A Review of Studies on Media Bias at Home

辛一丹

【Abstract】Bias is widely existed nowadays. Domestic scholars have done a lot of research on the bias， especially the media bias. They studied the media bias from different perspectives， such as the bias on China image，the bias of a certain media FOX， the bias on the venerable group， the bias on women and so on. The author plans to give a review of the studies on media bias at home in this paper.

【Key words】media bias； domestic scholars； review

1. introduction

Western scholars have concluded a number of important research results on media bias based on rich psychological research the social survey. In recent years， media bias began to attract more attention from scholars at home. Different scholars research on it from different angles.

2. A review in details

2.1 Bias on China image

In the 1990s， scholars began to study the western media bias towards China， it is the first phase. In this phase， “demonizing China” appeared the most frequently. During that time， western media had bias on many major events in the relationship of US and China. The bias of American media was showed by demonizing China， which caught the attention of researchers both at home and abroad. Li Xiguang explored these issues in his essays. Through a series of essays about demonizing China， what he wanted to tell people is “media plays a very important role in shaping the national image. Western media demonized Chinese media and China image in order to shape a good image of his own. In message spreading， China should learn how to shape the national image in an acceptable way by the whole world. This is a very tough battle. But China has no choice.” Said Li Guangxi. Afterwards Chinas Image by International View by Liu Jinan and He Hui made 8 content reports about the world mainstream media coverage toward China， trying to confirm and analyze neither comprehensive nor objective phenomenon in the report in the quantized perspective.

However， being worth suggesting that is， western scholars also attached great importance to the media and U.S.-China relation. David D. Perlmutter analyzed photos， pictures， caricatures and commentaries of the period of the Korean War， Taiwan Strait crisis， the cold war， Nixon's visit to China in TIME. Analysis states that TIME had a serious effect on Americans public opinion about China in three-quarters of 20th century.

2.2 Bias of FOX

With the outbreaking of the gulf war and the war against Iraq， the growing fervor of patriotism affected the objectivity of the media report. Chinese scholars criticized FOX and pointed out “They used patriotism and national interests to mislead the audience. They persuaded the audience to accept a certain political views by using some news techniques like insinuations， allusion and exaggeration instead of giving the audience the fact. In this way， they had consolidated their media leader position through supporting the government's policy and finally realized the maximization of the overall interests of their own.” The analysis of the bias of FOX in his paper involved the political and economic factors to media bias. And the author also explained the media bias in neo-conservatism and media monopoly.

2.3 Bias on vulnerable groups

In recent years， many domestic scholars made a great many researches on the bias of vulnerable groups， especially the rural migrant workers. The problem of the media bias against vulnerable groups is summed up into distortion， utilization and contempt of the fact.The bias against the rural migrant workers is mostly researched in the news spreading. The main research direction is media presentation. The papers pointed out that rural vulnerable group have been in a “vulnerable” position， without right of voice and presence.Wei Mingang studied the reasons of the bias against vulnerable groups from the economics angle and found it was the capital profit chasing that determined.

2.4 Bias on female

The research of bias on female concentrates on the research on female stereotypes. The study found women are always in a weak position in family and in relationships. The media image of women is greatly affected by the politics， the economy and the change of social ideology， Luo Yunjuan and Hao Xiaoming said.

Cao Jin talked about media bias from the perspective of media use. She studied the western feminism critical theory of communication research， the major issues and qualitative research methods and exposed that global media organizations and power system depends on economy and polity and ideology.

3. Conclusion

As can be seen above， scholars at home have made great contributions to the media bias research， which laid a good foundation for the future studies.

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