Current political achievement depends on the control of mass correspondences, for example, television, radio, paper, magazines, which are all essential hotspots for the general population to remain educated on the day-by-day exercises of the American republic. The American political system has continuously formed into a period where the conduct of legislators, residents, and government issues, is shaped by innovation. With new research on innovation, there is now social media, permitting social networking sites, like Twitter or Instagram, and print media; The Washington Post, NY Times, etc. affecting the American individuals and governing body. The basic role of mass communications is basically to give information and give in tell when critical events happen around the world. Media is important for the American people and politicians because it frames the democratic process such as: reporting the news, sharing the current issues that need to be re-examined, and allowing individuals to be actively engaged in governmental issues. However, the drawback of media is that it impacts the manner in which the general population may respond, and the media forms public opinion. This shapes the political conduct of individuals and it may affect casting a ballot. It can be contended that media is a decent asset to aid in governmental issues, yet it impacts the perspective of the general society. Thus, the nature of media coverage matters because it has full control in our government. For this reason, the media is controlling the news, public opinion, and there is a media bias.
In American legislative issues, journalistic prejudice happens on every mass medium communication. There is concern about the effects of journalistic preference since it impacts one’s particular viewpoint whether it's on an issue or on the political competitors. The researchers from the University of Vienna, Jakob-Moritz Eberl, Hajo G. Boomgaarden, and Markus Wagner, in “One Bias Fits All? Three kinds of Media Bias and Their Effects on Party Preferences” contends that media influences the public’s voting and voters that necessarily don’t have a party identification are more likely to be manipulated in media bias. Eberl, Boomgaarden, and Wagner classify three types of media bias: visibility, tonality, and agenda. They characterized visibility bias as one political candidate is getting more media coverage over their competitor on papers, TV, magazines, and it's the aftereffect of the political competitor having comparative qualities with the author (1128). This is a negative bias because the writer essentially will only compose positive things that he’s willing to share about the political candidate and voters need to discover how they feel about the applicants running, so the journalist writing on specific subjects could change a voter’s sentiment. Tonality bias was defined as “evaluations present in media coverage are systematically more favorable to one political party compared to other parties” (1128). This bias is when the media in partisan politics will share good or bad statements made by either party. An example of this bias is our current President Donald Trump, who has social media, and some of his tweets receive backlash, and the media will make a scandal and the American individuals will get involved and voice their opinions on the particular statement. Lastly, agenda bias is where government officials will be featured in talk shows or have an interview that features specific subjects that they are willing to talk about because they know it will win the general population if they discuss their personal viewpoints on gun control or the economy. The bias occurs because “journalists or editors decide to select to ignore specific news stories” (1129). In their study of the Austria election campaign, they discovered that voter is presented with more to tonality bias and visibility bias has no effect on voters. The tonality bias occurs more often to voters because their conclusions change because what they read, hear, view, or discuss is likely to change when it’s about a topic they're interested in. Similarly, James N. Druckman and Michael Parkin, in the article, “The Impact of Media Bias: How Editorial Slant Affects Voters”, argue that media coverage impacts voters. In their examination they centered around two news organizations, Star Tribune and the St. Paul Pioneer Press, concentrating on the Election Day leave survey from the 2000 Minnesota Senate Campaign. This study is important because it shows how the newspaper creates a slant and how journalists favor a particular politician. The candidates running for the campaign were Rod Grams, a republican, and Mark Dayton a democrat. In their analysis, the Star Tribune favored Grams and the Pioneer Press remained neutral (1036). However the Pioneer Press, at that time was 'suing Grams for a copyright infringement .. [showing] no bias, but it caused a slant” (1036). Now looking at the percentages of media coverage from the Star Tribune gave 23% of media to Gram, 22% to Dayton, and 55% to both (1038).
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Although it is not a huge difference in percentage, the Star Tribune favored Grams, so its editorial slant because the paper wrote positively about him. The Pioneer Press gave 24% of media coverage to Grams, 25% to Dayton, and 51% to both (1038). However, the Pioneer Press did remain neutral, it did have a bad light on Grams because of the situation of suing. Dayton did win the election and it proves to show that the amount of media coverage on print media matters because the daily readers of the newspapers will reflect and vote on certain conditions discussed. Media news reporting needs balance in general and doesn't stay unbiased and it appeared in almost every election. Furthermore, media does activate public expressions and it has coverage effects on the government during campaigns.
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