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OG guide
BIAS
IN
MEDIA
OG GUIDE
I n t r o d u c t i o n (david Jaros)
Now you are probably asking
why do we want to tell you about
these issues of the media bias. We
want you to realize these
partialities in the broadcasting
because it will make you better
reader as well as better consumer
of information. Furthermore you
can find it useful in your future
studies, especially in English and
TOK lessons. We made this guide
for you to make your life easier.
You will not have to look for this
information on the internet and
spend hours looking for the
examples; you will just read our
brochure. Lastly it will be an
advantage for you to be aware of
the media biases. From this time
you will not be another blind
reader, you will rather be a critical
reader.
The media, the main source of
information and news, is represented
by newspapers, magazines and
broadcasting. They are choosing
which content they will tell us and
how they will tell them. When we see
the daily headlines television we can
meet topics covering mainly sad
subjects; murders, rapes or less
important issues as new-born tiger
in a zoo. Moreover there is a
difference between articles posted in
“Mladá Fronta” or in “Blesk”. Every
company has different sources of
their information and is writing to
different type of people. Therefore the
content of the news can be different
and it is only up to us if we want to
read funny and catchy articles,
which can be wrong or if we do not
mind reading sometimes longer but
more informative and reliable
articles. Another important part of
every piece is photos. It’s for the
reason that the majority of us before
reading the article look at the
pictures to have basic idea what the
article will be about.
Content
Sources
Language
Photo bias
Stereotyping
Sensationalism
A lack of context
Leadership in the Media
This brochure is going to focus on the topics:
S O U R C E S (Kristina benedetti)
We are here to give you a guide!
Be aware, that especially nowadays,
when lots of types of magazines and
newspapers are released into the
world, some information might be far
from the truth. The reason for this is
that the certain news simply wants to
be ´better´ than the other news and
because people tend to exaggerate
things. Surely everybody knows the
media which you have to look at from
the distance in order to get original
message.
Sources – reliable and credible!
While you are reading an article
announcing an ´exclusive information´
you might ask yourself: “Where does this
information come from?” As the day
flows, you have the possibility to read
another articles about the same ´breaking
news´ and you might start to think of
which one is credible and which one is
not. “Do they include a wide range of
sources? Is there at least one reporter
representing the information? Isn’t it
biased with the undertone of the
magazine?”
Simple guide to help you to find out if the
article is truthful and reliable!
Start with reading your article – that’s because
you want to know what it is about.
Conduct a simple search – find every person
quoted in the article having their opinion
mentioned there
Find reporters – the most reliable sources of
information, first-hand research experiences
Primary sources – originate from people that
were direct witnesses or who was the direct
object of investigation
Secondary sources – originates from the
official police report, other people who pass
the information on, or the commentators
Be aware of not having there a variety of
people – if there are three policemen, it
does not mean that they have three
different opinions
When possible look at the references –
often included in the magazines; give you
the overview of the sources
Gather many types of news! – In order to
get the most objective information
Read it again! - For the further
understanding of the article
May launched a consultation last July over
her proposals to scale back the use of police
stop-and-search powers and ensure their
"fair and effective use".
At the time, the home secretary said it was no
longer sustainable that black people were still
seven times more likely to be searched on the
street than white people. She also said it had
been seen as sharply divisive in Britain's
black and minority ethnic communities.
May had planned to announce cabinet approval of her proposals before last Christmas, but she ran into strong Downing Street concerns that the move could leave the Tories looking "soft on crime". Nick Clegg, who chairs the cabinet's home affairs committee, is said to have backed May's package but it was not sufficient to end the standoff.
The home secretary, Theresa
May, is due to make a
Commons statement on the
future of police stop-and-search
powers, suggesting that her
nine-month dispute with
Downing Street over the issue
has finally been resolved.
The Metropolitan and West Midlands
police forces have already massively
scaled back their use of stop and search as
part of a successful pilot scheme using a
more "intelligence-led approach".
The more targeted approach saw the use of
stop and search reduced by up to half and
an increase in the "hit rate", the rate of
detections and arrests, despite fewer
searches on the street.
Alan Travis, home affairs editor
Consider for example this article about the
dispute with Downing Street over police
powers has been resolved.
First of all, if you are following our little
guide and searching for the people involved
in this article, you will find about 4
representatives (we have highlighted them
for you). This then might seems like a
balanced overview with several opinions,
which should provide an objective message.
However, looking at it closely, you can spot
two people from home affairs and two police
forces integrated in the text. Moreover, both
of these departments are from PR (public
relations), giving it more subjective report,
trying to persuade readers to take over their
point of view. This is then even accentuated
by the fact that it was written by the home
affairs editor Alan Travis.
L a n g u a g e (Dominika kourilova)
We will consider two articles from two different
websites talking about the same thing. The first
article was published on Times for Israel, the
second one on Boston news. The articles are
talking about the bombarding in Israel in March
2014. Try to focus on the very first sentence in
each article and recognize how they play with your
mind just using a different sentence structure,
different words. The underlined words change the
information absolutely.
Language
In Theory of Knowledge class you were taught (or
you will be) how powerful language is. Despite
the fact it is one of the areas of knowing,
language affects us every day – we use it, we hear
it, we read it…it is a way how to express
ourselves - the most precise one. However, people
can really misuse it and influence yours
thinking, perception and whole point of the
message. Let’s have a look at examples so you
better understand the problematic.
Rockets strike Israel,
jeopardizing truce talk
March 13, 2014/ Boston news
JERUSALEM (AP) – The
Palestinian militant group
Islamic Jihad said Thursday it
had agreed to halt a wave of
rocket fire on Israel, signalling
an end to the heaviest fighting
between the sides since 2012,
though soon after the
announcement two rockets fired
from Gaza exploded inside Israel.
The Islamic Jihad denied it
launched the attack and it wasn’t
immediately unclear who fired
the rockets. Cease-fire
declarations have not always
been honoured by militants and
the barrage raised doubts about
the cease-fire offer made by
Islamic Jihad.
The Israeli military said a total of
four rockets were fired
Thursday from Gaza. Israeli
officials previously refused to
confirm any cease-fire deal was
in place.
In two days of violence, militants
fired more than 60 rockets into
Israeli, while Israel has carried
out a series of airstrikes in
Gaza. No serious casualties
have been reported.
Gaza rockets batter south,
testing ceasefire
By Adiv Sterman March 13,
2014/ Times for Israel
At least eight rockets were
fried at southern Israel
Thursday evening as a several
hour ceasefire declared between
Jerusalem and Islamic Jihad
threatened to unravel.
One missile, heading for a
populated are of Netivot, was
shot down by and Iron Dome
anti-rocket battery, the IDF
said.
Five more missiles hit open
areas in Sderot, Shaar Hanegev
and Sdot Hanegev areas after 8
p.m. No injuries or damage
were reported.
Earlier in the evening, two
rockets were launched at the
Ashkelon region, sending
residents scurrying for shelter.
Both landed in open areas.
Gazan terror groups Islamic
Jihad denied it launched the
attacks and it wasn’t
immediately unclear who fired
the rockets. Cease-fire
declarations have not always
been honoured by terror
groups and the barrage raised
doubts about the ceasefire offer.
Yes, these are really 2 articles
talking about one occasion.
Focus especially on underlined
words or sentences that are
mainly changing the
information.
This is one of the aspect that
you are supposed to be careful
about, when reading some
article:
Emotionally charged words –
the level or type of emotionally
coloured word changes your
perception and understanding.
Little difference in meaning
changes the message.
Examples of using different
loaded words for the same
action/subject:
Bureaucrat vs. public servant
Pro-death vs. pro-choice
Regime vs. government
Elitist vs. expert
Infanticide or child murder vs.
abortion
Put up with vs. tolerate
Put at a loss vs. bewilder
P h o t o b i a s (Sara Ehrlichova)
Photos are usually used in media (mostly
newspaper and magazines) to illustrate specific
situation, to provide the detail of the surrounding,
to give us the context. However media take an
advantage over using the photos to manipulate the
reader to their intention.
There are several most common ways how to
manipulate the reader and create the bias in
media. This includes:
Artificially created situation in order to give
false impressions or even to create a story that
is not true
Manipulating with photographs
One of the most common examples of editing
photos is the photo of Adnan Hajj. The photo on
left side is edited with cloning tool from
Photoshop; therefore it shows more intensive
smoke and destruction in Beirut than the
original picture on the right.
Plus the correct description with the picture in the
printed edition of The Times was stated “After an
Israeli airstrike destroyed a building in Tyre, Lebanon,
yesterday, one man helped another who had fallen and
was hurt.”
Misleading captions and information
background about the photo
In this case, good example is the photo published in
New York Times. The caption of the photo said “The
mayor of Tyre said that in the worst hit areas, bodies
were still buried under the rubble, and he appealed to
the Israelis to allow government authorities time to pull
them out.” This indicates even from the photo that
man lying on the ground is dead. However the same
man that seems dead is just one minute earlier seen
scrambling over debris in the same place. After many
complaints, New York Times was forced to make a
‘correction’ over the caption of the photo, stating “A
picture caption with an audio slide show on July 27
about an Israeli attack on a building in Tyre, Lebanon,
imprecisely described the situation in the picture. The
man pictured, who had been seen in previous images
appearing to assist with the rescue effort, was injured
during that rescue effort, not during the initial attack,
and was not killed.”
Changing the perspectives and
angles Changing the perspective of the photos is an
easy way how to create the photo bias. As an
example might be used the photo published in
The Independent of Palestinian children
pretending to be in an Israeli prison. The photo
was actually taken on one of the protests of
Gaza freelancer. However the photographer took
the photo from different angle which created the
result giving the impression that the children
are standing in the prison. Even though the
photographer used the right caption but as long
as newspaper does not have to use the captions
of the photos. The Independent did not use it
when they decided to write about Palestinian
minors, they took the photo and gave the
information of “children clapped in in irons”.
Not using photographs Another bias often used is actually not using photos at all. On January 3, 2006 three Palestinian men were killed by Israeli soldiers. This situation was reported by Reuters which wrote “Israeli soldiers have shot dead three Palestinians, including a 15-year-old boy, who were throwing stones in protests around the West Bank city of Nablus early on Saturday local time, Palestinian medics and witnesses said.” And Associated Press stating: “On Saturday, troops opened fire at a large number of Palestinians throwing stones, an army spokesman said.” By those statements readers would get the impression that Israeli soldiers overreacted to children throwing small rocks. However the photography which was taken, but not used, gives different point of view.
S t e r e o t y p i n g (Nina Fuchsova)
Are you aware of the characteristics
described as being “a typical” woman?
For instance women being provocative
and promiscuous, hence more likely to
be cheaters or a good liars. So, look on
this senator and guess what’s wrong.
This article is from online news
http://www.breitbart.com/ with a
title:
“Single teen mom? Texas’s Wendy
Davis lied
about life story.”
The problem of many articles is
that they are following prejudices
and stereotypes, which might be
sometimes supported by very
vague sources or taken out of the
context. Are you thinking over
what I mean? Let’s have a look on
following examples and explain it.
Her ex-husband
accused her for
cheating,
however who
knows the truth?
Exploita
tion of
men ->
gold
diggers
Using lie
instead of
conceal
Whole article available on: http://www.breitbart.com/Big-
Government/2014/01/19/Liar-in-Pink-Shoes-Wendy-Davis-s-Composite-
Life
“Wendy Davis, the Texas state senator
whose filibuster for abortion rights made her
a Democratic superstar and launched her
campaign for governor, has admitted to
the Dallas Morning News that she lied about
key events in her life, including her first
divorce. Davis may even have lied under
oath, testifying in a federal lawsuit over
redistricting that "I got divorced by the time I
was 19 years old," when in fact she was
divorced at age 21.
Other missing details have included: her second husband paid her way through law school and she divorced him the day after the last payment was made; her ex-husband accused her in initial court filings of adultery, and was awarded custody of their two daughters; and she first ran for city council in Fort Worth as a Republican. “
(It reminds me of another bias –
truthfulness of media. However
you can read more about the
nonsense quotation that Mr.
Sommer said in the footnote –
scientists comment)
And concerning the opposite gender. Have you ever noticed the signs of being strong, dominant, etc.? Moreover the thing that most of the articles, when talking about man make fun of, are “women things”? Let’s take in consideration for example this article from the online magazine iDIVA, it just strikes me. Not talking about the fact that the Bisphenol A is not having negative effect on potency but the thing that they interpreted it in this scientific way to be more persuasive that shopping is not a manlike thing.
Sense About Science, For The Record, 13 July 2010
http://www.senseaboutscience.org/for_the_record.php/21/can-shopping-
receipts-make-you-impotent-the-telegraph-30th-june-2010
Shopping is
typically women
desire and hobby
Who
are the
researc
hers?!
Can we
believe
them?
As you can read in the footnotes
source, there’s scientific article
saying that it’s nonsense what
Mr. Sommer said (fortunately he
is real J )
Shopping is really bad for men’s health and
fertility, scientists are now saying after new
research.
Researchers have discovered that a chemical
compound found on some cash receipts
contains a hazardous substance, Bisphenol A
(BPA), which suppresses male hormones in
the body and can make men impotent.
The compound, used to make ink visible on
thermally sensitive paper, is ingested when
men handle the paper and then touch their
mouths or handle food.
Frank Sommer, a Berlin-based urologist, said
the substance could just affect sex hormones
in men.
"A substance like that could shift the balance
of sex hormones in men towards oestrogen,"
Sommer was quoted as saying by The
Telegraph newspaper here.
S e n s a t i o n a l i s m (Joshua zrzavy)
Sensationalism is a type of bias in media, where ordinary news are overhyped in order to catch more attention of readers. Sensationalism usually focuses on themes that are emotionally based or on famous people and their affaires or our primal sense – fear. Trivial information and events are sometimes misrepresented and exaggerated as important or significant, and often includes stories about the actions of individuals and small groups of people. Furthermore, the content and subject matter typically doesn't affect the lives of the masses and doesn't affect society, and instead is broadcast and printed to attract viewers and readers, however some sensations can be partially true, but are still extremely exaggerated. Therefore, any story based on sources who may be reasonably assumed to be motivated to act in this way is best interpreted with critical thinking. Be aware of those sources, where people with not enough information post their opinions and share it. Then it starts the effect of “snowball” and it slowly starts the sensation – somebody spits interesting and touchy theme on internet [not necessarily] and other user grabs it and adds additional, possibly false, information, that’s how it continues until it hits media.
For example the case of
“Y2K” bug – programmers
and IT techs were used to
save their numerical data
in only two letters [Y2K =
year 2 000] because Y
refers to YEAR, and “K”
refers to kilo [1000]. So
these machines went from
“99” to “00” – this in some
machines resulted in
change of date to “19100”.
The problem here is, that
it was only small
technical problem – media
turned this problem into
worst disaster, even
referring to collapse of all
technology. There were
rumors of cars possibly
not working etc. This
resulted in army,
government and regular
people spending billions
of dollars on their PC’s in
order to protect them.
CDI calculated, that
worldwide we have spent
$422 billion in order to
protect their PC’s.
What really happend?
In Onagawa, Japan, an
alarm sounded at a nuclear
power plant at two minutes
after midnight.
In Sheffield, United Kingdom,
incorrect Down syndrome test
results were sent to 154
pregnant women and two
abortions were carried out as
a direct result of a Y2K bug.
Four Down's syndrome babies
were also born to mothers who
had been told they were in the
low-risk group.
And other MINOR problems, which
means that Y2K was a huge
sensationalism.
L a c k o f c o n t e x t (Jiri trebicky)
Let’s say you see an article about a man
who was brutally killed by shotgun when
he delivered a newspaper magazine.
Everyone would pity this man and would
feel really awful about the husband of the
family who shot him. What if there would
be added more background and you
would find out that the newspaper guy
was trying to rape a little girl that he
found alone in the house when he
delivered the newspaper. The news is not
lying, they are just not saying the full
story.
Another simple approach is to cut speeches of
interviewed people and therefore make them sound
in a different way. Problem with this approach is
that the host/politician/whoever did say the things,
they just cut the beginning or the end of the speech
so it is the way they want. Usually you don’t
question that because they obviously have no time
for the interview in news right?
There are many simple ways how to twist reader´s mind. One of it is not to tell him circumstances and background of the case. A brief example should speak for itself. This is an easy way how to change reader’s perception without lying.
We cannot blame the media all the times. Very often
there are political reasons to cut a message. This
applies a lot to the countries where the politicians
own the media. They would not let the writers to
publish some dark secrets of the government.
This is an extreme but simple
example of how they can do it.
The red words were deleted.
It completely changes the message. From the
green area it seems like the host is happy from a
death of his fellow. Of course this is an evil
example but in a way it is a good as well.
Interview about a death of a friend:
Interviewer: Are you happy today?
Host: Happy? No, not at all, it was an unnecessary
death.
Interviewer: Can you tell me what relationship did
you have with Archibald?
Host: Of Course…
They also insert random pictures in order to create the
atmosphere and change the perception of a reader. This
is more like changing the context than lacking it. Our
brain is unable to disconnect from the pictures that are
allocated next to the text and even though he does not
realize he is being fooled, he is.
To summarize, we must start to question the context
and try to look up interviews from valid sources. If
we don’t we might get a bad impression of celebrities
that aren’t that bad as described.
L e a d e r s h i p (Karolina Kolarova)
Freedom of the press belongs to the man
who owns one." A. J. Liebling
Each of these following quotes is hiding
some kind of truth. Especially this one is
worthy to be considered. Who influence what
we read in newspapers and see in TV news?
According to the statistics 47% of media is own by
public figures. You might not find it anyhow
interesting or important BUT what seems to be not
affecting us is in fact messing with our mind...
However, there is one question hanging in the air.
How should we know who and how is influencing
the information that is later on world widely
distributed? Well usually we won´t found any
official title “owned by George Bush “or “under the
control of American government”. Not all
newspapers are following the trend “support your
owner”, but if so it´s really hard to detect any of
biases or favouritism in newspaper or media in
general. The tactics is really sneaky.
So here are few tips how to
avoid this psychological
game:
Isn´t it weird that one media confirms
allegations that Berlusconi had raped a
girl, but some says the opposite. Well it is
probably due to the fact that Berlusconi
owned almost 80% of Italian media. -
NEVER FORGET TO COMPARE MORE
SOURCES!
Note the amount of articles that are talking
about the same subject especially in positive
manner. Such an example is elections. In year
2000 when presidential elections were held in
US, Fox news spent $2.9 million on “Bush
campaign”. Almost 57% of news was about
Bush. How is it possible? Well, George Bush
owns 2% of Fox News and moreover he is the
best friend of the company director.
To be honest some media are making really a fool
from us. ALWAYS look for small details. Such as
numbers of missiles fired at the beginning of year
2014 by Israeli air force. Palestinian news says at
the beginning 8, but at the end 12 missiles on the
other hand Israeli news mentioned 5 missiles fired.
So probably 12 minus 8 should be 5 or 5 should
equals to 12 as is mentioned in the articles. We can
see that Israeli government is not alike with the
Palestinian as both of the news is owned by
politicians with different ideologies.
S u m m a r y (Marcell hembrom)
We have to be aware about how media exaggerates ordinary
things just to make news interesting. We also need to look out
for the stereotyping in the media, such as: ´characteristics of
women´, ´attacking men sovereignty´ or ´rape victims having a
history of promiscuity´, etc. These statements are not always
true and are presented in a delusory point of view. Sometimes
people are also manipulated by difference in language used
within the same content or by the usage of emotionally
charged words. We also should take a closer look at the
photos provide
Be also aware how many people are concerned in the article you read. In order to have balanced report, the more people involved the better. Different opinions are important! We have to bear in mind that corporate media are here to make money. Therefore, since they can provide us the news, they can also manipulate it.
Hence, when reading any news we need to know what we want to read and how much we want to know about the real fact and do the research. Instead of relying completely on the media we should also use our critical thinking in order to be closer to the real happening.
There is a variety of media in our society, which are covered
by different companies, involved in the production of the
stories that the news produce. The news stories reflect the
corporate political interests of the people involved. This is
the reason why media does not always provide complete
essential background information to the article (for the
readers to understand it completely), but it is used just to
accompany the story as it lacks some information. This is
also the reason why they are failing to question social
structures, economic institutes, instructional racism etc.
Sources
Cover picture:
http://feyzikaraer.deviantart.
com/art/media-40743626
Pictures in this brochure were used from following websides:
http://twicsy.com/i/ixeBJb
http://blogs.yis.ac.jp/14omoric/2012/08/27/english-g11-stereotypes/
http://faculty.mercer.edu/spears_a/studentpages/gender_stereotypes/webpage.html
http://www.galanet.eu/dossier/index.php?IdDossier=65
http://www.deviantart.com/art/Political-language-28517918
http://commonsensebygrandpat.com/2013/09/05/the-media-prosecutors-judges-and-jurors/
http://www.minnpost.com/business/2012/05/end-near-weekly-newsmagazines-flirt-sensationalism
http://th02.deviantart.net/fs70/200H/f/2012/135/c/c/media_head_by_chucorose-d4ztxgp.jpg
http://www.deviantart.com/art/Dear-Media-82728708
http://www.deviantart.com/art/Media-Head-302047657
http://www.pcpmedia.us/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Screen-shot-2013-01-14-at-4.48.27-PM.png
http://27.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lw2a495AkR1qbn5m1o1_500.jpg
http://egmr.net/wp-content/themes/egamer/scripts/timthumb.php?zc=1&w=650&h=300&src=http://egmr.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/spongebob.jpg
http://www.d.umn.edu/~jfitzake/Lectures/DMED/SpeechLanguage/LanguageImage.jpg
http://www.greenberg-art.com/.Toons/.Toons,%20Media/qqxsgMediaBias.gif
http://www.madperspectives.com/images/Context.jpg
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