Measuring Media Bias: A Content Analysis of Time and Newsweek Coverage of Domestic Social Issues, 1975–2000*

Objective. This study is an effort to produce a more systematic, empirically‐based, historical‐comparative understanding of media bias than generally is found in previous works. Methods. The research employs a quantitative measure of ideological bias in a formal content analysis of the United States' two largest circulation news magazines, Time and Newsweek. Findings are compared with the results of an identical examination of two of the nation's leading partisan journals, the conservative National Review and the liberal Progressive. Results. Bias scores reveal stark differences between the mainstream and the partisan news magazines' coverage of four issue areas: crime, the environment, gender, and poverty. Conclusion. Data provide little support for those claiming significant media bias in either ideological direction.     

NEWS IN MY BACKYARD: Media and Democracy in an "All American" City

Considerable research indicates that, at both the national and community levels, commercial news media generally fail to provide citizens with the specific information they require to hold government and public organizations accountable. This study extends research on media and democracy at the local level through a detailed content analysis of the community issue coverage of a local newspaper that serves an unusually well educated, financially secure, and politically active population. Data suggest that media do not serve democracy even in a context in which the limitations imposed by a politically disengaged audience are not present.