I mean, I'm in Europe. To me, most western media - particularly US - seems to be between left and far left[0], but I'm realizing this may be selection bias, due to several factors:
- I'm thinking mostly about Internet-accessible media. That means social media, Internet-only news/opinion publishing, and legacy news/opinion media that underwent a transformation, from printing papers and running TV channels, to publishing articles on-line and running TV streaming. This is biased against media platforms that are still more focused on TV, radio and/or paper.
- I'm going by my own overall experience and exposure, which is likely biased by my interests and circles - STEM, software industry, higher education, and adjacent.
It feels to me that the "left/right" split in media is ~80/20, but I have no good way to estimate the the actual volume of right-leaning media, as I inhabit a left-leaning filter bubble[1]. That said, the reason I suspect there is some imbalance favoring "left" is because news publishing and advertising both focus mostly on-line these days, are run by well-educated people, and involve a lot of tech - and all those factors tend to lean left, AFAIK.
EDIT: also another factor suggesting an imbalance - there is clear one-sideness in terms of effective cancellation, performative victimhood and outrage activism - if there was no media bias, both extremes would be equally effective (or neither would be). This is not to say only one extreme is trying to manipulate people like this - I just suspect one side does it mostly through the media, and the other mostly through church sermons[2].
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[0] - The meaning of "right"/"left" I'm using here is the US one, as much as I internalized it. Over here in Europe, the "middle point" is located somewhere else, making the US "right" and "left" both be mostly on the same side - I just can't ever remember which one.
[1] - I don't seek out news myself, so I ingest mostly whatever happens to cross my way (and half of that is via HN anyway). My main exposure to more right-leaning media is through the government TV station my in-laws watch, and some talking point one of my parents picks up from weird and mostly partisan political YouTube channels.
[2] - The little exposure I had locally with Catholic sermons tells me that priests often push specific political / social views on the parishioners.
Well I would consider far left media to be anti capitalist. Could you name one or more outlets that don't lick corporate boot and have any kind of relevancy outside the internet? The only one I know is Jacobin, which has 3 million views per month on their website and sells 75000 newspapers, which is not a large publication (Those are medium sized youtuber numbers).
- I'm thinking mostly about Internet-accessible media. That means social media, Internet-only news/opinion publishing, and legacy news/opinion media that underwent a transformation, from printing papers and running TV channels, to publishing articles on-line and running TV streaming. This is biased against media platforms that are still more focused on TV, radio and/or paper.
- I'm going by my own overall experience and exposure, which is likely biased by my interests and circles - STEM, software industry, higher education, and adjacent.
It feels to me that the "left/right" split in media is ~80/20, but I have no good way to estimate the the actual volume of right-leaning media, as I inhabit a left-leaning filter bubble[1]. That said, the reason I suspect there is some imbalance favoring "left" is because news publishing and advertising both focus mostly on-line these days, are run by well-educated people, and involve a lot of tech - and all those factors tend to lean left, AFAIK.
EDIT: also another factor suggesting an imbalance - there is clear one-sideness in terms of effective cancellation, performative victimhood and outrage activism - if there was no media bias, both extremes would be equally effective (or neither would be). This is not to say only one extreme is trying to manipulate people like this - I just suspect one side does it mostly through the media, and the other mostly through church sermons[2].
--
[0] - The meaning of "right"/"left" I'm using here is the US one, as much as I internalized it. Over here in Europe, the "middle point" is located somewhere else, making the US "right" and "left" both be mostly on the same side - I just can't ever remember which one.
[1] - I don't seek out news myself, so I ingest mostly whatever happens to cross my way (and half of that is via HN anyway). My main exposure to more right-leaning media is through the government TV station my in-laws watch, and some talking point one of my parents picks up from weird and mostly partisan political YouTube channels.
[2] - The little exposure I had locally with Catholic sermons tells me that priests often push specific political / social views on the parishioners.