The Media Elite
Encyclopedia
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 because of the political opinions of journalists, the elite media has a liberal media bias. The conservative Media Research Center
contends that The Media Elite is "the most widely quoted media study of the 1980s and remains a landmark today."
, completed in 1980, of 238 journalists randomly selected from America's
most influential news
organizations: ABC
, CBS
, NBC
, PBS
, Time
, Newsweek
, U.S. News & World Report
, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal. Content analysis
and audience reception studies were used to determine if deviations between the views held by journalists and those held by the general public had any effect on the way the news gets reported and the resulting beliefs held by the public.
Some aspects of the methodology have been challenged, and the authors debated their critics in academic journal
s.
Problems with the methodology included: a low sample size; poor randomization; the failure to include media owners, managers, or editors in the samples; the inadequate use of proper polling techniques; the use of biased questions; point of view assertions by the studies authors that arbitrarily qualified some things as conservative or liberal; the failure to adequately measure the general public's attitudes; and poor statistical analysis of the results.
. In 1980, this "media elite" was predominantly white
(95 per cent), male
(79 per cent), college
-educated
(93 per cent), and well paid. Four out of five had been raised in relatively affluent business
or professional families; two out of three came from states in the Northeast or industrial Midwest.
In terms of beliefs, one distinctive characteristic was a strongly secular outlook. In marked contrast to a 1977 Gallup poll of the general population in which 94 per cent of respondents professed a religious faith, 50 per cent of the elite journalists listed their religion as "none." And while 86 per cent of respondents from the general population said their religious beliefs are very or fairly important to them (and 42 per cent had attended a religious service in the preceding week), an identical 86 per cent of elite journalists said they seldom or never go to church.
Concerning political beliefs: 54 per cent of the journalists described their views as left of center
, 29 per cent as "middle of the road," and only 17 per cent as right of center. The authors argue that this ratio of more than three liberal journalists for each conservative contrasts sharply with the distribution among the American public: every relevant poll conducted in the decade from 1975 to 1985 found conservatives outnumbering liberals in the electorate, often by a ratio of three to two or more.
Of course, partisan or ideological
labels provide only a very rough indication of political orientation. Thus one of the great strengths of the Media Elite survey is that it also included several sets of more precise questions about political attitudes and behaviors. One set asked how the journalists had voted in each of the last four presidential elections (i.e., 1964–76). It produced what is now probably the most frequently quoted datum in the media bias debate: Among elite journalists who voted for a major party candidate, support for the more liberal Democratic contender ranged from 81 per cent for George McGovern
and Jimmy Carter
, to 87 per cent for Hubert Humphrey
, to a high of 94 per cent for Lyndon B. Johnson
.
An additional set of questions elicited attitudes on 21 economic, political, and social issues. The responses showed little support for egalitarian socialist economics
but strong endorsement of liberal social views in such areas as welfare
, affirmative action
, environmentalism
, and, in particular, individual morality
. For example, only 13 per cent of the journalists agreed that large private corporations should be nationalized, while 86 per cent endorsed the statement that "people with more ability should earn higher salaries." Similarly, fully 90 per cent agreed that "it is a woman's right to decide whether or not to have an abortion
," while only 25 per cent agreed that homosexual sex is "wrong." Fewer than half (47 per cent) agreed that adultery
is wrong.
The authors also sought to provide insight into the future by conducting a separate survey of students at Columbia University's
Graduate School of Journalism
, a principal training ground for prospective members of the media elite. They found that while the students were more diverse in race and gender than the existing elite they were even more homogeneous in background and beliefs. In particular, self-described liberals outnumbered conservatives 85 per cent to 11 per cent, a ratio of almost eight to one.
. Energy scientists, energy engineers, nuclear scientists, and science journalists were all surveyed – only 24% of journalists favored rapid nuclear development, compared with 69% of nuclear scientists, 70% of energy scientists, and 80% of the energy engineers. The content analysis showed that the overall coverage of nuclear power issues tended to overwhelmingly favor the views of the journalists ("at six out of seven media outlets, anti-nuclear stories outnumbered pro-nuclear pieces by a wide margin”). An analysis of the opinions expressed by scientists and engineers that were cited in media reports also overwhelmingly reflected the views of the journalists rather than the views of the scientists and engineers; media reporting suggested that the scientific community is sharply divided over the question of nuclear power, with a majority of scientists opposing the development of nuclear energy.
and Edward S. Herman
claim the logic in these conclusions is flawed. They state that comparing the media product to the voting record of the journalists is akin to thinking auto-factory workers design the cars they help produce. Indeed, they claim that the media owners and news makers are the ones with an agenda, and they assert that this agenda is subordinated to corporate interests that they view as often leaning right.
Chomsky goes on to assert that having more journalists vote "in one faction of the Business Party" (Democrats) as opposed to "the other faction of the Business Party" (Republicans), doesn't make news coverage liberal. This uses the assumption of the investment theory of party competition
, meaning that both political parties are run in the interests of competing businesses.
A 1998 study from FAIR
found that journalists are "mostly centrist in their political orientation"; 30% considered themselves to the left on social issues compared to 9% on the right, while 11% considered themselves to the left on economic issues compared to 19% on the right. The report explained that since journalists considered themselves to be centrists, "perhaps this is why an earlier survey found that they tended to vote for Bill Clinton in large numbers." FAIR uses this study to support the claim that media bias is propagated down from the management, and that individual journalists are relatively neutral in their work.
Ideology
An ideology is a set of ideas that constitutes one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things , as in common sense and several philosophical tendencies , or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to...
of elite journalists
Journalism
Journalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience. Along with covering organizations and institutions such as government and...
and the consequences of those commitments on both the reporting itself and on its reception by the public. The book states that because of the political opinions of journalists, the elite media has a liberal media bias. The conservative Media Research Center
Media Research Center
The Media Research Center is a content analysis organization based in Alexandria, Virginia, founded in 1987 by conservative activist L. Brent Bozell III...
contends that The Media Elite is "the most widely quoted media study of the 1980s and remains a landmark today."
Research methodology
The book is based on a surveyStatistical survey
Survey methodology is the field that studies surveys, that is, the sample of individuals from a population with a view towards making statistical inferences about the population using the sample. Polls about public opinion, such as political beliefs, are reported in the news media in democracies....
, completed in 1980, of 238 journalists randomly selected from America's
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
most influential news
News
News is the communication of selected information on current events which is presented by print, broadcast, Internet, or word of mouth to a third party or mass audience.- Etymology :...
organizations: ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
, CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
, NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
, PBS
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
, Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
, Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
, U.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report is an American news magazine published from Washington, D.C. Along with Time and Newsweek it was for many years a leading news weekly, focusing more than its counterparts on political, economic, health and education stories...
, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal. 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...
and audience reception studies were used to determine if deviations between the views held by journalists and those held by the general public had any effect on the way the news gets reported and the resulting beliefs held by the public.
Some aspects of the methodology have been challenged, and the authors debated their critics in academic journal
Academic journal
An academic journal is a peer-reviewed periodical in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as forums for the introduction and presentation for scrutiny of new research, and the critique of existing research...
s.
Problems with the methodology included: a low sample size; poor randomization; the failure to include media owners, managers, or editors in the samples; the inadequate use of proper polling techniques; the use of biased questions; point of view assertions by the studies authors that arbitrarily qualified some things as conservative or liberal; the failure to adequately measure the general public's attitudes; and poor statistical analysis of the results.
Findings
The survey revealed a group of individuals at once remarkably similar to one another in background, status, and beliefs and strikingly different from the general publicPublic
In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individuals, and the public is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the Öffentlichkeit or public sphere. The concept of a public has also been defined in political science,...
. In 1980, this "media elite" was predominantly white
White people
White people is a term which usually refers to human beings characterized, at least in part, by the light pigmentation of their skin...
(95 per cent), male
Male
Male refers to the biological sex of an organism, or part of an organism, which produces small mobile gametes, called spermatozoa. Each spermatozoon can fuse with a larger female gamete or ovum, in the process of fertilization...
(79 per cent), college
College
A college is an educational institution or a constituent part of an educational institution. Usage varies in English-speaking nations...
-educated
Education
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
(93 per cent), and well paid. Four out of five had been raised in relatively affluent business
Business
A business is an organization engaged in the trade of goods, services, or both to consumers. Businesses are predominant in capitalist economies, where most of them are privately owned and administered to earn profit to increase the wealth of their owners. Businesses may also be not-for-profit...
or professional families; two out of three came from states in the Northeast or industrial Midwest.
In terms of beliefs, one distinctive characteristic was a strongly secular outlook. In marked contrast to a 1977 Gallup poll of the general population in which 94 per cent of respondents professed a religious faith, 50 per cent of the elite journalists listed their religion as "none." And while 86 per cent of respondents from the general population said their religious beliefs are very or fairly important to them (and 42 per cent had attended a religious service in the preceding week), an identical 86 per cent of elite journalists said they seldom or never go to church.
Concerning political beliefs: 54 per cent of the journalists described their views as left of center
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,...
, 29 per cent as "middle of the road," and only 17 per cent as right of center. The authors argue that this ratio of more than three liberal journalists for each conservative contrasts sharply with the distribution among the American public: every relevant poll conducted in the decade from 1975 to 1985 found conservatives outnumbering liberals in the electorate, often by a ratio of three to two or more.
Of course, partisan or ideological
Ideology
An ideology is a set of ideas that constitutes one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things , as in common sense and several philosophical tendencies , or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to...
labels provide only a very rough indication of political orientation. Thus one of the great strengths of the Media Elite survey is that it also included several sets of more precise questions about political attitudes and behaviors. One set asked how the journalists had voted in each of the last four presidential elections (i.e., 1964–76). It produced what is now probably the most frequently quoted datum in the media bias debate: Among elite journalists who voted for a major party candidate, support for the more liberal Democratic contender ranged from 81 per cent for George McGovern
George McGovern
George Stanley McGovern is an historian, author, and former U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator, and the Democratic Party nominee in the 1972 presidential election....
and Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...
, to 87 per cent for Hubert Humphrey
Hubert Humphrey
Hubert Horatio Humphrey, Jr. , served under President Lyndon B. Johnson as the 38th Vice President of the United States. Humphrey twice served as a United States Senator from Minnesota, and served as Democratic Majority Whip. He was a founder of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and...
, to a high of 94 per cent for Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...
.
An additional set of questions elicited attitudes on 21 economic, political, and social issues. The responses showed little support for egalitarian socialist economics
Economics
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...
but strong endorsement of liberal social views in such areas as welfare
Welfare
Welfare refers to a broad discourse which may hold certain implications regarding the provision of a minimal level of wellbeing and social support for all citizens without the stigma of charity. This is termed "social solidarity"...
, affirmative action
Affirmative action
Affirmative action refers to policies that take factors including "race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation or national origin" into consideration in order to benefit an underrepresented group, usually as a means to counter the effects of a history of discrimination.-Origins:The term...
, environmentalism
Environmentalism
Environmentalism is a broad philosophy, ideology and social movement regarding concerns for environmental conservation and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seeks to incorporate the concerns of non-human elements...
, and, in particular, individual morality
Morality
Morality is the differentiation among intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are good and bad . A moral code is a system of morality and a moral is any one practice or teaching within a moral code...
. For example, only 13 per cent of the journalists agreed that large private corporations should be nationalized, while 86 per cent endorsed the statement that "people with more ability should earn higher salaries." Similarly, fully 90 per cent agreed that "it is a woman's right to decide whether or not to have an abortion
Abortion
Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...
," while only 25 per cent agreed that homosexual sex is "wrong." Fewer than half (47 per cent) agreed that adultery
Adultery
Adultery is sexual infidelity to one's spouse, and is a form of extramarital sex. It originally referred only to sex between a woman who was married and a person other than her spouse. Even in cases of separation from one's spouse, an extramarital affair is still considered adultery.Adultery is...
is wrong.
The authors also sought to provide insight into the future by conducting a separate survey of students at Columbia University's
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...
Graduate School of Journalism
Journalism
Journalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience. Along with covering organizations and institutions such as government and...
, a principal training ground for prospective members of the media elite. They found that while the students were more diverse in race and gender than the existing elite they were even more homogeneous in background and beliefs. In particular, self-described liberals outnumbered conservatives 85 per cent to 11 per cent, a ratio of almost eight to one.
Nuclear Power
One specific issue the authors examined was nuclear powerNuclear power
Nuclear power is the use of sustained nuclear fission to generate heat and electricity. Nuclear power plants provide about 6% of the world's energy and 13–14% of the world's electricity, with the U.S., France, and Japan together accounting for about 50% of nuclear generated electricity...
. Energy scientists, energy engineers, nuclear scientists, and science journalists were all surveyed – only 24% of journalists favored rapid nuclear development, compared with 69% of nuclear scientists, 70% of energy scientists, and 80% of the energy engineers. The content analysis showed that the overall coverage of nuclear power issues tended to overwhelmingly favor the views of the journalists ("at six out of seven media outlets, anti-nuclear stories outnumbered pro-nuclear pieces by a wide margin”). An analysis of the opinions expressed by scientists and engineers that were cited in media reports also overwhelmingly reflected the views of the journalists rather than the views of the scientists and engineers; media reporting suggested that the scientific community is sharply divided over the question of nuclear power, with a majority of scientists opposing the development of nuclear energy.
Criticism
Media scholars Noam ChomskyNoam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and...
and Edward S. Herman
Edward S. Herman
Edward S. Herman is an American economist and media analyst with a specialty in corporate and regulatory issues as well as political economy and the media. He is Professor Emeritus of Finance at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He also teaches at Annenberg School for...
claim the logic in these conclusions is flawed. They state that comparing the media product to the voting record of the journalists is akin to thinking auto-factory workers design the cars they help produce. Indeed, they claim that the media owners and news makers are the ones with an agenda, and they assert that this agenda is subordinated to corporate interests that they view as often leaning right.
Chomsky goes on to assert that having more journalists vote "in one faction of the Business Party" (Democrats) as opposed to "the other faction of the Business Party" (Republicans), doesn't make news coverage liberal. This uses the assumption of the investment theory of party competition
Investment theory of party competition
The Investment theory of party competition is a political theory developed by University of Massachusetts professor Thomas Ferguson. The theory focuses on how business elites, not voters, play the leading part in political systems...
, meaning that both political parties are run in the interests of competing businesses.
A 1998 study from FAIR
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...
found that journalists are "mostly centrist in their political orientation"; 30% considered themselves to the left on social issues compared to 9% on the right, while 11% considered themselves to the left on economic issues compared to 19% on the right. The report explained that since journalists considered themselves to be centrists, "perhaps this is why an earlier survey found that they tended to vote for Bill Clinton in large numbers." FAIR uses this study to support the claim that media bias is propagated down from the management, and that individual journalists are relatively neutral in their work.
See also
- Corporate censorshipCorporate censorshipCorporate censorship is censorship by corporations, the sanctioning of speech by spokespersons, employees, and business associates by threat of monetary loss, loss of employment, or loss of access to the marketplace.- TV Guide debate :...
- Mainstream mediaMainstream mediaMainstream media are those media disseminated via the largest distribution channels, which therefore represent what the majority of media consumers are likely to encounter...
- Media bias in the United StatesMedia bias in the United StatesMedia bias in the United States occurs when the media in the United States systematically presents a particular point of view. Claims of media bias in the United States include claims of liberal bias, conservative bias, mainstream bias, and corporate bias...
- Propaganda modelPropaganda modelThe propaganda model is a conceptual model in political economy advanced by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky that states how propaganda, including systemic biases, function in mass media...