Media coverage frequently displays an inherent bias, evident in news articles and commonly known as media bias. This bias can be influenced by various factors such as the ownership or financial backing of the media outlet, as well as its political or ideological orientation and the demographics of its ownership.
Some of the many ways in which media coverage manifests bias include:
visibility of topics and entities in the media (coverage bias)
the selection or rejection of events, sources, and information (gatekeeping bias)
labelling and word choice (statement bias)
There are two high-level types of media bias that relate to the intention of news outlets when writing articles:
ideology – articles promote a specific opinion on a topic
spin – articles attempt to create a memorable story
The image below explains the motives and forms of media bias that are introduced into the production of a news article. Additionally, there are factors that influence the way an article is perceived by consumers (consumer context) that are not related to media bias.
Figure 1
Media bias in the production of a news article
Note. From "Automated identification of media bias in news articles: an interdisciplinary literature review" by F. Hamborg, K. Donnay and B. Gipp, 2019, International Journal on Digital Libraries, 20, p.394. (https://doi.org/10.1007/s00799-018-0261-y). CC by 4.0 DEED.
References:
Hamborg, F., Donnay, K. & Gipp, B. (2019). Automated identification of media bias in news articles: an interdisciplinary literature review. International Journal on Digital Libraries, 20, 391–415. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00799-018-0261-y
Rodrigo-Gin´es, F.J., Carrillo-de Albornoz, Jl., & Plaza L. (2024). A systematic review on media bias detection: What is media bias, how it is expressed, and how to detect it. Expert Systems with Applications, 237:121641. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2023.121641