Television and bias

RUNNINGHEAD: TELEVISION ANDBIAS
TELEVISION AND BIAS
Can television force a bias on someone?
MARCH 2, 2017
HAROLD SOWARDS II
HON 480

Sowards 1
Television and Bias
The role television plays in people’s lives has grown more every year and thus has
inadvertently caused television shows to take on various forms of bias to help promote their
shows and their ideas, to gain both more money and power. The way this occurs can be broken
down by political news, sports and other kinds of advertising and how each one is affected by the
person who sponsors them, the person who communicates them and the person who watches
them.
Literature Review
In this section, I will try to look at how politics, sports and advertising deals with various
biases, along with a focus on if race plays a part in any of these biases. With this idea, I will also
hope to avoid my own biases and whimsical views about the subject matter and try to stick to the
more monotone reporting style that is accustomed to this kind of literature.
Politics
There has been political bias in the media for a while. As Hofstetter and Buss (1977)
states, it has been an issue since that time. This bias according to them, consists of outright lying,
distortion by collecting, aggregating and diffusing certain facts from others, as well as
disagreeing over basic values. Now, when comparing this to Hackett (2009)’s idea that the news
should be objective, balanced and a reflection of social reality, something falls flat here.
This can be explained by Hackett, who says that the political attitudes of journalists are a
major determinant of news bias and this bias can be detected in already existing reading
methods. These biases are caused by values, which as Hofstetter and Buss (1977) point out are
personal and not universal or objective. According to Friedman, Mertz and DiMatteo (1980), the
people in the news are not able to hide their eyes or their tone of voice, thus it is not easy to hide

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their biases. Kline (1979) adds that the personal attitudes of news team members began to cause
problems for the station. However, as Hofstetter, et al. points out these biases may not always
occur as the sanctions on reporters cost more long term than the short-term benefits.
Now, to examine how this affects viewers. According to Durante and Knight (2012),
when the control of the government shifts, so then does the news content on public television.
Therefore, the viewers react to these changes and start to modify their favorite programs. This
control of news content could be affected by who owns the station. Now according to Hughes
and Lawson (2004), privately owned television stations were generally more balanced than
public broadcasting, but the irony of this private ownership is as they put it “crony capitalism”
and they state that the ownership patterns of stations will not eradicate partisan bias.
This can be viewed by certain age distinctions as well. Hollander (2010) states that
younger citizens identify that they get most of their political information from entertainment
based programs. Thus, this kind of media becomes important. As Young (2010) points out, late
night exposure to political news effects the partisanship and political knowledge of the viewer,
but not the subject ratings of a candidate’s traits. Hoffman and Young (2011) point out that
viewing satire, parody and traditional television news have a positive effect on political
participation.
All of this is determined by the spread of information. Iyengar (1990) points out that the
more accessible information is information that is more frequently and recently conveyed by the
media. Thus, the influence these stations have stems from the power to make that information
accessible. This leads to the accessibility bias, which Iyengar explains as the ability of the
individual to retrieve information from a long-term memory, which produces only a tiny sample
of this information for them to recall.

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This recall and recognition factor were equally important to Harris, Bargh and Brownell
(2009). Now, this leads to the agenda setting effect, which Iyengar (1990) defines as the
tendency of people to explain the world’s problems by citing issues they have heard from the
news. Thus, they begin to habitually refer to the events and issues that have only recently
received extensive news coverage. This starts to affect politics. Iyengar states that sustained
news coverage of a particular political issue enhances the issue and increases the significance of
the viewers’ assessments of a particular candidate and how they have dealt with said issue. This
is odd, when this is paired with what Turner (2007) points out that by attaching the CNN (liberal)
and FNC (conservative) labels to news stories, the viewer’s opinions are influenced not by the
actual content of the article but instead towards the viewpoint they have of that brand.
Forgette and Morris (2006) bring up that conflict-laden television coverage causes the
public’s opinions to decrease regarding evaluations of political institutions, trust in leadership
and overall support for political parties as well as the system altogether. Entman (1992) describes
that the media depicts blacks in politics as being more demanding when compared to their white
counterparts in activist or leader roles.
Sports
One would assume that the sports someone is interested in or the teams they are
interested in would increasingly reflect what they watch when that sport is on. Nesbit and King
(2010) point out that simply participating in a fantasy sport leads to an increase in the number of
sports games a person watches on television. Thus, the demand for televised sports rises which in
turn increases the value of the advertising spots during those sporting events. This leads to a
greater potential for cross-marketing between all mediums (Nesbit, et al., 2010). Kline (1979)

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adds that the event’s time frame is important to the constraints of the program and thus its
benefits.
According to Clark, Apostolopoula and Gladden (2009) the motives men and women
have to watch an NFL game are very different. Women hold more positive attitudes towards the
entertainment of the broadcast and like the Super Bowl half-time show the most as it contains a
source of entertainment. This idea of entertainment could be defined on a win/loss scale and this
affects how everything is viewed in the sports world. According to Ngan, Prendergast and Tsang
(2011), the team’s performance influences a viewer’s intention to purchase a product and this
effect is relayed towards the more casual fan instead of the avid fan.
Most of these fans, regardless of being casual or avid, know of the stars in the sports
world. Thus, according to Ngan, Prendergast and Tsang (2011), a team is more pronounced when
they have a star on their roster. However, it is again defined by the wins and losses, as a team
with more wins and a star produces more sales, while a team with few wins and a star produces
sales slowly. So, this idea of a star becomes important because there are many sports, so there
could be a difference amongst them. According to Martin (1996), the sport plays a part in the
consumer’s opinion of an athletes’ endorsement. While the athlete has his or her own personality
and appearance, the sport they play seems to also matter, which is why according to Martin that
they both must be considered together in order to best produce sales.
If a sport and its star can drive sales, it could be possible that they influence other
decisions outside the stadium. According to Paul and Brown (2001), the opinions of these stars
help affect politics, especially those relating to the public helping cover the cost of building new
sports facilities. The Olympics have also been known to affect the public. Riggs, Eastman and
Golobic (2009) stated that the Olympics supplied amongst other things a rich source for

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deconstructing the creation of national “friends and enemies”. In a sense, this is people to root
for or people to root against. The remarks made by network hosts or commentators have
adversely revealed an ideology that is reflective of the US’s overall foreign policy towards
relationships with them. Thus, political nationalism is interwoven into the fabric of this internal
sports discourse and gets rid of the team or coaches performance and classifies it as the
performance of the country as a whole (Riggs, et. al, 2009).
Gijsenberg (2014) states the obvious, that major sporting events draw unsurpassed media
attention, which gives companies a motive to increase their advertising investment around these
events to reach larger audiences in a short period of time. This is why the Super Bowl ad slots
are so expensive. Fehle, Tsyplakov and Zdorovtsov (2005) state that already identifiable firms
show positive abnormal returns from their ad placement and the smaller investors tend to be the
ones more attracted by the increased publicity of the event and their shares are bought up
significantly during that time. Gijsenberg (2014) warns that advertising effectiveness diminishes
before and during major sporting events. However, Fehle et al. (2005) states that after the Super
Bowl for a 20 day period, most of the ad investors saw a 2% return rate. This could justify
Gijsenberg’s idea then that greater increases in advertising spending should focus around a
single-sport event for the most success.
Advertising
Usually it pays to know what audience to pander to and which one buys the product that
is being sold, however, it is more important to find ways to affect the non-buyer. According to
Ha and Chan-Olmstead (2010), younger internet users were more likely to use television web
sites than older internet users. The increase in the number of web site feature usage positively
predicts viewer and subscriber loyalty. This loyalty then can help influence attractions for

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networks. Thus, public relations are important for all media. As Curtin (2009) states, public
relations help subside costs and lead to increased profits. However, when this profit is
constrained, Curtin suggests it leads to an increase of public relation materials. That is why,
according to Entman (2009), television has shifted from old-fashioned racism (blacks are
inferior/segregated) to modern racism (a sort of resentment) in order to reinforce the viewing
tastes of black audiences.
Now how is it possible to distinguish what is sellable to a certain demographic becomes a
key idea of marketing. As Hoffner and Buchanan (2009) state, men usually identify with male
characters who are perceived to be successful, intelligent and violent, while women identify with
female characters who are successful, intelligent, attractive and admired. Well, most of these
attributes are not achievable by all the viewers. However, these characters eat, which helps with
food advertising. According to Harris, Bargh and Brownell (2009), children consume 45% more
food when they are exposed to food advertising, as adults also consume more of both healthy and
unhealthy foods when they are exposed to this kind of advertising. This idea about food
advertising, according to them is caused by the fact that it primes the automatic eating behaviors
and this influences people more than just brand recognition. Now Kline (1979) explains that
what the audience prefers changes the style of the presentation, which is why advertising is so
important. Danaher (1995) describes the importance of focus during commercials, as viewers
who zap (channel surfing during live broadcasts) end up with a higher likelihood of purchasing
the product then someone who did not zap, because of the attention needed to actually zap ads.
However, Danaher (1995) explains that ratings for television shows drop by 5% during
commercial breaks, but the loss in ratings tend to vary depending on both the length of the

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program and the type of program. This is coupled with the number of ads in the break as well as
the length of said ads.
Now that everything is going digital and people are relying on social media, the
advertising agencies have it easier than before. According to Berthon, Pitt and Campbell (2008),
since digital media has risen, the distributive power of advertising has shifted to the consumer
and this shift has allowed an expression of different voices to help sell products. This is as
Danaher (1995) explains due to the fact that television continues to grow in other media types
with an increase in ad spending. This helps create multiple exposure attempts which is important
for any ad. As advertising campaigns cause more ads to be viewed and thus increases the
likelihood a person recalls the ad immensely (Danaher, 1995).
Pelsmacker and Neijens (2012) informs about the decreasing impact of traditional
advertisements, with the traditional mass media channels becoming less attractive to invest in.
Which means they are being replaced by alternatives (such as social media) that allow consumers
to control which persuasive information they’d like to see and causing a reliance on the
relationships of various consumers to spread viral marking messages.
Going off this idea, movies advertisements on television need assistance as well. Mohr
(2007) describes that with more and more entertainment options crowding people’s lives, the
market still needs to reach audiences. To do this, the market relies on advertisements to create
buzz, which sparks interest and drives people to theatres. This is why Pelsmacker and Neijens
(2002) states that brand placement in movies, television programs and games try to integrate
sponsor brands into the content in ways to make it appear natural. Thus, spreading the word that
the character in that program is associated with that brand, therefore more sales should occur.
Race

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As mentioned earlier in the literature review, television has shifted to a modern form of
racism (Entman, 2009). This causes a problem when exploring just what that means to the
everyday person. Gilliam Jr. and Iyengar (2000) explain that people can watch live local news
almost anytime, which caused the amount of news time to increase. This increase in news time
caused competition to exist amongst current stations, and the easiest way to get audience ratings
is to use the “action news” format (Gilliam Jr., et al., 2000). This means in layman’s terms, crime
sales. Which then begs the question, why crime? Gilliam Jr., et. al (2000) elaborates on this
question, by explaining that crime consists of concrete events with powerful impacts on ordinary
people, drama and emotion, and most importantly, the attention getting visuals. This causes
crime to the prominently featured subject in local news, with some cities even having 75% of
their coverage devoted to it.
Entman (1994) considers this a problem, as network news usually appears to convey
more stereotyped impressions, with a more narrow range of positive roles for blacks than for
whites. Thus questions begin to arise about how journalists need to represent the reality of black
America. Entman (1992) considers racism to still be indirectly encouraged by normal crime and
political coverage that depict blacks in crime and as more physically threatening than whites.
This allows as Gilliam Jr. and Iyengar (2000) explains the racial element of crime to increase
support for punitive approaches to crime and higher negative attitudes about African-Americans
amongst white, but not black, viewers. Which corresponds with the idea Entman (1994) brings
up with the representations of whites in network news being more varied and more positive than
that of blacks. This enables what Entman (1992) describes as modern white racism by
encouraging hostility, rejection and denial towards black aspirations.

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There are underlying assumptions here by television viewers that are being ignored.
Entman (1992) describes this by stating that the widespread employment of black television
journalists suggests to viewers that the racial discrimination is no longer a significant social
problem. However, there even appears to be problems with this type of discrimination in
advertising. According to Henderson and Baldasty (2010) people of color appear regularly in
advertisements, but usually as secondary characters and this creates a clear racial segregation in
these ads. Whites appear in advertisements for upscale products, beauty products and for home
products, while people of color appear in advertisements for low-end, low-nutrition products,
athletics and sports equipment (Henderson, et al., 2010).
Henderson and Baldasty (2010) thus raise the question about if racial stereotypes are still
continuing. There has become this one dimensional view of people of color as being the key
consumers of low cost products in America today. With this idea, Whittler (1989) gives an
assumption that white subjects don’t react negatively for black actors but show more positive
reactions to white actors. Blacks as well show more positive attitudes towards advertisements
that feature black actors and this causes them to have better recall of said advertisement
(Whittler, 1989). With those two scenarios in place, it would only make sense for advertising
companies to market the way that they do, because they can reach a desired audience.
Conclusion
From the literature review, it is shown that television helps influence politics by choosing
how much information is accessible and how relevant and frequently it is brought up, how it
influences sports by creating more demand for televised sports from other motives, and how it
allows advertising to affect viewers and their interests on what to consume.
Takeaway

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For this I’m going to open up my own opinions on these matters as Seth mentioned I
should in response to my draft. For politics, social media and the “fake news” stories going
around helped formulate opinions of many of my relatives and coworkers. These opinions
seemed to get stronger when the debates came on the public television stations as the station that
they watched seemed to focus on one candidate more and their reactions to certain issues. As
well as the mediators of the debate seemingly favoring one candidate over another and don’t get
me started on the ineffectiveness they shown in their “job”.
I’m an avid sports fan with a strong emphasis on the Chicago Cubs and the Denver
Broncos, but I’ll proudly root on my other sports teams: the Chicago Bulls and the Anaheim
Ducks any chance I get. So, with this I’m more prone to watching these teams when they come
across my television or computer, depending on which way I’m able to stream them. I run into
problems when there is an overlap of time where two of the teams are playing at the same time.
In this situation, I usually “zap” and go back and forth between the two, usually catching a
handful of catch ads. I also usually tend to purchase things that even have the slightest hint of a
reference to one of these teams in an ad or online shopping sites, so my bank account constantly
seems to take hits throughout the year.
I’ve never noticed the color differences in ads before until I wrote this paper and now that
I’m aware of it, I see it every time I turn on the television now. Also, buzz marketing works well
on me as if my friends hype up something for me, I usually watch it or in the case of food/video
games/books purchase it. This is why I’ve been purchasing the works of authors that Nick
Offerman recommends because I admire him so much. Also, this is why I’m more than excited
for the release of the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.

Sowards 11
Into the race issue, I’m white and therefore none of these things I mentioned in my
literature review, I’ve actually experienced. So, I’m not going to give an opinion on the matter.
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20
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