Bias in the media is a major and yet unfortunately, a common problem within the journalism industry worldwide.
A survey produced by the the University of the Sunshine Coast of journalists around Australia found that almost 63 per cent of their sample described themselves as holding either left-of-centre or right-of-centre views; with the majority (more than half) being left-of-centre (Hanusch, 2013).
The study also found that although the journalists were aware of their political biases, they were less aware of their cultural bias. The majority of the sample were of ‘white’ Australian backgrounds, whereas only 6.5 per cent represented those with Asian, Middle Eastern or Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander backgrounds. This supports the argument that Australian journalists’ worldviews and cultural backgrounds are not entirely representative of Australia’s general population which is a growing multi-cultural society (Hanusch, 2013).
Although not a lot of Australian research has been conducted around media bias, American research also finds evidence of bias in American mass media, specifically political bias; which also found the majority of journalists (65 per cent) had liberal views (Discover the networks.org, n.d.). Bias in the news media is most powerful not only when intentional lies are told but also most often of what journalists purposely choose not to mention to their audiences (Discover the networks.org, n.d.).
Statistics from the Pew Research Center revealed that the belief of bias in news coverages has increased steadily within the American public over the years. The number of people who said they ‘see a great deal’ of political bias in the news increased by 12 per cent from 1989 to 2012, reaching a figure of 37 per cent (Pew Research Center, 2012).
In addition to this, another study from the Pew Research Center on news attitudes and habits found that although many Americans say they enjoy keeping up with the news, the proportion of those who say they enjoy following the news a lot has declined to less than half (45 per cent of the sample), (Pew Research Center, 2012). Furthermore, this correlates with the increase in proportion of people who responded ‘Not much/Not at all’.
We believe that these perceptions of bias in the media and news attitudes are similar in reflecting the whole journalism industry. It is clear in today’s society that people receiving the news are more aware of bias and this is affecting their attitudes and their enjoyment towards the news. Our team understands this growing frustration in receiving news of which quality is affected by bias and decided to amend this problem with a new website news application.
Criteria for news quality, as recognised by news recipients, is measured by the criteria of diversity, relevance, ethics, impartiality, objectivity and comprehensibility (Urban & Schweiger, 2014). However, people receiving the news find it hard to evaluate the ethics, objectivity and comprehensibility of news items (Urban & Schweiger, 2014).
Another study found that journalists’ top-ranked criteria found when judging news stories were: accuracy, depth, impartiality, investigative enterprise, literary style and sophistication of treatment (Gladney, Shapiro & Castaldo, 2007).
Our website application, ‘In the Know’, aims to minimise bias and help remove the barrier of evaluating quality criteria by providing the top-rated news stories based on quality, as rated by the public. From these findings, our team has categorised the criteria into four main areas and defined news quality as being:
1. Trustworthy (ethics, sophistication of treatment, impartiality)
1. Trustworthy (ethics, sophistication of treatment, impartiality)
2. Legitimate (objectivity, accuracy, impartiality)
3. Evidential (depth, investigative enterprise)
4. Persuasive (relevance, comprehensibility, literary style)
Two rounds of user-testing, short interviews and surveys were conducted to test the website application and make improvements over the development stages.
Strengths
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Weaknesses
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Opportunities
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Threats
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Primary data and observations
Our survey represents a sample of 21 respondents, which consisted of ten males and 11 females. The ages of our sample ranged between 18 - 27 years, with the majority (81.8 per cent) aged within the 18 - 22 years range. Most respondents were students (within the Business, Journalism, Environmental and IT areas), however 18.2 per cent were working professionals in Law and IT professions.
Most respondents were from the inner-city Brisbane suburbs. Some were also from Logan, Gold Coast, the state of New South Wales and China.
From our responses, we found the genre of news people were most interested in was entertainment and breaking news. Other genres put forward in responses were also sport and technology news. Due to this spread of genre interest, In the Know remained presenting a range of news genres to maximise user interest, with entertainment and breaking news kept in high considerations.
The sample revealed over half of people (52.4 per cent) used technology to access the news every day and every few hours, which shows a demand for a news website - (refer to the Fig. 1 and Fig. 2 below).
The sample revealed over half of people (52.4 per cent) used technology to access the news every day and every few hours, which shows a demand for a news website - (refer to the Fig. 1 and Fig. 2 below).
Figure 1: Sample response to preferred news genres
Figure 2: Sample response to time spent on news technology
Most people also said they use apps more whilst being on-the-go, compared to only 33.3 per cent of people that said they use them while sitting down and a small 4.8 per cent said they did not use apps. This shows that a website application suits the usage needs of over 95 per cent of this sample for a website which can be used whilst sitting down at a computer or as an application which can also be used on mobile phones and smart devices - (refer to Fig. 3 below).
Figure 3: Sample response to apps use
Additionally, most people identified websites as the news channel they used most frequently and the majority also strongly identified the quality of news sources to be very important (refer to Fig. 4). Furthermore, a very strong majority of 80 per cent confirmed they would be interested in the concept idea of an online platform which provides a news story from multiple sources available for comparison (refer to Fig 5). This was a good indication for our team to continue developing the idea of In the Know, as there is a clear interest for it represented in our sample (refer to Fig. 6).
Figure 4: Sample response to the importance of news source quality
Figure 5: Sample response showing interest in the concept idea of In the Know
Figure 6: Sample response to most frequently used news channels
The word cloud below represents the most common answers for what is found to be most bothersome about the news. The strongest answer was ‘advertisements’ but other answers included ‘bias’, ‘fake’, ‘rumours’, ‘out-of-date’. This confirms that people are aware of bias in the news and they find it bothersome. We also noted that out-of-date news can be perceived as negative and incorporated this into further developing In the Know to only represent the top ten trending news stories of the day.
Word cloud displaying most common responses to what bothers people about the news
The responses for the preference of more text or image content on a new page was varied. However, 75 per cent preferred to have a larger text proportion compared to images but images were found to be very important in each response. From this, we found it was important for In the Know to represent plenty of image content to give an interesting visual experience for the users, as well as text content.
Users responses in regards to the design of a news application clearly indicated that a colourful and interactive interface is wanted with 66.7 per cent wanting an interactive interface and 42.9 per cent wanting a colourful design (refer to Fig. 7). Other suggestions were: clear readability, suitable line height, a non-overwhelming layout and creative ways for it to be engaging.
Figure 7: Sample response to design features preference of a news app
From these responses, the design of In the Know was adjusted to match the users wants and needs. The design team changed the interface from a plain, white listed-view to a colourful, interactive and creative interface. The team tried to implement creativeness and develop more user engagement into the design by incorporating a new social commenting platform for users to try (a live comment feed), an addition of more shape and size surrounding buttons and the rating system of news quality, delivering a high level of user control and social interaction.
The responses observed in the final round of user-testing after this stage of changes were very positive and received much more excited and satisfied feedback. Users found the website application creative, visually appealing and ‘really cool’ as one test respondent said. When asked if they would be interested in the fully functioning final product, all ten respondents interviewed said yes.
This was extremely positive feedback for the team and showed great progress had been made.
