Samuel Robert Lichter
Encyclopedia
S. Robert Lichter is Professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...

 of Communication
Communication
Communication is the activity of conveying meaningful information. Communication requires a sender, a message, and an intended recipient, although the receiver need not be present or aware of the sender's intent to communicate at the time of communication; thus communication can occur across vast...

 at George Mason University
George Mason University
George Mason University is a public university based in unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, United States, south of and adjacent to the city of Fairfax. Additional campuses are located nearby in Arlington County, Prince William County, and Loudoun County...

, where he directs the Center for Media and Public Affairs
Center for Media and Public Affairs
The Center for Media and Public Affairs is a self-described nonpartisan and nonprofit research and educational organization that is affiliated with George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. It was founded in 1985 by political scientists Dr. S. Robert Lichter and his ex-wife, the late Dr....

, which conducts scientific studies of the news and entertainment media, and the Statistical Assessment Service
Statistical Assessment Service
Statistical Assessment Service is a non-profit educational organization, based in Washington, DC, which analyzes and critiques the presentation of scientific findings and statistical evidence in the news media.-Overview:...

 (STATS), which works to improve the quality of statistical and scientific information in the news.

Academia

Lichter has taught political science at Princeton
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....

, Georgetown
Georgetown University
Georgetown University is a private, Jesuit, research university whose main campus is in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic university in the United States...

, and George Washington
George Washington University
The George Washington University is a private, coeducational comprehensive university located in Washington, D.C. in the United States...

 universities, and he was a research faculty member at Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

 and Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

. He was also a National Endowment for the Humanities
National Endowment for the Humanities
The National Endowment for the Humanities is an independent federal agency of the United States established by the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965 dedicated to supporting research, education, preservation, and public programs in the humanities. The NEH is located at...

 Fellow at Smith College
Smith College
Smith College is a private, independent women's liberal arts college located in Northampton, Massachusetts. It is the largest member of the Seven Sisters...

 and held the DeWitt Wallace
DeWitt Wallace
DeWitt Wallace , also known as William Roy was a United States magazine publisher. He co-founded Reader's Digest with his wife Lila Wallace and published the first issue in 1922.Born in St...

 Chair in Mass Communications at the American Enterprise Institute
American Enterprise Institute
The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research is a conservative think tank founded in 1943. Its stated mission is "to defend the principles and improve the institutions of American freedom and democratic capitalism—limited government, private enterprise, individual liberty and...

. He received his Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

 and his B.A., summa cum laude, from the University of Minnesota
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...

. He has received a Goldsmith Research Award from Harvard University and the Solimene Award of Excellence from the American Medical Writers Association's New England Chapter.

Scholarly work

Lichter has authored or co-authored fourteen books and over a hundred scholarly articles and monographs on the news and entertainment media. His best-known work, The Media Elite
The Media Elite
The Media Elite, written by S. Robert Lichter, Stanley Rothman, and Linda Lichter, details a social scientific study of the ideological commitments of elite journalists and the consequences of those commitments on both the reporting itself and on its reception by the public. The book states that...

, (written with Stanley Rothman and Linda Lichter) argued that journalists, on average, held more liberal
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...

 political views than the general public, and that their backgrounds and outlooks affect their coverage of the news.

This claim was extended by conservative pundits as evidence for a liberal bias in the media. It also provoked widespread debate among journalists and their critics. The Media Elite was based on interviews with major media journalists and content analysis
Content analysis
Content analysis or textual analysis is a methodology in the social sciences for studying the content of communication. Earl Babbie defines it as "the study of recorded human communications, such as books, websites, paintings and laws."According to Dr...

 of their work.

Lichter and his co-authors have also written on the social and political perspectives of popular culture, in books such as Prime Time and Watching America, as well as on news coverage of science and health issues, in Environmental Cancer—A Political Disease and It Ain't Necessarily So. His most recent books (written with Stephen Farnsworth) are The Nightly News Nightmare: Television Coverage of Presidential Elections (2006, 2nd ed.); and The Mediated Presidency: Television News and Presidential Governance (2005). These works use content analysis to examine the media's coverage of government and election campaigns.

In 1986 Lichter and his late ex-wife, sociologist Linda Lichter, established the Center for Media and Public Affairs
Center for Media and Public Affairs
The Center for Media and Public Affairs is a self-described nonpartisan and nonprofit research and educational organization that is affiliated with George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. It was founded in 1985 by political scientists Dr. S. Robert Lichter and his ex-wife, the late Dr....

 (CMPA), a non-profit organization that sought to influence public debate on the media by publishing frequent studies of media coverage using the social scientific tool of content analysis
Content analysis
Content analysis or textual analysis is a methodology in the social sciences for studying the content of communication. Earl Babbie defines it as "the study of recorded human communications, such as books, websites, paintings and laws."According to Dr...

. This was the first time this type of academic research was used on a regular and systematic basis to affect the general public's view of the media. Since then other groups have followed suit, including the Annenberg School for Communication
Annenberg School for Communication
There are two schools named Annenberg School for Communication.*University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism*Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania...

and the Pew Foundation's Project for Excellence in Journalism
Project for Excellence in Journalism
The Project for Excellence in Journalism is a non-profit research organization in the US that uses empirical methods to evaluate and study the performance of the press. It asserts that it is "non partisan, non ideological and non political"...

. In 2004 the CMPA became affiliated with the George Mason University
George Mason University
George Mason University is a public university based in unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, United States, south of and adjacent to the city of Fairfax. Additional campuses are located nearby in Arlington County, Prince William County, and Loudoun County...

.

Journal articles

Reprinted on the occasion of the award by the National Association of Scholars
National Association of Scholars
The National Association of Scholars is a non-profit organization in the United States that opposes multiculturalism and affirmative action and seeks to counter what it considers a "liberal bias" in academia...

 of the Sidney Hook Memorial Award to Stanley Rothman, 22 May 2004. Originally published online in The Forum (subscription required).

Criticism and Response

Some critics, such as Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting
Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting
Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting is a progressive media criticism organization based in New York City, founded in 1986.FAIR describes itself on its website as "the national media watch group" and defines its mission as working to "invigorate the First Amendment by advocating for greater diversity...

 (FAIR) and the Columbia Journalism Review
Columbia Journalism Review
The Columbia Journalism Review is an American magazine for professional journalists published bimonthly by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism since 1961....

, have criticized Lichter and the CMPA for holding a conservative
Conservatism
Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...

 bias of their own or for being funded by conservative foundations.

Nonetheless, major media outlets regularly carry stories based on the CMPA's studies, and the organization was described by the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....

 Tom Rosenstiel
Tom Rosenstiel
Tom Rosenstiel is an author, journalist, press critic and founder and director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism , a research organization that studies the news media and is part of the Pew Research Center in Washington, D.C...

 as "non-partisan" in an interview in the D.C.-based City Paper
Washington City Paper
The Washington City Paper is a U.S. alternative weekly newspaper serving the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area.Founded in 1981, and published for its first year under the masthead 1981, taking the City Paper name in volume 2, by Russ Smith, it shared ownership with the Chicago Reader from 1982...

 (2/30/90). USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...

 (6/28/91) also described Lichter's methodology as "non-partisan", and Newsday
Newsday
Newsday is a daily American newspaper that primarily serves Nassau and Suffolk counties and the New York City borough of Queens on Long Island, although it is sold throughout the New York metropolitan area...

 (3/4/92) characterized his research as "non-ideological." After a Washington Post article referred to CMPA as "conservative," the Post published a "Clarification", which concluded, "The center describes itself as nonpartisan, and its studies have been cited by both conservative and liberal commentators." (2/9/00)
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