Since June 6, the world has been roiled by an ongoing series of disclosures based on Edward Snowden’s document leaks, with coverage led by the Guardian and the Washington Post, about clandestine mass surveillance conducted, with little oversight, by the NSA and its international partners.
Public perceptions of these surveillance revelations are affected not only by the NSA’s actual actions, but also by the news coverage of the government’s spying programs. Previous studies have shown that the latter factor can have a profound effect on public opinion. Given the importance of this issue, we decided to analyze major US newspapers’ “post-Snowden” coverage of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) to determine if there was an overall bias in either a pro- (traditionally conservative) or anti-surveillance (traditionally liberal) direction.
The results were unexpected, and quite remarkable.
Our analysis of total press coverage of FISA and FISC between July 1 and July 31 (July was the first full calendar month after the initial disclosures in June) revealed that the widely held assumption that major media outlets uniformly tilt to the left does not match reality. In fact, if anything, the media appears to tilt to the right, at least on this issue.
We did a LexisNexis search of four of the largest US newspapers by circulation: The New York Times, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, and the Washington Post. Of the 30 traditionally pro- or anti-surveillance terms we examined (15 each, listed below) in all four newspapers, key words generally used to justify increased surveillance, such as security or terrorism, were used much more frequently than terms that tend to invoke opposition to mass surveillance, such as privacy or liberty.
USA Today led the pack, using pro-surveillance terms 36 percent more frequently than anti-surveillance terms. The LA Times followed at 24 percent, while The New York Times was at 14.1 percent. Even the Washington Post, where Barton Gellman was the first US journalist to break the news of the NSA’s surveillance, exhibited a net pro-surveillance bias in its coverage of 11.1 percent. Although keyword frequency analysis on its own is not always conclusive, large, consistent discrepancies of the kind observed here strongly suggest a net media bias in favor of the US and UK governments’ pro-surveillance position.
The pro-surveillance media bias we found was not, in general, overt. In our opinion, most of the New York Times’ FISA/FISC coverage was neutral in tone. But covert bias is still bias—in fact, it may even be more effective than blatant bias, since readers may not notice its existence. A seemingly neutral article could leave a net pro-surveillance impression on readers if it contains an excess of references to, say, foreign terrorists or national security—terms that tend to frame the issue as a question of patriotic willingness to do what it takes to keep the country safe.
Our findings indicate that the intense public concern about the NSA’s activities is not merely an artifact of biased coverage, since the media actually appears to be biased in the opposite direction. In a recent Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll, 54 percent of respondents disagreed with dragnet collection of internet metadata and 71 percent disagreed with warrantless monitoring of US phone calls. Public opposition to the government surveillance might be even more pronounced if overall media coverage was neutral and unbiased.
Consciously or not, Western journalists and media outlets may still (even more than a decade after 9/11) be wary of appearing to be “soft on terror,” much as they once were about appearing to be soft on Communism. President George W. Bush’s September 2001 admonition that “either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists” appears to have an enduring legacy in media bias.
List of terms
The main point is that the news media has a pro-State slant. I'm not so sure that 'right' and 'left' are helpful terms in this case. The establishment of both parties are in support of surveillance. That said, I'm always in favor of folks learning the term "classically liberal." Today's liberals have almost no connection with that term.
#1 Posted by Robert, CJR on Wed 23 Oct 2013 at 08:46 AM
The right /left distinction is outmoded.
Both of our two political parties are virtually identical with regards to foreign policy, surveillance, facilitation of the police state, protection of corporate interests, partnership with the central banking mafia, and preservation of the central banking monetary policy monopoly over our banking system (one that enriches the few at the expense of the vast majority)
The press merely reflects this monolithic face of government, as a tool of the state.
#2 Posted by Atari2u, CJR on Wed 23 Oct 2013 at 10:06 AM
Thanks Robert & Atari. I agree that both the Democratic and Republican parties' establishments have made clear that they are in favor of state surveillance. That's why we used the terms "traditionally conservative" and "traditionally liberal" instead of just "conservative" and "liberal." "Classically liberal" may be an even better term.
#3 Posted by Albert Wong, CJR on Wed 23 Oct 2013 at 10:14 AM
Passing the Patriot Act was bi-partisan and re-authorizing the current state of emergency every two years which includes the surveillance state is also bi-partisan.
#4 Posted by Steve, CJR on Wed 23 Oct 2013 at 11:32 AM
Really interesting -- I'd love to see more of this kind of timely content analysis in CJR and elsewhere. Are there outlets that cut against the trend? If the ratio's reversed in the Guardian e.g., or even in individual articles about privacy & surveillance, that would help to show that the keyword clusters are capturing a meaningful divide. (In other words what if even clearly skeptical coverage scores as fairly "pro-surveillance"?) Anyhow, this is very thought-provoking, I hope you'll follow up.
#5 Posted by Lucas Graves, CJR on Wed 23 Oct 2013 at 12:06 PM
Robert, Atari2u, and Steve are correct; their arguments are irrefutable. Still, insofar as the terms left and right will apply here, let's get this straight: nanny-statism, see-something-say-something regimes, the centralization and expansion of govt power, and the general growth of govt are leftist ideals, if anything. Also, surveillance-statism, police-statism, and an interventionist foreign-policy are not conservative ideals, unless you're referring to the warmongering Machiavellian-progressives known as the neo-conservatives.
#6 Posted by Dan A., CJR on Wed 23 Oct 2013 at 04:20 PM
Thanks for all the comments. Thanks Lucas -- we will definitely follow up on this.
#7 Posted by Valerie, CJR on Wed 23 Oct 2013 at 05:06 PM
I'd like to join the posters above who note that 'the media' has a pro-Washington, pro-statist bias, rather than a bias toward the 'right' on this particular issue. The worst example of this is the reaction of the mainstream media toward the 'Citizens United' decision. In that decision, the Obama Administration asserted the right of the federal government to suppress any book, pamphlet, documentary film (the subject of the case, be it remembered, was an unflattering documentary about Hillary Clinton), or other media that it deemed to be a corporate endorsement of a candidate in an election campaign. That position has nothing to do with liberal principles and a lot to do with the aggregation of power by a self-selected aspiring administrative class.
#8 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Thu 24 Oct 2013 at 12:37 PM
Fascinating results. I thought this point "Previous studies have shown that the latter factor can have a profound effect on public opinion" was very interesting so I followed up by clinking on the links.
However, your first link to the "studies" is a Guardian article discussing one study that seems to provide weak support for the notion that news reporting caused the shifts in public moods rather than actual social instability and legislative changes. That's my interpretation at least, but I would appreciate if you could post links to a few more studies. The second link "shown" leads to an Error 404 page.
Could you remedy these? Thanks
#9 Posted by JR, CJR on Fri 25 Oct 2013 at 12:41 PM
Hi JR,
I am sure link #2 can be remedied. Link #1 is a summary of the sociologist David L. Altheide work addressing this issue over the past decades. His books Creating Reality: How TV News Distorts Events (1976), Creating Fear: News and the Construction of Crisis (2002), Terrorism and the Politics of Fear (2006) and Terror Post 9/11 and the Media (2009) might be of interest to you. Let us know what you think!
Best,
#10 Posted by Valerie, CJR on Fri 25 Oct 2013 at 01:18 PM
I also would like to know about more studies on this kind of topic, unfortunately the links provided are not pertinent, or unreachable. Could you please provide some?
#11 Posted by Fed, CJR on Fri 25 Oct 2013 at 01:18 PM
Thanks Valerie for the answer. We posted almost at the same time, but my comment was submitted a few seconds later, that's why it seems now obsolete ;)
#12 Posted by Fed, CJR on Fri 25 Oct 2013 at 01:23 PM
So no mention of web sources or even web readership metrics. You guys do realize we're living in the future, right?
#13 Posted by Hugh, CJR on Fri 25 Oct 2013 at 07:16 PM
You needed a study to figure this out? Yes the media have a rightward bias. Nor is the bias limited to the nsa. False equivalencies found in abundance can be attributed to the rightward leaning in the media. Even with the flat-out insanity exhibited by the right, the media has to find some way of saying they both do it when actually it isn't true. Perhaps you need to do some more studies to see your nose in front of your faces.
#14 Posted by Carol, CJR on Sat 26 Oct 2013 at 03:48 PM
Fed and JR: The second link is supposed to be to http://ijcv.org/index.php/ijcv/article/viewFile/10/10 - I'm not sure why it wasn't formatted correctly. Apologies for that + thanks for bringing it to our attention!
#15 Posted by Albert Wong, CJR on Sun 27 Oct 2013 at 12:54 AM