How Knowledge is Conceived and Moulded by Popular Media

Another layer to unfurl is that media outlets’ built-in biases lie in the distinction between news bias and media bias. Though the two are often intertwined, they represent disparate ways in which information is contorted. News bias is more subtle—it's the selective reporting of events, and the careful framing of stories to align with a publication’s ideological leanings. It's about what’s left out as much as what’s included. Media bias, by contrast, is bolder, and easier to spot—it’s when an entire platform’s content takes on a noticeable slant. Why does this distinction matter? Because even outlets celebrated for their so-called balance are not immune. They too shape public perception in ways that bolster Western ideologies, their artful manoeuvring being just as insidious as other sources. As Noam Chomsky famously pointed out in ‘Manufacturing Consent’, privately owned media, regardless of its political affiliations, ultimately aligns with the interests of the powerful. Their coverage, while appearing objective, often serves to construct realities that reinforce existing power structures, offering a version of the world that maintains the status quo.

Whilst this conduct is rife, historical accounts of news bias speak to its deeply problematic consequences. Bush won the popular vote for the first time in 2004 largely because his administration falsely convinced a majority of Americans that Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the 9/11 attacks (Cambanis, 2023). Even long after the historical record had been corrected, a 2015[1] poll found that 42 per cent of Americans still thought, erroneously, that US troops had located weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, evincing the substantial impact of media rhetoric on public knowledge. Whilst these crusades by American soldiers were quite literally veiled in the red, white and blue hues of “patriotism” as seen in photographs published by the TIME, The New York Times and Newsweek (Schwalbe, 2013), gross atrocities transpired unnoticed not far in the military post at Abu Gharib. A study found that anti-war outlets such as Al Jazeera, despite harbouring political affiliations of its own, devoted at least 6.7% of its news mix to civilian casualties in Iraq. In contrast, US TV media coverage of such figures, including news outlets across the political spectrum, was marginal (Aday et al., 2005). This selective reporting, in line with Foucault’s theory and Chosky’s recognition of contrived realities, shaped what was seen as the “truth” and whose suffering was deemed worthy of recognition. Even when the belligerence of war was exposed, it was done highly strategically by popular media. Most notable is the story of Ali Ismaeel Abbas, a 12-year-old Iraqi boy who lost his arms and family in a U.S. missile attack[2]. While his tragedy illustrated the horrors of war, the Anglo-American media reframed his suffering as a “rescue” narrative that appraised the American government’s benevolence in sending him to Britain to access superior medical care. The use of journalism, even of such harrowing events, was thus manipulated to support the Western humanitarian cause. Even the most shocking images from Abu Ghraib, including those of U.S. soldiers torturing Iraqis, struggled to fully dismantle the West’s constructed narrative of moral superiority (Timotijevic, 2022). 

[1] Poll conducted by the Fairleigh Dickinson University as cited by Darmawan in Pragmatics: A Critical Instance Analysis of Discourse Background of Iraq War. Journal of Education Research, 5(3), 3593–3599. https://doi.org/10.37985/jer.v5i3.1565

[2] As cited in Jelena Timotijevic. (2022). The Historical Context in Media Narratives in Search of Peaceful Resolution to the Israel–Palestine Conflict. Cambridge University Press EBooks, 257–277. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009064057.013