Abstract
News website design has previously been shown to impact perceived credibility, and one of its core dimensions and measures, bias. This paper demonstrates that by adapting the quality of the visual presentation of webpages from nine of the most popular news websites, to reflect high quality and low quality news agencies, we can predicatively increase or decrease perceived bias in the news articles they contain. This effect was common across the websites of traditional print, news magazine, and international news agencies, and across articles with different levels of bias. The distortions focused on the visual quality of a websites’ design, including the amount, size, and prominence of advertising, news article meta data, supporting material, gaudy calls to action, and the percentage of the webpage dedicated to the news article. Higher quality visual experiences reflecting quality news agencies were shown to reduce bias, while those with a low quality visual experience reflecting less professional news agencies increased bias. Significant differences were also found between low and high quality designs showing the same news articles. This paper reports results on one part of a large study on the impact of visual appearance and design on the perception of bias in online news.
Highlights
Real, or perceived bias is a serious concern in the dissemination of news online
Depending on whether a news article is presented with a high or low quality visual presentation could make a significant difference to how biased it is perceived by its readers
Users may be judging news articles from reputable news agencies as more biased than they are, and judging the organization as less credible. This could have serious long term repercussions for some agencies. This experiment demonstrated that the perceived level of bias within the same news article can be increased or decreased through distorting the visual quality of its presentation
Summary
Perceived bias is a serious concern in the dissemination of news online. It is a core dimensions and measures of credibility (Fogg et al, 2003). Bias is a key concern of reputable journalists, editors, and news agencies, who take their responsibility of impartially reporting news seriously. This is exacerbated with increased claims and counterclaims of bias in the news. There is a backlash against some mainstream news providers by some segments of the population and concerns about accuracy and the influences of extreme partisan actors by another segment of the population. It is unsurprising that bias is one of the most common accusations leveled at the purveyors of news (Efron, 1971; Groeling, 2013; Stevenson and Greene, 1980)
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