TY - JOUR
T1 - “Fair and Balanced”
T2 - What News Audiences in Four Countries Mean When They Say They Prefer Impartial News
AU - Mont’Alverne, Camila
AU - Badrinathan, Sumitra
AU - Ross Arguedas, Amy
AU - Toff, Benjamin
AU - Fletcher, Richard
AU - Nielsen, Rasmus
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2023
Y1 - 2023
N2 - Impartial news, or news without a partisan slant or overt point-of-view, is overwhelmingly preferred by news audiences worldwide, yet what such preferences mean remains poorly understood. In this study, we examine what people mean when they say they prefer impartial news. We draw on qualitative interviews and focus groups with 132 individuals in Brazil, India, the UK, and the US, conducted in early 2021. Our results show while the idea of impartial news is widely embraced in abstract, ranging from notions of reporting “just the facts” to more nuanced views about how feasible impartiality is to achieve, there is no shared understanding of impartiality in practice. People’s perceptions of impartiality are rooted in two intertwined folk theories: the notion that news production and editorial decisions are guided largely by (a) partisan political agendas or (b) commercial considerations, determining what stories were chosen, ignored, or crafted in order to deceive and manipulate. There is some country variation around the importance of these folk theories, but their recurrence suggests that demonstrating impartiality to audiences requires convincing them not only that news content is balanced but also that editorial decisions were not driven by ulterior motives.
AB - Impartial news, or news without a partisan slant or overt point-of-view, is overwhelmingly preferred by news audiences worldwide, yet what such preferences mean remains poorly understood. In this study, we examine what people mean when they say they prefer impartial news. We draw on qualitative interviews and focus groups with 132 individuals in Brazil, India, the UK, and the US, conducted in early 2021. Our results show while the idea of impartial news is widely embraced in abstract, ranging from notions of reporting “just the facts” to more nuanced views about how feasible impartiality is to achieve, there is no shared understanding of impartiality in practice. People’s perceptions of impartiality are rooted in two intertwined folk theories: the notion that news production and editorial decisions are guided largely by (a) partisan political agendas or (b) commercial considerations, determining what stories were chosen, ignored, or crafted in order to deceive and manipulate. There is some country variation around the importance of these folk theories, but their recurrence suggests that demonstrating impartiality to audiences requires convincing them not only that news content is balanced but also that editorial decisions were not driven by ulterior motives.
KW - Impartiality
KW - folk theories
KW - in-depth interviews
KW - news audiences
KW - objectivity
KW - trust in news
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U2 - 10.1080/1461670X.2023.2201864
DO - 10.1080/1461670X.2023.2201864
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85153594035
SN - 1461-670X
VL - 24
SP - 1131
EP - 1148
JO - Journalism Studies
JF - Journalism Studies
IS - 9
ER -