MEDIA UTILIZATION OF POLITICAL PARTISANSHIP AND PREJUDICE TO SWAY PUBLIC PERCEPTION AND OPINIONS, NATIONALLY AND INTERNATIONALLY (USING CNN, FOX, NTA AND AIT AS CASE STUDIES)

ABSTRACT

Political media bias and media partisanship has always been a contentious ground that has sparked endless debates within the academic community as to whether partisan bias actually exists, what constitutes media partisanship and what are its effects. These issues provide the bedrock for this study which seeks to provide more clarity on these concerns and contribute in posterity to the existing body of work to bring the debate to its definite inevitable conclusion that indeed media partisanship does exist and poses a threat to our society. As a map to guide future researchers, definitions of key terms such as partisanship, prejudice, media, bias etc are examined. The origins, manifestations, propagators and repercussions of media utilization of partisanship are also documented. The study adopted the survey research method with the use of questionnaires containing 17 items and an interview of 8 questions was used to get detailed psychographic data in evaluating the case studies. Random sampling was used to draw out 200 respondents from the total population of students in the department of Mass Communication, University of Benin Ekehuan Campus and the data was analyzed with frequency tables, simple percentage, mean score and SPSS. Findings from the study revealed a unanimous agreement that the media does indeed exhibit bias in its coverage of political content and also agreeing that the major repercussion of this practice is the erosion of public trust for the media. The study concludes with the recommendation that the media stay out of the business of telling the people what to think and how to think about it and instead focus on delivering accurate, impartial, unbiased and unblemished coverage of issues and allowing audiences the freedom to construct their own interpretations and make their own decisions on those issues.