{"id":4699,"date":"2019-11-25T10:48:50","date_gmt":"2019-11-25T14:48:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=4699"},"modified":"2022-03-11T16:39:09","modified_gmt":"2022-03-11T20:39:09","slug":"news-bias","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/news-bias\/","title":{"rendered":"News Bias: How Little Cues Sway Voters and Elections"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>What is a good <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/mainstream-media-bias\/\">media bias<\/a> example? How do <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/nonverbal-cues\/\">nonverbal cues<\/a> reveal news bias on television?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We&#8217;ll cover one news bias example in which newscasters&#8217; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/nonverbal-behavior\/\">nonverbal signals<\/a> revealed how they really felt about the candidates during the 1984 presidential campaign. We&#8217;ll also look at how these unconscious facial expressions swayed viewer votes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Unconscious News Bias Example<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>An experiment performed during the 1984 presidential campaign between Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale revealed how <strong>news anchors\u2019 slight facial expressions could bias viewers\u2019 opinions and votes<\/strong>. Researchers gathered recordings of three news anchors\u2019 faces while they reported on each of the two candidates. Then they played the clips for people on mute, and asked participants to use a 21-point scale to rate how positive or negative the anchors\u2019 facial expressions looked.&nbsp;As we&#8217;ll see, this revealed news bias.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The first two anchors \u2014 Dan Rather on CBS and Tom Brokaw on NBC \u2014 scored right in the middle, meaning they had a neutral expression when talking about either candidate. The third anchor, Peter Jennings on ABC, scored about two points higher than neutral when reporting on Mondale and six points above neutral when talking about Reagan.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Participants in the experiment also scored the anchors\u2019 facial expressions while watching muted clips of reports on both objectively sad and happy topics. This control test proved that Jennings did not merely have a more positive expression all the time. (In fact, the opposite was true.)<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">News Bias and the Viewer<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>News bias doesn&#8217;t just reveal something about the anchors; news bias biases the viewer, too. After the election, the researchers found that ABC viewers around the country voted in higher numbers for Reagan than CBS and NBC viewers. When asked about their preference, these pro-Reagan ABC viewers had no conscious recognition of Jennings\u2019s subtle biased facial expressions; instead, viewers insisted they preferred Reagan\u2019s policies. Researchers also found that ABC\u2019s story selection was more hostile toward Reagan, meaning the <strong>nonverbal cues from Jennings\u2019s facial expressions actually overpowered more explicit editorial bias<\/strong>.&nbsp;<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This experiment raises three important points about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/power-of-nonverbal-communication\/\">nonverbal communication<\/a> and news bias or media bias.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/incremental-progress\/\">Small actions<\/a> make a big impact. The subtlety of Jennings\u2019s facial expressions may not have even registered for viewers \u2014 and probably only for the research participants because they were asked to rate the expressions on such a detailed scale \u2014 but it was enough to apparently sway their opinions and votes. If Jennings had given a more blatant verbal endorsement of Reagan, it might not have been as effective because viewers could consciously process this message and potentially disagree. But without recognizing the bias, their defenses were down and they were more susceptible to its influence.&nbsp;<\/li><li>Nonverbal communication is as \u2014 or more \u2014 impactful than verbal messages. As mentioned, ABC was deemed to be more hostile toward Reagan in its story selection than the other news networks. This means that Jennings\u2019s subtle facial expressions were enough to counteract and even tip the scales against the network\u2019s verbal messaging.<\/li><li><strong>We often don\u2019t recognize the forces that are persuading us. <\/strong>The viewers who were interviewed after the election did not say that they voted for Reagan because Jennings\u2019s face lit up when he reported on the candidate; that notion would probably strike them as ridiculous. They would reason that his policies and experience appealed to them more than Mondale\u2019s.&nbsp;<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>Nonverbal communication includes hand gestures, facial expressions, tone of voice, eye contact, posture, cadence of speech, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/body-language-crucial-conversations\/\">body language<\/a>. Nonverbal cues have a powerful impact on us, even when they are so subtle that we don\u2019t notice them.&nbsp;Everyone engages in nonverbal communication, and the nonverbal messages you send reveal whether you agree or disagree with someone, if you\u2019re making an effort to connect with them, or if you are totally disinterested. This is often how subtle news bias is communicated, but we all use the language of nonverbal communication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What is a good media bias example? How do nonverbal cues reveal news bias on television? We&#8217;ll cover one news bias example in which newscasters&#8217; nonverbal signals revealed how they really felt about the candidates during the 1984 presidential campaign. We&#8217;ll also look at how these unconscious facial expressions swayed viewer votes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4716,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,24],"tags":[61],"class_list":["post-4699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ethics","category-society","tag-tipping-point","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>News Bias: How Little Cues Sway Voters and Elections - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Subconscious news bias not only reveals the biases of the anchor but also influences the biases of the viewer. Learn how nonverbal signals reveal news bias\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/news-bias\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"News Bias: How Little Cues Sway Voters and Elections\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Subconscious news bias not only reveals the biases of the anchor but also influences the biases of the viewer. Learn how nonverbal signals reveal news bias\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/news-bias\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Shortform Books\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-11-25T14:48:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-03-11T20:39:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/tipping-point-news-bias.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"776\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"517\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Amanda Penn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Amanda Penn\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/news-bias\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/news-bias\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Amanda Penn\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/01b0e4c9ddb993e51d03808839d538b0\"},\"headline\":\"News Bias: How Little Cues Sway Voters and Elections\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-11-25T14:48:50+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-03-11T20:39:09+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/news-bias\/\"},\"wordCount\":672,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/news-bias\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/tipping-point-news-bias.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"The Tipping Point\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Ethics\",\"Society\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/news-bias\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/news-bias\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/news-bias\/\",\"name\":\"News Bias: How Little Cues Sway Voters and Elections - Shortform Books\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/news-bias\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/news-bias\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/tipping-point-news-bias.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-11-25T14:48:50+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-03-11T20:39:09+00:00\",\"description\":\"Subconscious news bias not only reveals the biases of the anchor but also influences the biases of the viewer. 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