Media Bias/Bias of Journalists

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Media bias, often referred to as perceived bias of journalists, implies the biased behavior of the journalists and the news producers in selecting stories and events to report. McQuail (1992) has offered a typology of media bias comprising of a cross-classification of open and hidden, and intended and unintended. In this essay, hidden-intended bias (propaganda) and hidden-unintended (ideology) will be the focus. In television, an example of propaganda is the BP Gulf Coast Update, an effort by BP to clean its name by reporting that all was well when it was not. In the combination of print and web, an example of ideology is the socialism, a political issue discussed in magazines and the web about a certain group of people becoming socialists.
The 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was one of the world's greatest disasters, and its impacts were adverse both to the people and to the environment. The oil spill was related to the British Oil that took to the televisions to "keep the people updated on the matter." The corporation produced and broadcasted numerous television commercials that tried to communicate its concerns to the people of America (Motel, 2015). Why is this propaganda, that is, hidden and intended bias? The reason is that the communication was done intentionally most likely with the help of the public relations people from the company. It is the company that decided to inform the people of the situation may be with the aim of calming them down. It was hidden in the sense that not everything was revealed to the people who would have otherwise used the facts to judge for themselves (Peters, 2010). On the contrary, the televisions gave only the news that the people would have liked very much to hear. According to McQuail, propaganda is defined as a hidden and intended bias often difficult to deal with primarily because the intention is hidden. He also posits that it occurs in the form of objective news often supplied to mass media by various groups of people including spokes persons, interest groups, pressure groups, and public relations people. In the case of the BP oil spill, the information was supplied to the televisions by the sources from the company. It is also hidden since even after a year after the incident and continuous assurances that all was well things did not really appear to be well because most of the facts remained unrevealed.
Ideology, according to McQuail (1992), is a hidden and unintended bias, often embedded in texts. Ideologies often stem from the values of the newsmakers themselves. In the web and the print media, the notion of ideology has appeared several instances to depict some people seen to be advocating socialism. In The New York Times, several of the reporters in the politics columns have been referring to some politicians as having socialist inclinations, even though the politicians themselves do not acknowledge to be socialites (Moats, 2016). The notions of this socialism appear in the texts in these print and web media and are indeed the evaluations of the journalists themselves. They are the ones who classify these people as socialites (Martin, 2016). Bernie Sanders is one such candidate associated with socialism. This is both hidden and unintended because it is only appearing in texts and can be seen as stemming from the values of the journalists themselves. Their notion is not intended in the sense these newsmakers have appeared to be neutral and making independent observations.
I would argue that the above deviations contain some typical features of one of the three media systems as advocated by Hallin and Mancini (2004). On the issue of the BP oil spill propaganda, there are the features of a typical liberal model. This model is identified by an early development of commercial press of mass circulation and a medium newspaper circulation. The commercial press ought to be neutral, although this feature seems to be missing in the description given of the situation. This is because the TV ads were not neutral. There is also non-institutionalized self-regulation and no or little government intervention. In other words, the news broadcasts are almost purely market dominated, and this is what has given the BP TV commercials the incentive for biases.
For the second incidence, the liberal model still manifests itself, especially on the neutrality issues and strong professionalization. Even though there exist print media- that is, newspaper, their circulation is medium owing to the fact that most of the newspaper entities do have online publications. In other words, many people tend to access the news from the online publications and few get them in print. This also explains why I classified the second issue as both print and web.
There are various ways of obtaining valid and reliable measures of the above deviations. My strategy would be to conduct research to establish the validity and reliability, and garner more facts about the situation to establish what is reliable and valid (Wimmer & Dominick, 2009). There are several research tools for use including surveys, content analysis, and experiments. However, the tool I would use is surveys and content analysis. In the case of the propaganda, content analysis will reveal what is given and what is not given. Reporting that all is well and that everything is under control is not enough content to give. Content analysis will seek details that are missing. Surveys may be partially used in this case, and they can be used to gather opinions from other people and experts about whether or not they believe the information to be reliable and valid. For the ideology, content analysis will help make judgments about the correctness of the notions of socialism from the various writers. It would help to judge the correctness of the usage of the term socialism. Survey is also a useful tool as it can be used gather opinions from the readers to see if they agree with the ideology or not, and also to determine the validity and reliability of the ideology.
The limitations of the content analysis are that it may not reveal anything, and it requires a person who is well knowledgeable of the situation who can be quick to note the missing details. Content analysis may also contain traces personal judgments. The surveys also have some limitations, the key being the fact that only a few people will give their opinions (Wimmer & Dominick, 2009). The few people are then expected to represent everyone, and in this case, errors are prone to appear. It also may consume resources including time and money.
In conclusion, the issue of the BP oil spill was a propaganda because the TV ads were the effort of the company through its spokespersons and PR personnel. A lot of facts were hidden, and the situation on the ground was different from what was aired through these TV commercials. The idea of socialism is an ideology because of the unintended and hidden nature.