A One-Sided Story
Biased media affects us all in one-way or another. What is biased media? It is
media that takes one side of a story without showing the opposing side’s opinion.
Media play a major role in shaping our society; it collects and sets the information
that people identify. It plays an essential part in political aspects and voting for
instance, and that is why it is important for media to be neutral, something that hasn’t
been happening lately in places like Egypt during the 25th January revolution. Talking
in general, media becomes biased when it supports one side of a story and spreads the
issues in a certain way. Some media actually disguise the original story and cover it
up by showing unreal events or leaving out certain incidents. This is a procedure
mainly done to win over people on that one side of the story.
However, is biased media essentially a problem? Biased media affects the
audience through the information they give away and by broadcast communication.
For that reason, news can no longer be taken at face value; sources must be
considered and the stories be interpreted. One of the effects on society from biased
media is the fact that the people get divided. Due to the several stories being shown
by several media outlets, people are shown series of images, videos and stories with
“supposedly” backed up credible information that in the end happens to be driving
people apart by each taking the side they choose to believe. A second effect media
bias has on society is towards political parties. For example a politician can
manipulate information fed to audiences so that they lean towards him at elections.
Liability and transparency are no longer at hand when such things take place.
Politicians like these think they can get away with such acts when the news channels
cover for them.