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June 9, 2006 Two common dictionary definitions of the word "subjective" are "...taking place within the mind and modified by personal bias." or that which is "...influenced by personal opinion." Based upon these definitions it is apparent that the entire world itself is subjective; everything we see, hear and judge is impacted in some way by our own personal background, our experiences and, yes, even our prejudices. None of us is truly objective, even if we convince ourselves that we are unbiased. This inherent subjectivity is evident in almost all the decisions we make in life---large and small. When we sit down and scan through the movie listings in our local newspaper, we certainly employ a good deal of bias in selecting a film on which we plan to spend our hard-earned money and valuable time. We consider whether or not we like an actor appearing in the flick, the subject matter itself and probably invoke our past experiences with similar kinds of movies. There is, in fact, more subjectivity than objectivity to this decision. Similar thought processes are used in deciding upon a restaurant, where to live and work and send our kids to school. Personal experience, biases and emotional thought play large roles in all of these decisions. Even when we walk alone into a voting booth to cast our ballot for a particular candidate or issue, we bring our subjective influences with us. There is no place to check these biases at the door of any polling location I've ever seen. Likewise, our biases creep into our daily discussions at work, with friends and family and others. When we provide advice to others we do so based upon, not objectivity--even when we announce that we are completely "objective"--but through a lifetime of experiences that have helped shape our thoughts and opinions. Any individual who cares at all about a particular subject matter can almost be assured to have some predispositions about that topic. From the time I became interested in politics and political issues I began to formulate opinions and thoughts---my biases--related to these issues. I know I am not alone in this regard. Anyone who is passionate about something likely holds immense beliefs about that very thing. For instance, one would be hard-pressed to find a fanatic of the Green Bay Packers football team (a "cheesehead" so to speak) who has no thoughts on how that team should be run or how it is doing at any given time. Someone who does not like football at all may not have an opinion about the Packers; then again, not liking football is a representation of their own personal bias on the issue. In the media world, repeated surveys have demonstrated that an overwhelming number of the reporters, producers, editors, columnists, etc. who bring us the daily "news" of the world are liberal Democrats. Polls have demonstrated that in excess of 70% of people in media voted for Bill Clinton in elections for which he garnered less than 50% of the total popular vote overall. In a statistical sense, that is a huge disparity. Depending upon the source, it has been estimated that somewhere between 70% and 80% of media members are registered Democrats. In addition, it is not too big of a step to realize that the world of journalism itself attracts people who are far more politically active and passionate. In other words, not only are these individuals generally loyal to one political party over another, they also (generally) happen to be strongly motivated by politics and political issues. In short, they care a great deal about their beliefs and tend to be active in dealing with those beliefs. I have no problem with media members holding strong political views; people should be passionate about their world and how they feel it should be run. The problem I have is how so many can continue to deny the existence of a latent liberal media bias in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. In order to concretely deny the existence of this bias, one has to conclude that the 70% to 80% of liberal Democrat media members, many of whom have held lifetime allegiance to the principles embraced by the Democrat party and who feel strongly about many liberal policies, can somehow shut off their personal feelings, with the flick of an invisible switch, when they are researching and reporting stories on these very topics. One would have to accept the idea that subjectivity plays no part in the decision of which stories to report, which ones to ignore, which sources to use and which ones to avoid, etc. This is not to suggest there is some conspiracy going on in the media world; it is just human nature at work in its purest form. We live in a subjective world and the media is just part of it. The problem is that too many of us have been socialized to believe the media is truly objective, which is simply not the case. In fact, the denial of an existing media bias is itself evidence of personal subjectivity. Or maybe that's just my bias talking... ------------ About the author: Ed Abraham is a concerned citizen living in flyover country, U.S.A., who happens to be truly disgusted by the loss of common sense in our society and is doing all he can to try to reinstall it. Email: eabra@myway.com Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com. Please link to this article rather than copying and pasting it onto your site (which would be unauthorized and illegal). |
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