Media bias explained in two studies

[Commentary] The University of Chicago’s Matthew Gentzkow and Jesse Shapiro have some interesting ideas about the modern media, which they culled by studying traditional media. Namely, newspapers.

They examined the ideological “slant” of newspapers by identifying various words and phrases favored by liberals or conservatives. By tallying newspapers’ use of liberal and conservative phrases, Gentzkow and Shapiro determined papers’ political slant. This compromised their “objective” pursuit of the news.

But why are some papers more liberal and others more conservative? This is how the media resemble ice cream, Gentzkow said. Just as ice cream makers give customers the flavors they want, newspapers give their readers the stories and slant they want. It’s a market phenomenon. Ice cream makers strive to maximize ice cream consumption and profits. Papers try to maximize readership and profits.

Newspapers are commercial enterprises that respond to economic signals and incentives. Editors, producers and reporters sense what appeals to their readers and try to satisfy these tastes. Applied to cable news channels and the Internet, these same forces polarize politics.

Cable and the Internet have splintered media audiences and, thereby, created ferocious fights for ever-larger shares of ever-smaller fragments of the old mass market. The logic is powerful that the commercial imperatives of the new technologies will deepen the country’s political divisions. People will stick to their familiar political flavors and disparage those who choose differently.