Conclusions

The above analysis indicates that media is likely to bias negatively when a new technology/product/service is generally viewed by the population as risky for health or for the environment. These risky sectors would currently include mobile telephones and telephone towers, nuclear technology, powerful chemicals, etc.

The role and influence of some institutions, both formal and informal, on media bias against a new technology with a presumably harmful side to it, is confirmed albeit their secondary

99 importance. Institutions can and do shape the various economic and social activities of a society and the variations in the levels of some of these institutions across countries and regions do impact on the level and direction of media bias - in this case, specifically against genetically modified foods in Europe.

3.8 Limitations and future research

A limitation of the study can be the assumption that activists have spread their efforts equally across countries in Europe. This is because ‘activists’ as a variable could not be used in this study due to lack of data availability, such as their expenditure on GM-related projects, number of brochures on GM food distributed by country, number of articles written in local press, number of press conferences by country, number of employees by country, etc. Any future research in this area will have to take this factor into account and possibly involve one or more of the leading activists in the project and obtain the relevant data for further analysis.

Yet another limitation is linked to the methodology used. As mentioned in section 1.7 in the Introduction chapter, the measurement used (reader perception of the bias) will be applicable essentially in cases where the negative media bias is relatively obvious. Thus, the interpretation of the findings in this chapter that because bias is systematically related to the institutional characteristics should not be interpreted as giving credence to the method used to define bias in general, but only limited to GM foods in the context studied.

Other limitations include the translation procedure adopted, not including all possible covariates which may be relevant and impact news coverage, and the 6-year time period which can be extended in future research.

The next stage of the research will be to understand why media tend to bias against GM foods in Europe and see if that can be generalised to the level of a ‘risky’ technology/product as mentioned earlier. It is hypothesised at this stage that the supply characteristics of the media can have a strong role to play in the ultimate bias imparted to the news.

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103 Appendix 3.1. Freedom of Press Indices by Country and Year - 2005-2010

Country 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

Austria 21 21 21 21 21 21

Croatia 37 39 37 36 38 40

Estonia 17 16 16 16 15 17

France 20 21 21 22 22 23

Germany 16 16 16 16 16 17

India 38 37 35 35 36 33

Ireland 15 15 16 15 15 15

Italy 35 35 29 29 32 33

Netherlands 11 11 13 13 13 14

Norway 10 10 11 10 10 10

Poland 20 21 22 24 24 24

Romania 47 44 42 44 44 43

Russia 68 72 75 78 80 81

Spain 22 21 22 23 24 24

Sweden 9 10 11 11 11 10

Switzerland 11 11 12 13 13 13

UK 18 19 19 18 19 19

source:www.freedomhouse.org

Countries are given a total score from 0 (best) to 100 (worst) on the basis of a set of 23 methodology questions divided into three subcategories.

Assigning numerical points allows for comparative analysis among the countries surveyed and facilitates an examination of trends over time.

The degree to which each country permits the free flow of news and information determines the classification of its media as "Free," "Partly Free," or "Not Free".

Countries scoring 0 to 30 are regarded as having "Free" media; 31 to 60, "Partly Free"

media; 61 to 100, "Not Free" media.

104 4. MEDIA BIAS, RESOURCE FLEXIBILITY AND NEWSPAPERS’ STRATEGY

- A CASE STUDY OF GENETICALLY-MODIFIED FOODS IN EUROPE

ABSTRACT

Why do newspapers’ managers decide to bias certain news reports? Could this be a deliberate strategy, and if yes what type of strategy? For instance, do newspapers’ managers bias news in the context of a differentiation strategy?

The purpose of this paper is to investigate these questions. A theory of strategic bias by newspapers’ managers is first shown. Building on the concepts of commitment versus flexibility of a firm’s resources, this model suggests a counter-intuitive result: newspapers that are the most likely to bias news strategically are centrist newspapers, and not newspapers with a clear commitment to either left-wing or right-wing positions. This theory is tested using data regarding articles covering the subject of genetically modified foods in Europe. Results show that centrist newspapers tend to explain the average negative bias on GM foods more strongly (as compared to liberal or conservative newspapers) thus highlighting the greater ‘flexibility’ of business activities of centrist newspapers. A separate analysis of two sets of political news reinforces the choice of ‘flexibility’ (as opposed to ‘commitment’) of firm-specific resource as a strategic business option by centrist newspapers.

105 4.1 Introduction

If the prevalence of media bias were to be established, it could be argued that this bias is part of the newspapers’ strategies. In particular, it could be a way to differentiate in a crowded newspaper market. In this context, the question raised here is the following: ‘do newspapers use media bias as a part of their business strategy?’ An analysis on European newspaper bias on GM foods will be used to answer this question. The study is further extended to analyse how different types of newspapers use their political tilt as a resource.

While media bias has already been studied extensively, there is no relevant literature that examines the relationship between media bias and the political positioning of newspapers, and how that concept can be used as a strategic tool by a firm. Thus the current paper will add a new dimension to the strategic choices made by newspapers which can then be extended to other types of firms.

As explained in the literature on resource-based view of business operations, companies can use firm-specific resources as a part of their on-going strategic process. Any consistent political tilt/bias will result in a resource over a period of time that a newspaper firm can ill afford to ignore. As has been shown in Table 4.1, the market for newspapers can be split into those newspapers that tilt towards the right or the left of the political spectrum or those that remain as centrist newspapers. In other words, newspapers can be grouped according to their political affiliation as conservative (or, right), liberal (or, left) and centrist newspapers.

These choices are made by newspapers for various reasons – ownership by people who are affiliated to a specific political party, ownership by specific political parties, funding received from specific political parties, choice based on the target readers, etc.

106 Table 4.1. Political Orientation of Newspapers

Newspaper Country Orientation

Der Standard Austria Liberal

Diepresse Austria Conservative

Neue Zürcher Zeitung Switzerland Conservative

Bild Germany Conservative

Die Welt Germany Conservative

Die Zeit Germany Liberal

Rheinische Post Germany Conservative

Süddeutsche Zeitung Germany Centrist

Postimees Estonia Centrist

20 Minutos Spain Liberal

ABC Spain Conservative

Expansión Spain Centrist

El País Spain Liberal

Le Figaro France Conservative

Le Monde France Liberal

Libération France Liberal

Le Monde Diplomatique France Liberal

Le Parisien France Centrist

Vecernji list Croatia Centrist

The Irish Independent Ireland Conservative

The Hindu India Liberal

The Times Of India India Conservative

Hindustan Times India Centrist

The Telegraph India Centrist

La Stampa Italy Centrist

Corriere della Sera Italy Centrist

Il Sole 24 Ore Italy Centrist

La Repubblica Italy Liberal

De Telegraaf Netherlands Conservative

Verdens Gang Norway Centrist

Gazeta Wyborcza Poland Liberal

Adevarul Romania Centrist

Kommersant Russia Centrist

Pravda Russia Liberal

Rossiyskaya Gazeta Russia Liberal

Aftonbladet Sweden Liberal

Dagens Nyheter Sweden Liberal

Expressen Sweden Liberal

Svenska Dagbladet Sweden Conservative

The Sun UK Conservative

The Telegraph UK Conservative

The Daily Mirror UK Liberal

The Daily Mail UK Conservative

The Guardian UK Liberal

The Independent UK Liberal

The Times UK Conservative

Source: http://www.worldpress.org

107 An analysis of such a system will help understand the strategic choices made by these newspapers in terms of commitment to a particular type of bias or the ability to adopt a flexible approach in the nature and level of bias. Based on the results of this analysis, we may be able to obtain a better understanding of why firms may lose some flexibility in the market place even as they choose to maximise the returns from an acquired firm-specific resource.

For the purpose of this research, a systematic literature search and review was conducted to show that there are very few studies that venture into the strategic area of media bias. Then, by using a resource-based theory of the firm, a unique extension to the current theories was developed on why, when and how certain newspapers may build their strategic position on bias. The model is then presented along with a proposed research methodology, which is followed by an empirical analysis of the data derived from a content analysis of articles on genetically-modified foods in many newspapers across Europe, with a particular focus on France for the detailed and in-depth results. Finally, some implications for the use of media bias as a strategic tool along with a further research agenda are shown.

108 4.2 Newspapers and the use of political bias

The role of media bias in politics has been analysed extensively over the years by many scholars, mostly focusing on the United States. As shown in Chapter 2, there are contradicting views on the nature of the bias, with some studies claiming liberal bias while others conclude that newspapers in the USA have a conservative bias. However, there is very little extension of this concept into the sphere of business strategy. One of the exceptions in this area is the work by Mullainathan and Schleifer (2005). They argue that on topics where reader beliefs diverge, as in the case of politically divisive issues, newspapers segment the market and slant toward extreme positions. They link the need for the reader’s biased information to the strategy of the newspapers to give out such biased information.

This might be best illustrated by the approach of Fox News television channel. The viewers of Fox News may expect the channel to air programmes which support the conservatives and criticize the democrats. This, in turn, encourages Fox News to focus in that direction, and thus, one continues to feed the other.

However, these authors do not examine the case of the so-called ‘centrist’ newspapers that have chosen to project the image of being non-biased, at least from a political point of view.

These newspapers may thus use their image of being ‘unbiased’ to work in their favor when they report news across all spheres of life – political, social, economic, legal, etc. by biasing their reporting style and contents, and yet not appearing to do so due to their centrist image that they have chosen to adopt.

While Mullainathan and Schleifer (2005) do suggest that ideological diversity of entrepreneurs themselves may be the source of diversity of media coverage they do not examine the possible strategic choices adopted by the media on biased information, particularly by ‘centrist’ newspapers. Numerous other papers also refer to newspaper-related reasons for bias (personal convictions of owners, editors and reporters, sources of advertising, government influence, etc.), but once again, the media spectrum is divided into conservative (right) and liberal (left) with little focus on centrist media.

109 4.3 Theoretical basis

Firms constantly make strategic choices in order to be successful in their business. These choices were summarised by Porter (1980) as cost leadership, differentiation, and market segmentation. This paper examines the media firms’ decision to bias news and understand the underlying theoretical basis for such a choice.

Private media firms in democratic countries aim to maximize the welfare of their owners, which depends on their ideology and profits (Mullainathan and Shleifer (2005)). It is thus important to analyse the bias scenario from the perspective of the media firm and explain the event so that a manager in a private sector firm can make the right decision when his/her firm is attacked by the media through a negative bias.

Porter’s (1980) differentiation strategy can be one of the theories that can explain why media tend to bias the news particularly in democratic countries which enjoy a relatively high level of press freedom and a competitive media environment. The key requirements for implementing such a strategy, as defined by Porter, are very much present in the particular case of media bias against genetically-modified foods in Europe – 1) the consumers’ needs and fears are very focussed, strong and specific as shown in the introduction chapter, and the media can thus get a clear handle on this issue, 2) the market is reasonably saturated and competitive (Werfel, 2006) and thus will encourage a specific newspaper to adopt a competitive strategy,and 3) leading local-language newspapers have significant and unique resources from a language-point of view (since in most European countries, people read the local language newspapers in general – for example, the top 20 newspapers by circulation in France, Germany, UK, Italy and Spain are all published in the local languages) and can reach their specific consumers better than the others.

110 Genetically-modified foods (GM foods) have been hotly debated across all European stakeholders since it was launched in Europe. While GM foods have been accepted by the consumers in the US, this new technology has been highly controversial in Europe over the last two decades. Using a content analysis methodology, it has already been established by us that European newspapers tended to bias negatively against GM foods over the 6-year period Jan 2000 to Dec 2005. Selected institutional/environmental factors were identified which were found to influence such a bias. In the current research, a firm-level analysis was carried out to examine if newspapers tend to use media bias as a strategic choice.

Thus it is hypothesised that newspapers may tend to use media bias as a strategic choice to differentiate themselves from other similar newspapers.

Yet another explanation can be provided by the theory of isomorphism. According to DiMaggio and Powell (1983), firms have to conform to the requirements of the environment (and in this case, the consumers’ negative attitude towards GM foods as shown by Eurobarometer). There are two types of isomorphism: competitive and institutional.

Competitive isomorphism assumes a system of open competitive markets. Institutional isomorphism (according to Kanter, 1972) assumes a pressure on organizations to conform to the outside world, and other organisations. Firms compete for legitimacy, political power, as well as for customers and resources, and thus isomorphism can also explain the negative bias imparted by newspapers in the articles which address GM foods.

According to Mullainathan and Shleifer (2005), media bias can come from the supply side, and can reflect the preferences of journalists, editors or owners, and alternatively, it can come from the demand side, and reflect the news providers’ profit-maximizing choice to cater

According to Mullainathan and Shleifer (2005), media bias can come from the supply side, and can reflect the preferences of journalists, editors or owners, and alternatively, it can come from the demand side, and reflect the news providers’ profit-maximizing choice to cater

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