Professors bust liberal media bias

The myth of a liberal media bias has been busted, according to research conducted by two IU professors.

The results of a recent visual analysis of presidential election coverage show that in each election between 1992 and 2004, the three major network stations – ABC, CBS and NBC – favored the Republicans in their coverage.

Maria Grabe and Erik Bucy, both associate professors in the Telecommunications Department, have published their findings in their recent book, “Image Bite Politics: News and the Visual Framing of Elections.”

Grabe and Bucy’s research marks the first major analysis of the visual coverage in presidential elections as well as its relationship to public opinion.

“Every presidential election has defining visual moments,” Grabe said, citing the Kennedy-Nixon debates and the Barack Obama fist pump as examples. “Some people argue that these visuals are affecting how voters actually vote ... but there is very little research on the visual side of political campaign coverage.”

The book’s seven chapters examine the several different levels Grabe and Bucy used to judge the media’s bias.

The first data-driven chapter, chapter two, looks at the duration of sound bites versus what the authors have dubbed “image bites.” Grabe said the comparison is based on how often newscasts show a candidate speaking versus how often they show him simply interacting. The chapter also covers how often reporters overlay their own narrations on an image of a candidate speaking, Grabe said.

An overall trend, the professors found, was that sound bites were rapidly decreasing, while image bites were rapidly increasing.

“Visuals are underappreciated in news coverage,” Bucy said in an IU press release. “You can have a negative report. You can have the journalist being opinionated against the candidate. But if you’re showing favorable visuals, that outweighs the net effect on the viewer almost every single time.”

Another chapter in the book explores the visual bias that occurs when journalists utilize camera angles and editing techniques to visually represent candidates in dissimilar or unequal ways. When a low angle camera shot is used, this gives power or dominance to candidates. The opposite effect happens with a high angle camera shot.

“The bottom line is that Democrats aren’t very good at image handling and facial displays,” Grabe said. “Journalists seem to favor Republicans, but the Democrats aren’t good at staging candidates for cameras.”

Image handlers “work journalists” and micromanage candidates, she said. Everything – from how a candidate’s hair is parted to who they will shake hands with – is selected to fit the character frame that an image handler has chosen for a candidate.

“If you very carefully stage a candidate in every possible way for the cameras, it is really hard for the media to overturn that and frame a candidate as dramatically different,” Grabe said. “You can’t change the images.”

However, journalists can use camera angles and editing techniques to tilt a message. They have an influence on what they report, what part of the message they emphasize and on the framing process, she added.

In both areas, Democrats received less favorable coverage and Republicans received less unfavorable coverage.

Grabe said she hopes that the study will show the importance of studying the visual side of messages and will inspire other researchers to do the same.

“With newspapers dying by the day,” Grabe said, “it’s time to start taking audio-visual messages seriously.”