Research Symposium

BIO

Hi! My name is Courtney Boutilier and I am a sophomore from Charlotte, NC studying Political Science and Sociology. My research measures media bias in major news outlets through selection bias and presentation bias. I want to attend law school after graduation and hope to be a civil rights and immigration attorney.

Measuring and Analyzing Media Bias from Text

Abstract

Partisan bias infiltrates the media in ways that can affect political behavior. In this research, we analyze political news articles from six media organizations: CNN, Fox News, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, HuffPost, and Breitbart. We measure article-level ideological leaning by comparing the text of the news articles to that of congressional speeches. This research further analyzes partisan bias in news article text by examining two choices made by newsmakers: which events to cover and how to cover them. Combining manual coding of news articles from several major media outlets and statistical analyses, we determine whether they cover the same issues and whether they relay them similarly or in different ways. The ideological leanings of each major media organization can be due to structural differences, but they can also be accentuated by presentation bias. Some of the common strategies used to portray bias through text are selective coverage and framing, which exacerbate polarization and lead readers to seek out media that shares their pre-existing political views. The exposure of voters to partisan bias in news coverage has implications for political discourse. Our research allows us to understand the coverage of political events by media organizations and how they manifest into partisan bias.

Keywords: Media bias