Inherent, Contextual, and Consumer Bias in Political Photography (Roman Larson)

Inherent, Contextual, and Consumer Bias in Political Photography
Roman Michael Gregory Larson June 2013
PWR2: The Power of Political Photography Stanford University
Roman Larson
Preface
This study has an accompanying video, which can be found here. The video discusses much of the paper in broad terms and refers frequently back to the specifics presented in the paper. The text of the video has been included in the Appendix.
I. Introduction
Bias in journalism is pervasive. Most political scientists would agree that Fox News, for example, caters towards a more conservative audience. Conversely, MSNBC offers their news coverage with a bias that favors the left. While only a small percentage of Americans actually regularly consume cable network news, the issue of bias resurfaces in many other mediums: news websites, newspapers, comedy news shows, etc. The academic literature on the subject of bias in journalism is well developed. For example, Baum and Groeling (2008) find that partisan news blogs such as DailyKos.com and FreeRepublic.com mainly offer stories that align with the blogs respective partisan tilt from the total pool of political news stories on Reuters or AP. Furthermore, Lawrence et al. (2009) find that news blog readers gravitate towards online news sources that align with their political beliefs. Accordingly, evidence exists that the so-called blogosphere is becoming more polarized as an increasing number of individuals turn towards biased online sources. While much attention has been paid to bias in printed and orally communicated journalism, bias research into photography remains significantly underdeveloped. With the proliferation of the internet, color live television, and more recently cameras on smartphones, images have increasingly played an important role in journalism. Books such as Image Politics in the Middle East: The Role of the Visual in Political Struggle (Khatib 2012) explore how images shape political movements. Often, discussion of political photography and video frequently focuses on explaining the iconicity or impact of the particular selection. For a multitude of reasons, though, scholars continue to ignore the important role of the bias that may (or may not) be present in the pictures and videos themselves. The study presented in this paper and accompanying video attempts to address the hole in the academic literature that is the lack of research on bias in political photographs. The initial plan for research attempted to explore whether pictures inherently contain bias. Could photographers, like journalists with writing, offer a biased viewpoint of the subject? In short, and as explained in the following section, the answer to that question is a weak no. I argue that bias cannot be inherently built into the photograph, but
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photographer choices like angle, framing, and lighting do influence whether the image portrays the individual positively or negatively. Since the concept of inherent bias in photographs is difficult (if not impossible) to measure, the study presented examines bias through the lens of viewer bias. In the political world of information transmission (whether through written journalism, advertisements, or still photos online), bias can come from three sources: the producer of the work, the consumer of the work, and the publisher of the work. Exploring the consumer and publisher sides offers interesting insights into how viewers individual political biases influence their perceptions of the content presented in photography and videos. Additionally, the context around the photos is also a significant aspect of bias. Rather than exploring the natural bias of images, the paper and presentation explore the external factors of bias (consumer bias and contextual bias). The paper proceeds as follows: section two discusses if photos can have inherent bias, section three outlines the specifics of the study and survey instrument, section four presents the results, section five discusses, and section six concludes.
II. Inherent Bias in Photos 1

Unlike most of journalism, which allows individuals to create wholly original work, photographers and videographers are more limited in the amount of creativity they may employ in their work. This isnt to say that the professions dont require much creativity to produce stunning works, but rather, there is less originality associated with the capturing of moments occurring in real life. For some, this might be an artistic hurdle, but for others, the task of capturing those moments becomes a tempting and tantalizing task. Nevertheless, news photographers usually cannot escape reality. They are limited by the events that their cameras record. 2 Thus, I conclude that photos by themselves are not inherently biased. Certainly, photographers have artistic license when deciding how to capture a particular moment, but regardless, the moment is one of reality.
The study uses both photos and videos. For the sake of simplicity, I use the term photos to refer to media works that encompass both photos and videos. Videos, after all, are simply compilations of many photos. 2 For the sake of this paper, I ignore the opportunities to Photoshop and alter photos. While the altering of photos before publication is certainly an important topic to consider (see http://www.mediabistro.com/10000words/10-news-photosthat-took-photoshop-too_b328), altered photos are not the focus of this study. By photoshopping an image, an editor introduces elements that may render the photo biased. This study attempts to examine the natural bias associated with photography, not bias added as an edit.
1
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In stating that photos are not inherently biased, a much narrower definition of bias is necessarily used throughout this paper. In this paper, bias refers to the intent of the producer of the particular work to communicate an anti-Republican or an antiDemocratic message through her work. For example, in 2005, the Houston Chronicle published the following pair of photos Photo A alongside an article from The New York Times. 3 An assistant editor at the Chronicle later published a statement on his blog
apologizing for the inherent bias generated by the juxtaposition of the photos. The editor claimed that the photo of Senator Graham was unflattering while Senator Bingaman was portrayed as thoughtful and considerate. 4 Expanding his explanation of the bias in the joint photo, the editor explains that had the photo of Senator Graham been displayed alone, there would not have been a problem. This statement, though, precisely underscores the reason why the photo itself is not biased. Certainly, the photo negatively portrays the Senator on the left, but this distinction only becomes salient when further context is added to the photo (i.e. the juxtaposition with Senator Bingaman). The photos of Graham or Bingaman individually are not biased, but rather the added context induces bias. The study in this paper analyzes this kind of induced bias rather than looking at inherent bias because a strong argument can be made that an unaltered photo simply Photo B
Note: all black borders around photos are of my own adding and serve to emphasize the contents where otherwise it would be difficult to see where white space ended in the photos. 4 See the blog written for the Houston Chronicle here: http://blog.chron.com/aboutchron/2005/11/was-there-apolitical-bias-in-these-photos-you-decide/
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captures a moment in time. All humans experience moments that might be portrayed negatively, as is the case with Senator Graham, but because that opportunity is ubiquitous, it should not be considered as bias inherent to the photo itself. An additional example may prove helpful in developing the idea of contextual and consumer bias. The picture (photo B, previous page)) of President Obama smiling while holding a cell phone probably does not have natural bias built into it. Some Photo C individuals might instinctively react by thinking about the humor portrayed or by considering if President Obama appears silly. However, to argue that the photo by itself offers political bias seems challenging because the photo itself does not make a political statement. The photo merely captures an interesting expression on President Obamas face while he was talking on the phone. Once again, though, considering the contextual and consumer bias reintroduces the notion of external bias. This photo was featured in two very different pieces of journalism. First, the photo was presented in a piece (photo C) about Mayor Bloombergs endorsement of the President in the 2012 election. The authors of the article seem to use the photo simply as a visual of the President because the photo has nothing to do with Mayor Bloomberg or climate change. Nevertheless, the contextual bias introduced seems to favor the President as it discussed his attainment of a coveted endorsement in the election. Liberal readers thus might apply their own consumer bias and interpret the photograph more Photo D
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positively even though the photo itself has little inherent bias. The exact same photo was recently featured on DrudeReport.com (photo D) as news surfaced of the National Security Agencys data mining operation with Verizon. Along with the photo, Matt Drudge offered the sassy headline Can You Hear Me Now? Clearly, the context of this photo varies significantly from context of the photo in The Week. Drudge Reporta news cite well known for attracting a conservative audiencenot only offers its own satirical thoughts that are generally conservatively oriented, but also leverages its consumers bias to help drive the negative portrayal of the President in the photo. The conservative viewers who flock to the Drudge Report and consume this picture in this context certainly have a different interpretation than viewers of the picture on The Week. As evidenced by the comparison of the photos appearance in two very different mediums, contextual and consumer bias probably accounts for much of the bias associated with political photography. Finally, inherent bias in photos is also difficult to measure precisely because consumer bias gets in the way. As the previous examples illustrated, a seemingly neutral photo can be interpreted as liberally or conservatively biased depending on what bias the viewer holds when viewing the picture. Polarization another topic widely covered in the political communication literaturethus plays an important role in how one thinks about bias. Lszl Moholy-Nagy (1925) offered the following thoughts on objective analysis of photos: in the photographic camera we have the most reliable aid to a beginning of objective vision. Everyone will be compelled to see that which is optically true, is explicable in its own terms, is objective, before he can arrive at any possible subjective position. 5 The problem with political photography, however, is that individuals can immediately rush to the subjective position. Preconceived political notions might alter what would have been an objective analysis of a photo, especially if there is added contextual bias to the photo that interacts with the consumer bias. Note how this rushing to a subjective position might not happen as rapidly with a photo of a pleasant countryside or a clear blue sky. Photos themselves are inherently objective and unbiased: they capture a moment in time, and sometimes that moment captures the portrayed individual in an unfavorable manner. The objective nature of pictures thoughand by extension the inherent bias that may be present in that picturequickly becomes overwhelmed by the other external biases that motivate an individuals interpretation of a photograph. The role of internal photo bias is important (especially with Photoshopped images), but in terms of significance,
5
Lszl Moholy-Nagy, Painting Photography Film, English edition (London: Lund Humphries, 1969), p28.
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consumer bias that alters how one views photos and the contextual bias that editors of websites, newspapers, and cable companies contribute to the photo by adding context are far more important for the discussion of bias in photography.
III. Study and Survey Design 6

The study examines the influence of contextual and consumer biases on judgments of neutral political photography. Specifically, the study addresses the following question: does the viewers own political bias (consumer bias), reinforced with contextual bias, effect the viewers evaluation of how positively the individual is portrayed, how presidential the individual seems, how likely it would be for the photo to appear on a conservative or liberal news site, and how significant is the photo? The purpose of this study is to confirm some of the theory developed in the previous section: namely, that much of the bias typically associated with photography stems from a viewers own political ideology and the context surrounding the picture. In order to isolate this effect, photos used in the study were selected with the idea of neutrality in mind. While theres some theory to suggest that any bias associated with a photo is largely because of the consumer and contextual biases, neutral photographs will help eliminate the inherent bias factor. Accordingly, two of the photos used in the study are from the Associated Press, a news source generally regarded for its unbiased reporting. A third photo came from the work of David Hume Kennerly, a Pulitzer Prize winning photographer who has photographed political moments of all varieties for Presidents of both parties. His work on both sides of the political spectrum for decades suggests his photos have been appreciated (and used) by members of both parties. Generally, then, it can be assumed that since politicians from both parties have continued to employ him, his work has been regarded as unbiased. Finally, a video featuring a former Republican Speaker of the House and a Democratic Speaker of the House meets the neutrality guideline due to its nonpartisan nature, although, some concerns about bias due arise because of the videos topic. With these three photos and one video, I constructed a survey.
Rather than developing a separate section for shortcomings in the study, I develop ideas about shortcomings and room for improvement in the footnotes of the paper.
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III.I Survey Design

Before getting into the section of the survey with photos, 7 respondents were asked to provide some basic information that would serve as controls in the analysis portion. Basic questions on gender, age, and major in school were asked. Next, the survey asked participants to list their level of political theory with consideration for any political science courses they might have taken. Since this study covers bias, and bias is a widely discussed topic in political theory, having a control for who might understand what the survey was testing is helpful. Thus, the analysis can control for someone with a high knowledge political theory and eliminate the biasing effect that her knowledge of theory bias might have. 8 Participants were also asked to provide their stance on economic and social issues, as well as overall political beliefs (a 4-point scale of very conservative, somewhat conservative, somewhat liberal, and very liberal was used to force people to select one side or the other). 9 Responses to this question on political ideology were then used to calculate whether the person would participate in the liberal tilted version of the survey or the conservative tilted version of the survey (explained below). A simple algorithm built into the survey then calculated which version the participants would take. Generally, if individuals identified as very liberal or very conservative for any of the three categories, they were directed to the survey that aligned with the ideology of that response. Various combinations of the somewhat categories (if an individual put two somewhat conservative responses, for example) directed the participant to the version associated with the highest number of somewhat answers. For more information on what specific combinations led an individual to a conservative or a liberal tilted survey, see the Appendix. Survey respondents were also asked to provide their zip code and then as many as possible of the following: two U.S. Senators from their home state, the participants Representative to Congress, and the respondents home state Governor. Votesmart.org was then used to cross-reference the politicians names provided by the respondent with the correct information associated with their zip code on Votesmart.org. 10 Based on the
Again, I use the word photo here to refer to the three photos and one video included in the instrument. A particular concern for studies that test bias is bias within the surveys themselves. Without a variable like knowledge of political theory, the results might be biased because those with high political theory may provide significantly different answers than those with low political theory knowledge. Opportunities abound for bias within a survey instrument, from question wording to ordering effects. Thus, studies on bias need to be extra careful to control for potentially biasing variables. 9 A limitation of this study is that respondents were not allowed to select a moderate or independent option. Future studies may want to isolate the relationship between independents and bias. Because the political science literature suggests that those who identify as independents are really leaners in one direction (i.e. closeted partisans), I remove the option of independent for this survey. See the work of Alan I. Abramowitz (http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/aia2011070702/). 10 Another criticism of this study offered by a respondent was that they could have gone online and looked up the information of their political representatives to government. However, the average score seems to suggest this may not
7 8
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number of correct responses, a crude political knowledge score was developed on a scale of zero to four that was then used as a control in the analysis. Finally, respondents were also asked to list all of the Republican candidates they could recall who ran for President in 2012. Information from this question was then converted into a binary (dummy) variable equal to one if Newt Gingrich was listed and zero if Newt Gingrich was not listed in the open-ended question. This question also served as a control, which was especially important for the video portion of the study. Respondents then moved on to the photos portion of the study. As previously mentioned, the photos portion of the study was split into two versions: liberal tilted and conservative tilted. This division was necessary in order to provide contextual bias for the photos. Which version the respondent saw was determined by a logic algorithm that took into consideration answers to the political ideology question. Both versions of the test used the same pictures. This section asked the respondent to read a biased vignette that reinforced the political bias determined by the political ideology question; then, respondents viewed a photograph of the described leader for 4 seconds. After the picture disappeared, respondents were asked to answer how strongly they agreed or disagreed to statements about how positively the individual was portrayed, how presidential the individual seemed, if the photo would more often appear on a liberal news site, if the photo would more often appear on a conservative news site, and if the photo was significant (influential). 11 Survey respondents were asked to go through this process for three photos and one video. The first photo by David Hume Kennerly depicted the five living presidents standing in the oval office. Both the liberal and conservative versions offered the same vignette so responses on this picture could serve as a control. A photo published by the Associated Press of George W. Bush giving a speech on the USS Abraham Lincoln with the infamous Mission Accomplished banner was the next photo. The vignette provided before this photo was highly positive of George W. Bush for the conservative version and highly negative for the liberal version (see survey in Appendix for specifics). Next, the survey displayed a vignette and then an Associated Press photo of President Obama signing the Affordable Care Act. The vignette for the conservative version was highly negative and the vignette for the liberal version was highly positive. Thus, neutral pictures of President Bush and President Obama from the Associated Press were used with positive
have been a problem. Also, many individuals seem to not have been aware of redistricting. They often supplied a representative name that was nearby to their district, but no longer their representative. This particular source of error could only downward bias the estimate, so this is of little concern. Nevertheless, errors in this crude measurement should not significantly affect the overall relationship of interest. 11 In all cases, response options were randomized to mitigate ordering effects.
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and negative vignettes as appropriate for each version of the survey. 12 Respondents were then asked to select which photo resonated more with them, and a follow-up question asked how much more that photo resonated with them on a scale of 0 100 where 0 indicated the respondent was pretty indifferent and 100 indicated the photo resonated much more. Finally, the survey included a video on climate change featuring former Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. The advertisementsponsored by the We Can Solve It campaign for climate change policy and paid for by one of Al Gores climate projectsdiscusses renewable energy. The vignette preceding the video for the conservative tilted version of the survey assigned to Newt Gingrich, the Republican, most of the credit for bringing together the two Speakers. Conversely, Nancy Pelosi was lauded as the initiator in the liberal survey version. The questions for the video were altered slightly from those for the photos, asking separate questions on positive portrayal for Gingrich and Pelosi, and then asking similar questions as the ones associated with the photos. Respondents were also offered a middle option (neither agree nor disagree) so the scale for the video ranges from one (strongly disagree) to five (strongly agree). A question asking for feedback concluded the survey. 13
III.II Survey Considerations

The study does have come clear limitations that should be recognized. One, the study was distributed online through Qualtrics, and a random sample could not be obtained due to time and financial considerations. Thus, the results should not be extrapolated to the population in general. This survey serves as only a preliminary look at how contextual and consumer bias effects evaluation of neutral political photos. The survey could have also explored many other relationships. For example, removing the contextual indicators might have produced different results. The problem with such an approach though becomes the testing and measuring of consumer bias. The priming done through the vignettes ensured that the photos were viewed in a political context and by offering that contextual bias, the consumer bias was also activated. Similar to how evaluating the inherent bias effect alone is difficult to evaluate, it is also difficult to evaluate the consumer bias
Respondents provided some feedback that the photos were not truly neutral in their content. The Bush photo was very militaristic and dealt with a more negative foreign event (war) while the Obama photo had a child and was essentially a domestic positive event. Nevertheless, the Associated Press was responsible for both photos and the difference in content didnt seem to affect the results too much. These criticisms question inherent biased but in my opinion, neither photo makes an explicit negative statement towards one political party or the other. Rather, the stories (and hence the contextual bias) around the photo probably contributed to concerns about the difference in content. Furthermore, finding photos of identical events would be difficult. One possibly might have been using a photo of Bush signing No Child Left Behind legislation. 13 See the Appendix for a full table of the variables and their possible values.
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effect alone. A cross-priming survey strategy was also a possibility. Conservatives could have read vignettes that portrayed Republicans in a negative light and Democrats in a positive light, for example. Nevertheless, the effects would probably be cancelled out. Positive evaluations in normal circumstances (without the negative vignette of a Republican for the Republican test version) would probably be cancelled out by the negative vignette as evaluations were tempered towards a middle indifferent point. Nevertheless, the effect of cross priming is an empirical question, and one could design an instrument to test such an effect. Other variations of these two alternative studies could also test for other more nuanced relationships. The final serious limitation to note is that other control variables might be helpful. Perhaps there is a variable not included in this analysis that would have explanatory power for the dependent variables (i.e. the individual was portrayed in a positive manner and the other questions posed after the photo).
III.III Hypotheses
For the living presidents photo, I expect no relationship to be evident between the version of the test taken (in other words, ideological bias) and evaluation of the photo on any of the five measures. It is important to remember that this photo served as a control and both versions of the tests offered respondents the same vignette. For the main relationship of interest, I hypothesize that Republicans would evaluate the President Bush photo more positively than Democrats would. Similarly, Democrats would evaluate the President Obama photo more positively than the Republicans would. This hypothesis aligns with the theory developed earlier. On other dimensions, I expect limited results. Evaluations of seeming Presidential should mimic positive ratings, but the effect might be dampened by the way the vignettes were written. All of the short statements focused on issues of a Presidential nature: significant domestic issues like health care or foreign issues like the War in Iraq. For the questions on liberal and conservative news media, I expect limited effects because both photos were neutral and respondents might be aware that both photos would be considered for use by the mass media. For the significance variable, I expect similar effects as the positive variable. Finally, I expect takers of the conservative test to prefer the Bush photo with strong resonance and takers of the liberal test to prefer the Obama photo with strong resonance. For the Gingrich/Pelosi video, I expect Republicans to evaluate Gingrich more positively and Pelosi more neutrally. The neutral evaluation hypothesis stems from the idea that because Republicans were viewing a video that was generally positively constructed, there would be some spillover effects to the opposing
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ideological Speaker. Thus, for Republicans, the spillover effect from positive evaluations for Gingrich would turn what otherwise would have been negative evaluations of Speaker Pelosi into neutral or even positive ones. The exact opposite of this logic would apply for the liberal test version (Gingrichs evaluations would be because of spillover effects). I hypothesize that both Republicans and Democrats would feel indifferent towards the question of the individuals seeming Presidential. The control for Gingrich Listed becomes important particularly for this relationship because perhaps previous knowledge of Gingrich as a presidential candidate might influence evaluations of Pelosi and Gingrich together as Presidential. Due to the bipartisan nature of the video, I also do not expect to see any effects for the news variables. I think any contextual or consumer bias will be cancelled out by the presence of former Speakers from both parties. Evaluations on this dimension should be in the middle (meaning the response would be neither agree nor disagree). Finally, I expect Republicans to evaluate the video as more significant because this issue has not been favorable to the Republican Party. Seeing a Republican elite collaborating with an elite from the opposing party should increase the significance of the video for Republicans because it could be interpreted as Republicans finally taking on an issue that has long been problematic for them. The issue of climate change has been a Democratic-owned issue for years, so I expect to see limited effects in this relationship as, in laymens terms, it is nothing new liberal test takers. The analysis will also include other control variables for which relationships can be predicted. The relevant ones that may have interesting effects are political theory and political knowledge score (the Gingrich Listed control has already been discussed). As previously mentioned, individuals with high political theory knowledge may evaluate the photos differently because they might understand that the survey is testing bias in interpretation of the photos. Thus, a higher political theory score should lead to evaluations that are closer to the middle (although, there was no precise middle option offered except in the case of the Gingrich/Pelosi video). Knowledge was another control variable that can be examined. Individuals with higher political knowledge should evaluate individuals ideologically aligned with their views (i.e. a person taking the liberal test with high political knowledge, evaluating President Obama) more positively than those with low political knowledge might, and vice versa for evaluation of opposing ideological politicians. Constantly hearing about politics in the news may solidify and exaggerate the responses of high knowledge individuals because they feel more attached to members of their party. The survey instrument allows for much analysis between the variables tests, so the data generated will be analyzed many different ways.
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IIII. Results 14
In addition to the summary statistics provided below, I run twenty OLS regressions to test the main relationship of interest (effect of test taken on the five evaluation questions). For each regression, I regress a dependent variable that is an evaluation variable (positive manner, presidential, liberal news, conservative news, and significant) on the explanatory variable Test Taken, and include the other controls as specified. This process is repeated for each photograph and video. Full regression results are presented in the Appendix. Additionally, graphs of other relationships are also presented.
IIII.I Summary Statistics

Variable economicpo~s socialpoli~s overallpol~s testtaken gender age theory politicalk~e gingrichli~d lpposmanner lppresiden~l lplibnews lpconservn~s lpsig gwposmanner gwpresiden~l gwlibnews gwconservn~s gwsig boposmanner bopresiden~l bolibnews boconservn~s
14
Table A Means for Liberal Test Taken 2.83908 3.632184 3.298851 0 0.4883721 27.24138 2.563218 2.714286 0.3448276 3.22093 3.229885 2.505747 2.183908 2.976471 2.551724 2.977011 2.45977 2.827586 3.206897 3.45977 3.54023 3.436782 1.793103
Table A provides summary statistics for Means for Conservative Test Taken 1.584906 2.320755 1.698113 1 0.6415094 31.86538 2.301887 3.037736 0.3207547 3.226415 3.037736 2.423077 2.307692 2.792453 3.018868 3.056604 2.245283 2.943396 3.018868 3.188679 3.075472 3.264151 1.90566 the variables tested in the survey. This table provides a starting point of analysis for the relationships. A more thorough analysis of the effects will be carried out via regression, but the results here are important nonetheless. The highlighted cells include information relevant to the positive evaluation measure. For example, conservative test takers on average ranked George W. Bushs portrayal as positive .45 points higher than liberal test takers. Conversely, liberal test takers ranked on average President Obamas portrayal as positive .26 points higher. These differences immediately suggest that the theoretical relationship of consumer and
After a discussion with my Applied Econometrics professor, we agreed that while an OLS regression isnt perfect for this type of data, it would work. To supplement this imperfect regression, the data is analyzed in other ways. Do note, though, that this data may be analyzed in many other different ways.
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Roman Larson bosig reson resonstren~h pgrightpos~r pgleftposm~r pgpresiden~l pglibnews pgconservn~s pgsig 3.229885 1.709302 61.38372 4.13253 4.204819 2.939759 3.963855 2.86747 3.819277

3.113208 1.431373 59.01923 3.530612 3.77551 2.510204 3.77551 2.734694 2.979592 contextual bias does indeed hold. Not surprisingly, both groups ranked the living presidents photo with a nearly identical score on average. Other interesting statistics presented in the table show that the conservative test group was on average older than the
liberal test group (age is controlled for in the regression analysis). The conservative test group had higher political knowledge but slightly lower political theory. This result is slightly surprising because younger individuals typically were from Stanford while older individuals were from across the country. Perhaps being at Stanford means students have less political knowledge of specific people, especially when tested by asking for names of people like the districts representative to Congress. Finally, respondents in both test groups generally migrated towards the picture of the politician who shared their ideology. Conservatives chose the Bush picture as having more resonance and liberals chose the Obama picture. The resonance strength for both test groups is roughly equivalent at 60 points. More interestingly, both conservatives and liberals alike ranked Pelosi as being portrayed in a positive manner while Gingrich received lower scores from both groups. This particular result will be further developed with the regression analysis to ensure other variables are not driving this difference.
IIII.II Regression Results

The following table presents a condensed version of the full regressions. Tables for the full regressions with coefficient values on all controls can be found in the Appendix. Table B Positive Manner Living Presidents Photo George W. Bush Photo Barack Obama Photo -.0269175 (.1005011) .5154003**** (.1498377) -.3029711*** (.1097179) Presidential -.2082049* (.1101063) .1302005 (.1265294) -.484302***** (.1066103) Liberal News -.044589 (.1163671) -.2414622 (.1714031) -.1941355 (.121523) Conservative News .1099873 (.1086726) .1588834 (.1676305) .1265075 (.1297952) Significant -.2534967* (.1416581) -.1726551 (.1228158) -.1912553 (.1180987)
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-.8422672***** (.1803006)
Gingrich/ Gingrich: Pelosi: -.4032117 -.2385591 .0556519 Pelosi -.5750684***** -.4615751**** (.1747091) (.1672215) (.1983448) Video (.1438568) (.1379113) *Significant at p < .10 **Significant at p < .05 Standard errors given in parentheses Beyond 99% Significant: Main explanatory variable: test taken (with controls as specified in full tables in Appendix) ***Significant at p < .01 Dependent variables given in column headings ****Significant at p < .001 *****Significant at p < .0001
These regression coefficients should be read in the following manner. Consider the George W. Bush photo and the coefficient on positive manner. This coefficient indicates that for a one-unit change in the test taken variable (i.e. going from 0 to 1, or in this study specifically, switching from the liberal to conservative test), holding all other variables constant, 15 increases the answer to the statement the photo portrays the individual in a positive manner by .51. The coefficient itself holds little meaning, though, unless it is understood in the context of the Likert scale used in the original survey. An increase of .51 means that while a liberal test taker might indicate that he agrees with the statement of portraying Bush in a positive manner, conservatives will be, on average, just beyond the halfway mark between agrees and strongly agrees (the distance between agree and strongly agree is one). The variable description sheet in the Appendix further explains the numerical values associated with each response possibility. Notice that this coefficient for the George W. Bush photo is similar to, but larger than, the difference in means found in Table A; the larger coefficient produced by the regression is probably due to some of the control variables that are included. Another way to think about these regression coefficients is simply to think about the number as how much lower (if negative) or higher (if positive) a conservative test taker will evaluate a particular photo. 16 As was the case with the summary statistics analysis, notice that the coefficient on the Living Presidents photo is not significant. Thus, the test taken variable is not a good predictor of positive evaluation for this specific photo. This is exactly the result expected for a good control variable. The explanatory variable (i.e. the test taken or political ideology) should have no predictive power on evaluations. While the
One can interpret the controls as the difference in evaluation associated with a one-unit increase in that control variable, holding all else constant (including the test taken). While it is interesting to consider the controls in this way, the survey and study were probably not carried out in a manner that makes this kind of analysis fully credible (due to issues with randomization, variable measurement, etc.). Only a few controls were significant at the 99%+ level, so the main focus of the analysis will be the results for the main explanatory variable, test taken. 16 Most of the analysis for results presented in the table takes place for results that are 99%+ significant. 90% and 95% significant results are highlighted to emphasize potential relationships.
15
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presidential and significance dependent variables are sometimes significant, they are only significant at the 90% level. They are highlighted merely to note that there may be some relationship there, but it is relatively weak compared to the 99%+ significance found for some of the other variables. Moreover, the regression predicts that conservatives would rank President Obamas photo nearly a half point lower on seeming presidential. The reason this variable is significant for Obama but not for Bush might have to do with the order in which the pictures were presented. Seeing a photo of Bush in a military scene first may have established a baseline which was then used in evaluation of seeming Presidential for Obama. 17 Perhaps viewers who interpreted the word Presidential as powerful (conservatives are probably more likely to do so) ranked the domestic policy-signing photo of President Obama as less significant. Finally, the regression corroborates the Gingrich/Pelosi results found in the summary statistics. Even after controlling for Gingrichs presence in the 2012 election, he still receives a lower score from test takers of both versions. This result, along with the fact that conservative test takers ranked the videos significance by nearly a whole point less will be explained in the discussion section.
IIII.III Other Results

The following charts break down the evaluation of the positive manner variable and the presidential variable by knowledge score and political theory (two charts are presented for each photo). Both the knowledge score variable and the theory variable were originally included as controls. Nevertheless, graphing the movement of the explanatory variables show relative to knowledge score shows that in general (this is a broad generalization), the middle-knowledge (those scoring a two or a three) survey takers offered the highest evaluations in both the liberal and conservative test groups. This relationship holds true even for the control photo, the living presidents. Note that in the political knowledge charts, a score of one indicates low knowledge while a score of four indicates high knowledge. The political theory score produced a slightly different result. There was less consistency across the board, but individuals with high political theory did respond with higher scores on both the positive manner and presidential variables. Besides the highest level of political theory, the other three levels of theory produce inconsistent results. Interestingly, though, the Barack Obama photo produced high explanatory variable values for both high theory and low theory individuals. The George W. Bush photo had generally lower explanatory variable scores for individuals with lower
17
While best attempts were made to control for survey instrument bias, notice that even in this case the survey instrument might still have been biased!
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political theory. Note that in the political theory charts, a score of 1 indicates high theory while a score of 4 indicates low theory. These charts analyzing the relationship between these specific variables were included because of the relevance of the knowledge and theory variable to political bias. A similar analysis could be done for some of the other variables, but the regression showed that for the most part, these controls had little predictive power (which is good for the regression outcomes). Thus, this part of the results focuses on the political knowledge and political theory variables only.
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Chart Set A Political Knowledge Score and Positive Manner/Presidential Evaluation GWB Photo
3.4
Evaluation of Positive Portrayal and Seems Presidential
3.2 3 2.8 2.6 2.4 2.2 1 2 3 4
Political Knowledge Score (1=low, 4=high)

Liberal Test Pos Manner Liberal Test Pres Conserv Test Pos Manner Conserv Test Pres Overall Pos Manner Overall Pres
Theory and Positive Manner/Presidential Evaluation GW Photo

3.7
3.5 3.3 3.1 2.9 2.7 2.5 2.3 2.1 1.9 1.7 1 2 3 4
Theory Score (1=high, 4=low)

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Chart Set B Political Knowledge Score and Positive Manner/Presidential Evaluation BO Photo
3.8
3.7 3.6 3.5 3.4 3.3 3.2 3.1 3 2.9 2.8 1 2 3 4

Theory and Positive Manner/Presidential Evaluation BO Photo

3.8
3.6 3.4 3.2 3 2.8 2.6 1 2 3 4

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Chart Set C Political Knowledge Score and Positive Manner/Presidential Evaluation Living Presidents Photo
3.6 3.5 3.4 3.3 3.2 3.1 3 2.9 2.8 1 2 3 4

Theory and Positive Manner/Presidential Evaluation Living Presidents Photo

3.6
3.5 3.4 3.3 3.2 3.1 3 2.9 2.8 2.7 2.6 1 2 3 4

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V. Discussion
The results generally show the main hypothesized outcomes, with some exceptions. As it pertains to the main relationship of interest, conservative test takers registered higher agreement with the statement that the image portrayed President Bush in a positive manner. With the Barack Obama photo, conservative test takers registered lower agreement with the same statement. Results for seeming Presidential did produce a somewhat surprising result. While conservatives generally increased their ranking on this dimension, the result was not statistically significant. The statistically significant result (at 99.999%) for seeming Presidential though came with the Barack Obama photo. Conservatives ranked the photo of President Obama nearly a half-point lower than liberals. As explained earlier, this effect may be due to the ordering of the photos: perhaps the military photo helped create a baseline for viewers that drove down presidential rankings later in the study. Finally, as expected, the question on liberal and conservative news did not produce any statistically significant results. This result reinforces the idea that the photos were perhaps truly neutral. If respondents had believed that one photo would more likely appear in a conservative news source as opposed to a liberal one, then this would suggest some inherent bias in the photo. Because respondents indicated that three photos and video could have appeared on either a liberal or conservative news site, the neutrality of the photos and video selected seems legitimate. Furthermore, these results support the idea of contextual bias driving the relationship. Remember that all of the vignettes appeared before the photos and video. Any caption on the same page as the photo was simply descriptive text. The vignette (the source of contextual bias) and the photo never shared the same page. Because the contextual bias was offered separate from the photo, and survey takers of both test versions responded equally to questions of appearance on liberal and conservative news sites, there is some evidence to suggest that the contextual biasing framework successfully primed the bias of respondents and that the inherent bias seems to have been minimal. Overall, the main hypothesis (the relationship between test taken and evaluation of positive manner) for the Living Presidents, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama photos was correct. A closer analysis of some of the results does reveal some surprises, counter to a few of the hypotheses. The primary surprise in the data was the effects associated with the Gingrich and Pelosi video. Even after controlling for those who knew Gingrich was a candidate in the 2012 election (when the video became a bit of a problem for him in the primaries), conservative test takers not only ranked Gingrich on average lower than liberal test takers, but they also ranked Gingrich slightly lower than Pelosi on the portrayed in a positive manner measurement. This is surprising especially because of how disliked Nancy Pelosi is among many
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conservatives. A few possibilities might explain the result. First, the particular pool of respondents may not have liked Gingrich personally. Unlike Nancy Pelosi, Gingrichs troubled personal life has been featured in the news frequently. A general dislike of Gingrich might have driven positive evaluations down. Another possibility might be that respondents felt Gingrich was in a less positive position because of the fact that Democrats own the issue of climate change (for a discussion of issue ownership, see Iyengar 2008 or De Bruycker and Walgrave 2008). While I originally predicted in the hypothesis that Gingrichs nonpartisan gesture towards an issue owned by Democrats would increase his positive evaluation, this was not the case. Rather, the relationship might have worked the other way. Democrats might have such a lock on the issue of climate change that conservatives were unconvinced by Gingrichs involvement. A final explanation has to do with the spillover effects I discussed in the hypothesis section. I hypothesized that the spillover effects for conservative test takers would result in greater positive evaluations of Pelosi. However, the spillover effect might have been with the liberal test takers instead. Had the liberal test takers been asked to evaluate a video of Gingrich by himself discussing climate change, perhaps the results would have been a more neutral score (around threeneither agree nor disagreerather than the studys average of fouragree). This explanation is supported by the fact that Pelosi and Gingrich received nearly an identical positive manner rank from the liberal test takers. Perhaps Gingrichs score was brought up to that of Pelosis. This explanation doesnt address why Pelosi received a slightly higher score than Gingrich from conservative test takers, but it does explain why Gingrich may have received a score similar to that of Pelosis from liberal test takers. The results of the Pelosi/Gingrich video are indeed interesting in the sense that they are different from the results for the George W. Bush and Barack Obama photos. Perhaps some combination of the above three explanations can accurately explain why this is the case. The effects of the significance variable also in general did not align with the hypotheses. Only with the Pelosi/Gingrich video did the expected outcome occur: conservative test takers registered nearly one point lower on agreeing that the video is significant compared to liberal test takers. This result makes sense and aligns well with the idea of issue ownership. The video is far more significant for Democrats who campaign and promote legislation on the issue of climate change (with the video they might be able to claim some bipartisanship). For the conservative test takers, the videos lower significance reflects the lower importance of the issue. The other photos failed to produce any significant effect with the significance variable. Conservative and Republican test takers registered similar scores for the significance of the Obama and Bush photos. This result, although counter to the hypothesis, might also support the idea of contextual bias driving the
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relationship on the positive manner variable. For similar reasons that the news variables did not produce significant results, perhaps respondents evaluated the significance of the photo with a similar mindset. Had one photo been evaluated as more significant, there would need to be an explanation. A plausible explanation for that outcome could have been that the photo itself portrayed one of the Presidents with such inherent bias that it would be a politically significant photo. However, significance was roughly the same for both photos, so an inherent bias story becomes less plausible. Significance surprisingly did not matter for the Obama and Bush photos, but significantly mattered (at the 99.999% significance level) for the Gingrich/Pelosi video. The political theory charts also point towards a surprising result. I hypothesized that those with higher levels of political theory would tend to evaluate more towards the middle options (striving for neither agree nor disagree), but in fact, those with higher political theory generally evaluated with higher positive and presidential scores. This result is hard to explain and definitely needs more research (some of the data points in the charts were calculated based off 5-9 observations). One possible explanation, however, might be that individuals with more theory knowledge may be able to remove the contextual and consumer biases and evaluate the photo based on the content of the photo itself (the selected photos did show generally positive content for both Presidents, and high theory respondents could probably disassociate the negative media attention surrounding the Bush photo). When examining only the content of the photo without almost any bias, perhaps respondents default towards a higher evaluation. Due to the small subsample sizes in these charts and the measurement problems associated with the theory variable (i.e. individuals were allowed to pick for themselves how much theory they had), these results may not be accurate. A more robust study could be done that more vigorously tests theory knowledge and then compares photos that are more similar to one another (such as Bush signing the No Child Left Behind Act and Obama signing the Affordable Care Act). For the political knowledge variable, a somewhat opposite result of the political theory story emerges. Individuals with middle levels of political knowledge generally evaluated the individuals the most positively whereas I hypothesized high knowledge individuals would evaluate most positively. If one thinks about knowledge of politicians (again, which was a crude measure developed for this study), low knowledge people might not have enough information to make a strong assessment so they tend towards the middle options (two, in this measurement). Similarly, high knowledge people might have enough information, which is both positive and negative, that their rankings are also driven towards the middle because the positive and negative information cancels out. Only middle knowledge people lack a compelling reason to offer middle-of-the-road evaluations because their level of knowledge most likely leads them to either mostly positive or mostly
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negative thoughts. The data presented in this study suggests that these thoughts are on the whole more positive for middle knowledge people than high or low knowledge people. Similar to the political theory explanations, though, much more research would be needed to examine the relationship between political knowledge and bias. Measurement problems abound with the knowledge variable, but preliminary results suggest an interesting trend in that middle level knowledge people evaluate more positively (i.e. agree more that the individual was portrayed positively or the individual seemed presidential). The results of the survey confirmed the main relationship I was testing, but also highlighted some interesting and perhaps unexpected results. While all of these conclusions should be taken with a grain of salt, the importance of contextual and consumer bias cannot be understated. Much of the data supports the notion that contextual and consumer bias does indeed alter the evaluation of the politician portrayed in the photo. Inherent political bias seems not to drive these relationships, which perhaps is an unintuitive result. While viewers might think of a framing choice made by the photographer as inducing bias, this type of bias seems to play only a minor role. Contextual and consumer biaswhich are external to the photographplay a far greater role in determining the biasedness of a particular photo.
VI. Conclusion
This studyeven with measurement and design problemshighlights the important relationship between contextual and consumer bias and evaluation of political photographs. While only a preliminary look at that relationship, the important takeaway is that viewers should not rush to claim a photo is biased due to how an individual is portrayed in the photo. Perhaps the context surrounding the photo or the viewers own political ideology serves as the main source of bias. Nevertheless, a fair critique of this study is that the definition used for bias is too narrow and constrictive. While that may be the case, the definition employed was necessary to isolate the different sources of bias (internal: inherent bias; external: contextual and consumer bias). The results of the study also underscore the importance of written or orally communicated journalism and the effects of bias in those mediums. Indeed, research in written and oral bias usually attempts to address the idea of contextual bias as defined in this paper. The research presented here extends the idea of contextual beyond written and oral communication, to photos and videos. A motif often repeated in the news media is that a picture is worth a thousand words. Those thousands words, and the author of those words, become critical in shaping the message viewers take away from the photo. By adding context, the photo no longer stands on its own as a moment in time. Of course, without the context, the individuals own bias may shape the message
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taken away as well. These two external biases thus make it very difficult to evaluate a photo objectively. In this paper, I argue that the bias most people claim is within photographs is actually the result of external factors. These factors blind the objective eye and can even trick the human mind into blaming the photographer for bias associated with a particular photo. For politics, these effects are important because an otherwise unbiased photo immediately becomes biased, and in todays media age, the photo (or video such as the campaignsinking video of Mitt Romneys 47% comment) can be used as a weapon. Photos and videos themselves are usually not inherently biased; instead, the editor and the viewer bias the photo by adding context and thinking about the photo through the lens of a particular ideology.
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Works Cited
Literature
Abramowitz, A. (2012, July 11). Larry J. Sabato's Crystal Ball Setting the Record Straight: Correcting Myths about Independent Voters. Center for Politics, University of Virginia. Retrieved June 12, 2013, from http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/aia2011070702/ Baum, Matthew A., and Tim Groeling. New Media and the Polarization of American Political Discourse,Political Communication,25 (2008), 345365. De Bruycker, I., & Walgrave, S. (2013). How a New Issue Becomes an Owned Issue. Media Coverage and the Financial Crisis in Belgium (20082009).International Journal of Public Opinion Research. Groseclose, T., & Milyo, J. (2005). A measure of media bias. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 120(4), 1191-1237. Iyengar, S., & McGrady, J. (2007). Media politics: A citizen's guide. New York: WW Norton. Khatib, Lina. Image politics in the Middle East: the role of the visual in political struggle. London: I.B. Tauris, 2012. Print. Lawrence, E., Sides, J., & Farrell, H. (2010). Self-segregation or deliberation? Blog readership, participation, and polarization in American politics.Perspectives on Politics, 8(01), 141-157. Lszl Moholy-Nagy, Painting Photography Film, English edition (London: Lund Humphries, 1969), p28. Neuman, S. (2012, March 27). Just How Independent Are Independent Voters? : NPR. NPR : National Public Radio : News & Analysis, World, US, Music & Arts : NPR. Retrieved June 12, 2013, from http://www.npr.org/2012/03/26/149402358/just-how-independent-are-independent-voters Rodriguez, S. (2012, July 12). Obama, election break Twitter records - Los Angeles Times. Featured Articles From The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved June 12, 2013, from http://articles.latimes.com/2012/nov/07/business/la-fi-tn-twitter-obama-election-20121107 "Was there a political bias in these photos? You decide | About:Chron | a Chron.com blog ." Staff Blogs Houston Chronicle. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 June 2013. <http://blog.chron.com/aboutchron/2005/11/wasthere-a-political-bias-in-these-photos-you-decide/>.
Photographs and Videos

Obama Cell Phone http://www.drudgereportarchives.com/data/2013/06/06/20130606_141351.htm http://cdn.theweek.co.uk/sites/theweek/files/obama-phone-crop.jpg Living Presidents http://www.muckety.com/images/for-stories/presidents_oval_office.jpg
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http://www.thenation.com/blog/174127/ten-years-ago-bush-declared-mission-accomplished-and-mediaswooned President Obama Signs the Affordable Care Act http://www.ap.org/Images/Obama_AffordableCareAct.JPG Gingrich/Pelosi Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qi6n_-wB154 Senators Graham and Bingaman http://blog.chron.com/aboutchron/2005/11/was-there-a-political-bias-in-these-photos-you-decide/ Blue Sky Photo https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Barley_crop_-blue_sky-4May2008.jpg President Obama and Michelle Obama Embracing http://www.closermag.fr/tele/news-tele/presidentielle-americaine-barack-obama-reelu-pour-4-ans-122181 John McCain Tongue Photo https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSdG9rvvwTE99xajmc_N7lGrG3x14_WkMf7w5ptJLba8K9UivH Hillary Clinton Photo http://livedoor.2.blogimg.jp/kamiomiya/imgs/1/8/183de171.JPG Queen Photo http://ekladata.com/vNBRr2w8ZO3Ekt1akSXEU_aYh28@747x1067.jpg Mitt Romney 47% Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2gvY2wqI7M Michelle Bachmann Newsweek https://encryptedtbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQAbUPDhUGK8VA9bIBZFjJlX0KYfzF59mPtrUZBc5uDyXwn7V qV Michelle Bachmann Alone http://chrisbucknews.wordpress.com/2011/08/22/bachmann-cover-overdrive/
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Music
All music was obtained royalty free. Names of songs and links are given here: Egmont Overture Finale: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/mp3royaltyfree/Egmont%20Overture%20Finale.mp3 Dark Ominous Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCEGhOMZOaE Somewhere Sunny: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/mp3-royaltyfree/The%20Complex.mp3 Heavy Interlude: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sksbcNod_DY
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Appendix A: Video Script

Bias. Bias in journalism has been a much-discussed topic among political scientists. Frequently, though, discussions around the idea focus on the written or orally communicated aspects of news bias. Rarely does the discussion involve bias associated with the photos and videos used with journalism. But do photos like the ones of Michelle Bachmann on the cover of Newsweek or this photo of John McCain after a debate with Barack Obama have inherent bias built into them or do they merely portray the individuals in a negative manner? The goal of my study was to explore this idea of bias in photography. Broadly, I use the word bias with a very political definition: the photo communicates a clear anti-Republican or anti-Democrat message. As the study developed, three distinct forms of bias emerged. First, inherent bias refers to the natural bias of a photograph. This might be considered internal bias. Second, contextual bias refers to things like captions or articles that an editor might add around a photo. Finally, consumer bias refers to the bias of the viewer which might take the form of a strong political ideology. With these ideas of bias in mind, I set out to find the answer to the following question: does a viewers own political bias (consumer bias), reinforced with contextual bias, effect his or her evaluation of how positively the individual in the image is portrayed, how presidential the individual seems, how likely the photo would appear on a conservative or liberal news site, and the significance of the photo? I developed a survey with three pictures and one video. (INSERT HERE) a photo by David Hume Kennerly of the living Presidents, a photo of George W. Bush declaring Mission Accomplished on the USS Abraham, and a photo of Barack Obama signing the Affordable Care Act) A video was also included of former Speakers Newt Gingrich and Nancy Pelosi promoting climate change policy. Then, depending on the ideology of the survey taker as determined earlier in the survey, the respondent was directed towards a liberal tilted or a conservative tilted version of the study that offered biased statements of the individuals portrayed. These statements were aligned with that respondents particular ideology. For more information on the survey development, please read my extended paper. To analyze the data, I used basic statistical techniques such as summary statistics, an ordinary least squares regression and mean comparison tests. Overall, I found that contextual and consumer bias plays a significant role in the bias associated with photographs. Even though conservative test takers and liberal test takers
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evaluated the same photos, conservatives generally offered more positive rankings for the George Bush photo and liberal offered more positive rankings for the Obama photo. Other relationships are further discussed in the paper. Photographs are rarely presented on their own, but when they are, much of the bias disappears. Take the example of Michelle Bachmann on the cover Newsweek again. Heres the photographers original photo without the Newsweek additions. In this photo, Bachmann seems to have big eyes, but we probably cannot say that the photo itself communicates a strong anti-republican message. Rather, our own individual bias and the context added by Newsweek helps shape the bias we associate with the photograph. Viewing a photo objectively can be enormously difficult especially when the photo is of an iconic political level. Loszlo Moholy-Nagy stated in her book Painting Photography Film that in the photographic camera we have the most reliable aid to a beginning of objective vision. Everyone will be compelled to see that which is optically true, is explicable in its own terms, is objective, before he can arrive at any possible subjective position. 18 With most photos this is absolutely true. However, with political photos, content and our own ideas often drives us to the subjective position almost immediately. Our own ideological positions and the context of the photo remove the coveted objectivity. Consider this photo, which was released by the White House shortly after President Obama was reelected to a second term. The photo became the most retweeted tweet in history. The photo itself clearly does not exhibit any negative bias and portrays an intense emotional moment between the First Lady and the President. However, when it was sinking in on election night that the candidate I supported had lost, and I saw this photo, I reacted quite negatively not due to the photo itself but rather due to the immense contextual information of the night. My guy had lost a major presidential election and my objectivity in viewing this photo was gone. I was just upset with the guy in the picture besting the guy I supported! The idea of bias in a political context is an enormously difficult concept. What one person might consider as biased might come across as perfectly objective to someone else. Testing bias is also problematic as the testing instruments might be biased themselves. But at the end of the day, these ideas of consumer and contextual
18
Lszl Moholy-Nagy, Painting Photography Film, English edition (London: Lund Humphries, 1969), p28.
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bias are important because our viewing of photograph and political videos will shape our views of the individuals portrayed. Now, take a second to think about your own ideological bias, and try to separate the contextual bias from these photographs. View them objectively.
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Appendix B: Survey Logic Flow
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Appendix C: Survey Instrument
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Appendix D: Variables Description Sheet

The following table provides a guide to the variables coded for in the dataset MSA Data File. A few notes about the data: A few respondents did not answer all questions, so some of the variables have a total sample size that is smaller than the number of respondents. Some questions in the survey were converted to alternative measurements in the dataset, as described in this table. Most of the data has been converted into numerical values to facilitate statistical analysis. LP GW BO Variable Name (blue) and Possible Values (white) IP Address Finished 0 1 Economic Politics 1 2 3 4 Social Politics 1 2 3 4 Overall Politics 1 2 3 4 Test Taken 0 1 Gender Page 43 of 48 Throughout this table, the following abbreviation for photos are used: Living Presidents Photo (Kennerly) George W. Bush Mission Accomplished Photo on USS Abraham Barack Obama Signing the Affordable Care Act
Description of the Variable (blue) and Variable Values (white) Serves as a unique identifier for each respondent Describes whether the entire survey was submitted (through the final submit button); note some survey responses that were not fully submitted were retained because they included responses to most of the survey Partial response Complete response Describes the respondents view on economic and fiscal Issues (taxes, government spending, welfare programs, etc.) Very Conservative Somewhat Conservative Somewhat Liberal Very Liberal Describes the respondents view on social Issues (gay marriage, abortion, drugs, etc.) Very Conservative Somewhat Conservative Somewhat Liberal Very Liberal Describes the respondents overall political beliefs (respondents were asked to think about which party typically receives their vote) Very Conservative Somewhat Conservative Somewhat Liberal Very Liberal Describes which bias tilted test the respondent participated in (this was determined based on a political beliefs score) Liberal Test Version Conservative Test Version
Roman Larson 0 1 Zip Age Major Theory 1 2 3 4 Political Knowledge Score 0 1 2 3 4 Gingrich Listed 0 1 LP Pos Manner GW Pos Manner BO Pos Manner 1 2 3 4 LP Presidential GW Presidential BO Presidential 1 2 3 4 LP Lib News GW Lib News BO Lib News 1 2
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Female Male The hometown zip code of the respondent, which was then used to calculate the political knowledge score The respondents age If applicable, the respondent provided the major they are currently pursuing or had pursued in college Response to the question: How much knowledge do you think you have of political theory? (Think about if you've taken any political science courses, for example) A lot Some Not Much Hardly Any Survey asked respondents to list their hometowns two Senators, representative, and governor. The score was then calculated based on how many names were correct when compared to information obtained by the zip code provided earlier in the survey. The scores are meant to serve as a gauge of political knowledge. Zero answers correct One answer correct Two answers correct Three answers correct Four answers correct Respondents were asked to list all of the Republican candidates they could recall from the 2012 election. I was interested to see if Gingrich was listed, so I constructed the following binary based on this information. Gingrichs name not provided by respondent Gingrichs name provided by respondent Questions that asked if photo shown portrayed the individual(s) in a positive manner Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree Questions that asked if the individual(s) in the photo seemed Presidential Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree Questions that asked if the photo would more often appear on a liberal news site Strongly Disagree Disagree Page 44 of 48
Roman Larson 3 4 LP Conserv News GW Conserv News BO Conserv News 1 2 3 4 LP Sig GW Sig BO Sig 1 2 3 4 Reson 1 2 Reson Strength 0-100 PG Right Pos Manner 1 2 3 4 PG Left Pos Manner 1 2 3 4 PG Presidential 1 2 3 4 PG Lib News 1 2 3 4

Agree Strongly Agree
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Questions that asked if the photo would more often appear on a conservative news site Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree Questions that asked if the photo is significant (it is influential) Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree Question that asked which photo between the Bush and Obama ones resonated more with the respondent. Photo A (Bush Mission Accomplished) Photo B (Obama and the Affordable Care Act) Asked respondents to rank on a scale of 0-100 how much more the photo they selected resonated more with them than the other photo. 0 means the respondent was indifferent between the photos, 100 means the photo selected resonated much more Question for the Pelosi-Gingrich Video which asked if the individual on the right (Gingrich) was portrayed in a positive manner Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree Question for the Pelosi-Gingrich Video which asked if the individual on the left (Pelosi) was portrayed in a positive manner Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree Question for the Pelosi-Gingrich Video which asked if the individuals together seemed Presidential Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree Question that asked if the video would more often appear on a liberal news site Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree Page 45 of 48
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Question that asked if the video would more often appear on a conservative news site Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree Question that asked if the video is significant (it is influential) Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
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Appendix E: Regression Tables

*Significant at p < .10 **Significant at p < .05
Beyond 99% Significant: ***Significant at p < .01 ****Significant at p < .001 *****Significant at p < .0001
Living Presidents Photo

Positive Manner Averages Test Taken Gender Age Theory Knowledge Gingrich Listed Constant 3.22 3.23 Presidential 3.23 3.04 Liberal News 2.51 2.42 Conservative News 2.18 2.31 Significant 2.98 2.79
-.0269175 (.1005011) .047552 (.09954) .0034233 (.0037744) .0842585 (.0537687) .0232852 (.0389369) -.0864795 (.1102601) 2.86272 (.2490584)
-.2082049* (.1101063) .0003232 (.1087027) -.0032256 (.0041443) .0660282 (.0584165) .0241976 (.0424423) -.0083785 (.1208469) 3.107324 (.271924)
-.044589 (.1163671) -.044589 (.1150108) .001912 (.0043888) .1498534** (.0617364) -.0071157 (.0449106) .1837885 (.1274578) 2.019296 (.2891846)
.1099873 (.1086726) -.0285665 (.1074059) -.0024338 (.0040986) -.0811109 (.0576542) -.0948198** (.041941) .0757541 (.1190299) 2.704612 (.2700629)
-.2534967* (.1416581) -.0494987 (.1405872) .0016908 (.0053589) .0063626 (.0756567) .0255913 (.0552891) -.2061343 (.1555985) 2.975704 (.3528535)
George W. Bush Photo

Positive Manner Averages Test Taken Gender Age Theory Knowledge 2.55 3.02 Presidential 2.98 3.05 Liberal News 2.46 2.25 Conservative News 2.83 2.94 Significant 3.21 3.02
.5154003**** (.1498377) -.1241122 (.1479276) .0026687 (.0056398) .197976** (.0794959) -.0113196 (.0577574)
.1302005 (.1265294) .0664707 (.1249164) -.0043352 (.0047625) .2289243**** (.0671298) .1111745** (.0487728)
-.2414622 (.1714031) .4021135** (.1692181) .0009162 (.0064515) .0226767 (.0909374) -.0264268 (.0660701)
.1588834 (.1676305) -.3004013* (.1654936) -.0084027 (.0063095) .0468969 (.0889358) .0552996 (.0646159)
-.1726551 (.1228158) -.0867166 (.1212501) -.0054294 (.0046227) -.0370995 (.0651595) .0149227 (.0473413)
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.1600438 (.164454) 2.003311 (.3700467) -.0992035 (.138872) 2.211167 (.3124833) -.0061753 (.188123) 2.236557 (.4233057) -.2625819 (.1839824) 3.052477 (.4139887)
June 2013 -.186164 (.1347961) 3.54058 (.303312)
Barack Obama Photo

Positive Manner Averages Test Taken Gender Age Theory Knowledge Gingrich Listed Constant 3.46 3.19 Presidential 3.54 3.08 Liberal News 3.44 3.26 Conservative News 1.79 1.91 Significant 3.23 3.11
-.3029711*** (.1097179) .1792403* (.1083192) -.0047435 (.0041297) -.008544 (.0582105) -.012542 (.0422925) -.2373142* (.1204205) 3.648621 (.2709647
-.484302***** (.1066103) .2456464** (.1052512) -.0042971 (.0040127) -.0212501 (.0565617) -.0191545 (.0410947) -.2320623** (.1170098) 3.724998 (.2632901)
-.1941355 (.121523) .0537455 (.1199738) -.0018615 (.004574) .0201988 (.0644736) .0125219 (.046843) -.0765506 (.1333772) 3.409953 (.3001191)
.1265075 (.1297952) -.0116788 (.1281406) .0043699 (.0048854) .0314165 (.0688624) -.0126858 (.0500317) .2276549 (.1424563) 1.55611 (.3205486)
-.1912553 (.1180987) .0918303 (.1165931) -.0029143 (.0044452) -.2319085***** (.0626569) -.1230751*** (.0455231) -.3335873** (.1296189) 4.337821 (.2916623)
Pelosi/Gingrich Video
Gingrich Positive Averages Test Taken Gender Age Theory Knowledge Gingrich Listed Constant 4.13 3.53 Pelosi Positive 4.20 3.78 Presidential 2.94 2.51 Liberal News 3.96 3.78 -.2385591 (.1672215) -.2385591 (.1657772) -.0029832 (.0066823) .1135197 (.0885456) .0690064 (.0637024) .2964284 (.1831932) 3.406297 (.4122973) Conservative News 2.87 2.73 .0556519 (.1983448) -.2277623 (.1966317) -.0113169 (.0079261) .1744786* (.1050258) -.1373054* (.0755587) -.0315403 (.2172892) 3.215634 (.4890342) Significant 3.82 2.98
-.5750684***** (.1438568) .0820554 (.1426143) .0075264 (.0057487) .1507167** (.0761738) -.0010694 (.0548017) .0804026 (.1575969) 3.48373 (.3546899)
-.4615751**** (.1379113) .1465082 (.1367202) .0030559 (.0055111) .0813031 (.0730256) -.0466999 (.0525368) -.0187057 (.1510836) 3.986383 (.3400309)
-.4032117 (.1747091) -.0155131** (.1732002) -.0012757 (.0069816) .1724039* (.0925104) -.033585 (.0665548) -.1452808 (.191396) 2.701783 (.4307587)
-.8422672***** (.1803006) -.0205073 (.1787433) .0004458 (.007205) .1251209 (.0954712) .0294356 (.0686848) -.316009 (.1975215) 3.531103 (.4445448)
Page 48 of 48

Inherent, Contextual, and Consumer Bias in Political Photography (Roman Larson)

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Inherent, Contextual, and Consumer Bias in Political Photography (Roman Larson)

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Inherent, Contextual, and Consumer Bias in Political Photography

Roman Michael Gregory Larson June 2013

PWR2: The Power of Political Photography Stanford University