College students’ perspectives of bias in their news consumption habits

This article builds off prior work on news consumption habits and perception of bias in the news by focusing on college students’ self-generated definitions of bias, and the strategies they employ to guard against how their personal bias potentially affects what news they choose to believe and consume. Through interviews with undergraduate students, findings show that while participants acknowledged they had personal bias to a degree, the majority still defined bias as an external issue imposed on them by others than as an internal issue shaping their thoughts about the sources they consumed. Some students attempted to mitigate any perceived bias they had by reading multiple or opposite perspectives than their own, while others believed it enough to be “aware” of their bias and continue to consume news as they pleased. A few students didn’t check their bias at all. Some saw bias as a positive under certain circumstances