andrew_gelman_stats andrew_gelman_stats-2011 andrew_gelman_stats-2011-828 knowledge-graph by maker-knowledge-mining
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Introduction: Respected political scientist Tim Groseclose just came out with a book, “Left Turn: How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind.” I was familiar with Groseclose’s article (with Jeffrey Milyo) on media bias that came out several years ago–it was an interesting study but I was not convinced by its central claim that they were measuring an absolute level of bias–and then recently heard about this new book in the context of some intemperate things Groseclose said in a interview on the conservative Fox TV network. Groseclose’s big conclusion is that in the absence of media bias, the average American voter would be positioned at around 25 on a 0-100 scale, where 0 is a right-wing Republican and 100 is a left-wing Democrat. (Seeing as the number line is conventionally drawn from left to right, I think it would make more sense for 0 to represent the left and 100 to be on the right, but I guess it’s too late for him to change now.) Groseclose places the average voter now at around
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1 Groseclose’s big conclusion is that in the absence of media bias, the average American voter would be positioned at around 25 on a 0-100 scale, where 0 is a right-wing Republican and 100 is a left-wing Democrat. [sent-3, score-0.485]
2 (Seeing as the number line is conventionally drawn from left to right, I think it would make more sense for 0 to represent the left and 100 to be on the right, but I guess it’s too late for him to change now. [sent-4, score-0.394]
3 ) Groseclose places the average voter now at around 50, so, by his assessment, media bias is a huge deal. [sent-5, score-0.697]
4 Journalism as one of many institutions that affect politics Stepping away from the data for a moment, it makes sense that the news media would generally fall on the left side of the political spectrum. [sent-8, score-1.074]
5 ” Another way to think about media bias is to think about the communication industry as a whole. [sent-11, score-0.653]
6 And if most of the news media in a country moved from journalism to public relations (as in Berlusconi’s Italy), I could imagine it could make a difference in the country’s politics. [sent-13, score-0.777]
7 It makes sense for Groseclose, as a conservative media analyst, to want to shift journalism to the right, just as, from the other direction, a liberal businessman might want to persuade businesses to move in the other direction. [sent-28, score-0.71]
8 ) The multidimensionality of political attitudes should not discourage us from studying bias but it’s worth keeping in mind. [sent-35, score-0.376]
9 On one hand, Fox can create a media buzz out of nothing at all; on the other hand, perhaps there’s something more insidious about objective news organizations indirectly creating bias by their choice of what to report. [sent-40, score-0.9]
10 But I’ve long thought that this asymmetry should inform how media bias is studied. [sent-41, score-0.701]
11 Before getting to measures of media bias, let’s think of some ways that a news organization could be politically biased: - Reporting that the unemployment rate today is twice as high as it was during Bush’s presidency . [sent-43, score-0.673]
12 An indirect measure of bias Setting aside the methodological criticisms raised by Nyhan and others, my big problem with the Groseclose and Milyo estimates of media bias is that they are indirect . [sent-80, score-1.177]
13 The way a congressmember gets placed on the left or the right is by voting on the left or right in actual votes. [sent-93, score-0.476]
14 From different rates of mentions of research and advocacy groups, to relative measures of political position of media organizations. [sent-102, score-0.652]
15 From absolute positions to the effects of hypothetical changes (for example, how would Americans vote if all their news media had the political slant of Fox News? [sent-106, score-0.978]
16 From effects of changes in the media environment to the inference about the Americans’ true political positions that they would have if the media reflected their views. [sent-109, score-1.059]
17 In Groseclose’s endgame, a balanced media might include some TV networks promoting the view that abortion should be illegal under all circumstances and subject to criminal penalties, whereas others might merely hold that Roe v. [sent-110, score-0.527]
18 I don’t have much to say about steps 3 and 4 above; as noted earlier, I find it plausible that a Berlusconi-style media environment could shift U. [sent-112, score-0.461]
19 This just seems like a counterfactual that would require resources far beyond what was spent to set up Fox News, the Weekly Standard, and other right-leaning media properties. [sent-115, score-0.441]
20 On the other hand, it seems completely plausible that the news media lean left on many issues. [sent-118, score-0.748]
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