Industry-funded television research suppressed unfavorable findings and used straw-man tests

Evidence

But I do not believe that television’s built-in biases can be accounted for in terms of the overt political inclinations—to Left or Right—of its individual practitioners. Indeed, what is far more significant is the way quite different kinds and conditions of men are systematically constrained to handle the variety of news and accounts which they process daily within the framework of a limited set of interpretations. Nor do I believe that the broadcasters are systematically censored and pressured from extrinsic sources except in limited and largely exceptional cases. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 859 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Under the mistaken idea that studies of televised violence are devoid of control groups, some producers dismissed reported empirical findings as unfounded and lambasted the supposedly flawed methodology. … Moreover, well-designed studies use multiple statistical controls to exclude the influence of other possible covarying factors. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 880 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Tobacco firms funded quality research to distract from smoking’s causal role — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 631; Sponsor-driven television suppressed any programming that contradicted upbeat commercial messages — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 497; Industry can distort science simply by funding the researchers who suit it — Cailin O’Connor and James Owen Weatherall, The Misinformation Age: How False…, 400 (+10 more)

Broader Connections

• The broadcast industry suppressed findings of its own violence effects report #corroborates (0.93)
• Television bias comes from structural constraints, not practitioners’ politics or censorship #complicates (0.78) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 859
• Industry critics falsely claimed media-violence studies lacked control groups #complicates (0.74) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 880
• Concentrating research funding can make science more propaganda-proof #complicates (0.72) — Cailin O’Connor and James Owen Weatherall, The Misinformation Age, 384