prewriting 1&2

Does media bias influence on people?
Wikipedia: Media bias is the bias of journalists and news producers within the mass media in the selection of events and stories that are reported and how they are covered. The term "media bias" implies a pervasive or widespread bias contravening the standards of journalism, rather than the perspective of an individual journalist or article. The direction and degree of media bias in various countries is widely disputed. Because the media cannot report the whole truth, we need to hold a critical thinking when we consider the fact of media news. They may under controls of government and they are only allowed to report what the government allows them to. These kinds of situation happens because these reported issue may relate to some nation history that the government do not want its citizens know about, so they just choose the content they want their citizens know.

Projectcensored: FOX asserted that there are no written rules against distorting news in the media. They argued that, under the First Amendment, broadcasters have the right to lie or deliberately distort news reports on public airwaves.

Wordpress : Society needs a way of obtaining truth: reliable information about the outside world. This is the only way for them to form and defend opinions. The media is said to fulfil this role, however, as mentioned above, the enormous inherent bias in the media, and the sway the media holds over the general populace, compromise its role as a neutral conveyor of information. The fundamental purpose of the media is to convey the truth; should they fail in doing so, they are unworthy of any respect whatsoever. Needless to say, to not only fail in their fundamental duty by not telling the truth, but to actively oppose that duty via the dissemination of non-truth (i.e. falsities), is perverse and severely dishonourable. Men place a good deal of trust in the media to serve as their only channel to truth. It is vile and treacherous to betray this trust by polluting the information they convey with their bias and opinion, to say nothing of speaking outright falsehood. The media, therefore, has an obligation to avoid lies and tell truths at all times.

Newsfocus: In 1917, Congressman Oscar Calloway documented in the official Congressional record that multi-millionaire JP Morgan had infiltrated the U.S. media for the sole purpose of exploiting and controlling it. Morgan hired twelve of the top news managers to help him determine the most influential newspapers in America. The idea was to find the primary key news institutions that other news outlets looked to and were thus influenced by. (This is documented in the official U.S. Record, volume 54, dated February 9, 1917.)


1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_bias
2. The Media Can Legally Lie http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/11-the-media-can-legally-lie/
3. The media has an obligation to always tell the truth http://jofqc.wordpress.com/2012/08/26/the-media-has-an-obligation-to-always-tell-the-truth/
4. Media Deception: You Are Not Getting The Truth http://www.newsfocus.org/media_control.htm

prewriting2:
1. A number of theoretical papers have investigated the effect of the media on the behavior of rational voters with incomplete information and the role of media bias in this process. According to Bray and Kreps (1987), voters can filter out bias without being persuaded on average if voters are fully rational and media reports are continuous. On the other hand, if reports are binary, or “coarse”, media reports may influence even fully rational voters; see, e.g. Baron (2006).(CHIANG, and KNIGHT 26-4)


2. The demographics of newspaper readership influence how the media report the news; however, a stronger, more powerful force drives media outlets to skew the news. Groseclose and Milyo (2003) cited the media as being commonly called the fourth branch of government. This close relation- ship between media and government is illustrated by a conversation held between Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers and Dan Rather. CBS’s 60 Minutes obtained photographs of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, but waited 2 weeks before airing the photographs (see Folkenfilk, 2004, as cited in Gentzkow & Shapiro, 2004). Myers allegedly “asked Dan Rather not to broadcast the photos.”(Hoffman, and Wallach 616–630)

3. Individuals may vary in their perception of bias in media messages. Media can be perceived as biased even when the media content is neutral (Vallone, Ross, & Lepper, 1985). Additionally, individuals estimate public opinion based on the media content to which they are exposed, assuming that other people are also exposed to the same media content (Gunther, 1998, Gunther and Christen, 1999 and Gunther and Christen, 2002). In other words, individuals regard public opinion on an issue as unfavorable when they themselves judge media coverage of the issue as unfavorable.(Park, Yun, Choi, and Lee 139-149)

4. From 1885 on, surveys of the Senkaku Islands had been thoroughly made by the Government of Japan through the agencies of Okinawa Prefecture and by way of other methods. Through these surveys, it was confirmed that the Senkaku Islands had been uninhabited and showed no trace of having been under the control of China. Based on this confirmation, the Government of Japan made a Cabinet Decision on 14 January 1895 to erect a marker on the Islands to formally incorporate the Senkaku Islands into the territory of Japan.

Work Cite:
1. CHIANG, CHUN-FANG, and BRIAN KNIGHT. "Media Bias and Influence: Evidence from Newspaper Endorsements." Oxford University Press on behalf of The Review of Economic Studies Limited. February 2011 (2011): 26-4. Print.
2. Hoffman, August John, and Julie Wallach. "The Effects of Media Bias." Journal of Applied Social Psychology. ( 2007): 616–630. Print.
3. Park, Hee Sun, Doshik Yun, Hye Jeong Choi, and Hye Eun Lee. "Perceived media bias and third person effect: Comparisons of Americans, Korean Americans, and Koreans in the United States." 49.2 (2012): 139-149. Print.
4. Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “The Basic View on the Sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands.” The full text can be found at www.mofa.go.jp/region/asia-paci/senkaku/senkaku.html

As Mr. Dragbeth says, a research question could not be answered with yes or no.

Thus, I think you should word it differently.

For example, How trustworthy is media?

Minsoo Soh wrote:As Mr. Dragbeth says, a research question could not be answered with yes or no.

Thus, I think you should word it differently.

For example, How trustworthy is media?

Thanks for your help, I changed a lot of content and structure of my essay. I made my essay topic more specific due to your suggestion.