Bias What, Who? Unpacking the Public Debate Surrounding Bias Accusations towards Public Service Media

In Europe, Public Service Media (PSM) are increasingly getting accused of being biased. In democratic societies, Public Service Media function as impartial news outlets and uniquely serve to create a shared public space by delivering factual news and providing balanced representation of diverse perspectives on societal issues. While the increasing presence of bias accusations are widely acknowledged, we know little about the nature of these bias accusations. What are PSM accused of by political and public figures in the public debate? 

My qualitative study into the essence of these bias accusations towards Dutch PSM has produced a typology of bias accusations and shows three main things. First, bias accusations center around information and representation. They address concerns about the truthfulness of news (including the presence of inaccuracies in news, but also information-distorting actions by journalists and the news outlet themselves that lead up to inaccuracies), and the positionality of PSM as an institution and how that is expressed in their news reporting. This positionality dimension refers to how much attention people, ideologies, viewpoints, social groups and issues receive in their news reporting, and how in this a certain positionality is reflected. Second, bias accusations towards PSM are not at all constructive in nature. While media criticism more generally is not necessarily bad for democracy - in fact, constructive forms of criticism are actually a sign of a healthy democracy, demonstrating how citizens or public actors aim to aid and correct media for accidental mistakes - bias accusations demonstrate that accusers clearly perceive an intentional bias in PSM and its news reporting. Third, bias accusations towards PSM are voiced by actors with varying political viewpoints and reflect broader social and political divisions that are rooted in society. Interestingly, bias accusations often reflect not only bias against one’s own group but also against related groups with similar political views, making bias accusations often a broader, political criticism towards PSM. 

So, what does this mean for PSM in democratic societies? Well, given their role in creating an accessible public sphere in which various opinions can be shared, and their pivotal function in providing people with factual information and a balanced representation of diverse perspectives on topics, these accusations could be detrimental to their position. Namely, these conflicting perceptions might negatively affect the legitimacy PSM have in democracies and further intensify polarization in the public debate but also among citizens. However, as this study was a first exploration of what bias accusations towards PSM essentially entail, further research into the variety and presence of bias accusations voiced by different actors in a quantitative way is much needed. This way we can actually understand changes over time and other elements and factors contributing to bias accusations by comparing different contexts and countries. 

Emily Gravesteijn is a PhD candidate in Political Science at Radboud University, with a research affiliation at ASCoR. In her research, she explores why some citizens perceive news from public media, such as the NOS, as biased. She examines bias accusations in public debates, news content, and individual perceptions of bias together. 

Link to my first paper: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/10776990241284587