I have compared Google hits for BJP and Congress to see if we can find some empirical evidence for media bias. I also chose Google advanced search to search only for English pages in the Indian region. So the results will show the tendencies of English media and other English portals and blogs. I narrowed down and repeated the same searches on NDTV, REDIFF, TOI, and IBNLIVE to see if that reveals any bias.
The graph below shows a hypothetical scenario: If Rediff,TOI,NDTV and IBNLIVE were only news media in India, how much news coverage and mentions would these parties get? It appears only Rediff would give 34.2 % mentions to Congress and largest mentions BJP would get will also be from Rediff where it would only get 16.6% of the mentions. In total Congress would get 67% of mentions. That is slightly less than 75% and BJP would get 33% mentions. Note that this is media exposure and mentions and not popularity of the political parties.
The above graph is based on search results for Congress and BJP words where they are mentioned independent of each other. i.e this does not include any attacks on each other.
Search for independent mentions:
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"Congress" -"BJP" 21,000,000 results
"BJP" -"Congress" 7,360,000 results
BJP gets mentions almost 3rd of independent mentions in comparison to Congress. BJP hits on the right side in the graph below; way below Congress hits.
BJP seems loose out also in social web space although, it is not clear if that means less negative mentions.
Search for independent mentions in social web portals:
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"Congress" -"BJP" 1,910 results
"BJP" -"Congress" 954 results
Results:
Graphical Representation of Media Hit Counts for IBNLIVE, TOI, REDIFF, NDTV:
Discussion:
This is very simple. The word "Congress" appears almost twice as that of BJP on Indian websites and most importantly on 24x7 English news portals. So it is easy to see that the ruling party has twice the amount of reach BJP has. Some observation and gut feeling tells me that the contexts in which Congress is mentioned are while Congress is attacking others including BJP. Similarly mentions of BJP are mostly while it is being attacked, derided or criticised. I can not make this claim yet because it is hard to separate these subjective slants and biases easily.
Summary:
The search results show that all these years the Congress party has been getting the benefit of English media and the internet coverage while BJP lags behind. The Internet masses hear about Congress' views and opinions almost twice as much compared to BJP. I also think this is a clear proof of media bias for Congress party. It is interesting to investigate on whether mentions are positive or negative. That will clearly establish the media bias in reportage.
*Disclaimer: Any discrepancy you see here is a direct result of what Google can or can not do. Search was conducted at from 3.00 PM EST to 4.56 PM EST, Sunday 12th June 2011.
The graph below shows a hypothetical scenario: If Rediff,TOI,NDTV and IBNLIVE were only news media in India, how much news coverage and mentions would these parties get? It appears only Rediff would give 34.2 % mentions to Congress and largest mentions BJP would get will also be from Rediff where it would only get 16.6% of the mentions. In total Congress would get 67% of mentions. That is slightly less than 75% and BJP would get 33% mentions. Note that this is media exposure and mentions and not popularity of the political parties.
The above graph is based on search results for Congress and BJP words where they are mentioned independent of each other. i.e this does not include any attacks on each other.
Search for independent mentions:
--------------------------------------------------------------
"Congress" -"BJP" 21,000,000 results
"BJP" -"Congress" 7,360,000 results
BJP gets mentions almost 3rd of independent mentions in comparison to Congress. BJP hits on the right side in the graph below; way below Congress hits.
BJP seems loose out also in social web space although, it is not clear if that means less negative mentions.
Search for independent mentions in social web portals:
--------------------------------------------------------------
"Congress" -"BJP" 1,910 results
"BJP" -"Congress" 954 results
Results:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Search Term Hits Search Term Hits
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Congress -BJP site:ndtv.com 110,000 results Congress 13,100,000 results
BJP -Congress site:ndtv.com 57,800 results BJP 6,610,000 results
Congress -BJP site:ibnlive.com 74,300 results Congress said 6,830,000 results
BJP -Congress site:ibnlive.com 30,000 results BJP said 4,880,000 results
Congress -BJP site:rediff.com 248,000 results "Congress" 12,500,000 results
BJP -Congress site:rediff.com 120,000 results "BJP" 7,700,000 results
Congress -BJP site:timesofindia.com 54,000 results
BJP -Congress site:timesofindia.com 30,900 results
Discussion:
This is very simple. The word "Congress" appears almost twice as that of BJP on Indian websites and most importantly on 24x7 English news portals. So it is easy to see that the ruling party has twice the amount of reach BJP has. Some observation and gut feeling tells me that the contexts in which Congress is mentioned are while Congress is attacking others including BJP. Similarly mentions of BJP are mostly while it is being attacked, derided or criticised. I can not make this claim yet because it is hard to separate these subjective slants and biases easily.
Summary:
The search results show that all these years the Congress party has been getting the benefit of English media and the internet coverage while BJP lags behind. The Internet masses hear about Congress' views and opinions almost twice as much compared to BJP. I also think this is a clear proof of media bias for Congress party. It is interesting to investigate on whether mentions are positive or negative. That will clearly establish the media bias in reportage.
*Disclaimer: Any discrepancy you see here is a direct result of what Google can or can not do. Search was conducted at from 3.00 PM EST to 4.56 PM EST, Sunday 12th June 2011.
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