katherine Kersten: The One-Woman Solution. The Rake.

[47] Simmons, J. P., Nelson, L. D., and Simonsohn, U. (Nov. 2011) False-Positive Psychology Undisclosed Flexibility in Data Collection and Analysis Allows Presenting Anything as Significant [J]. Psychological Science, Vol. 22, No. 11, Art. no. 11. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797611417632.

[48] Wicherts, J. M., Veldkamp, C. L. S., Augusteijn, H. E. M., Bakker, M., van Aert, R. C. M., and van Assen, M. A. L. M. (Nov. 2016) Degrees of Freedom in Planning, Running, Analyzing, and Reporting Psychological Studies: A Checklist to Avoid p-Hacking [J]. Frontiers in Psychology, Vol. 7, DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01832.

[49] Miller, P. (2013) Media law for producers [M].

Downloads

How to Cite

Kirkegaard, E. O., Pallesen, J., Elgaard, E., & Carl, N. (2021). The left-liberal skew of Western media. Journal of Psychological Research, 3(3), 26–43. https://doi.org/10.30564/jpr.v3i3.3282

Issue

Vol. 3 , Iss. 3 (July 2021)

Article Type

Article

License

Copyright © 2021 Emil O.W. Kirkegaard, Jonatan Pallesen, Emil Elgaard, Noah Carl

Creative Commons License

This is an open access article under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) License.

Crossref
Scopus
Google Scholar
Europe PMC