Media Literacy and Media Bias: Part 1
The internet is a double-edged sword. People today have a seemingly endless access to an unlimited supply of information. But has this privilege made us more well-rounded and more educated?
Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that validates one’s preexisting beliefs. Everyone does this to an extent, myself included. With the internet now giving us access to almost unlimited information, this makes confirming one’s own bias much easier. To make matters even more complicated, certain media outlets now exist solely to confirm the bias of certain audiences (and once an audience is hooked on bias confirming media, the media outlet in question can now start to sway how people think about other subjects.) If the environment that one lives in wasn’t enough to create an echo chamber of certain ideas, social media like Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube now allow people to make their digital presence completely enveloped by bias confirming media as well.
Bias in media starts with what story a news outlet chooses to cover. However, factors like how the story is reported and how often a certain type of story is reported on can demonstrate a media sources bias.
This headline from Fox News for example can be misleading for some. To be completely honest, when I first read this headline and description of the video, I thought that members of the migrant caravans (the ones from Central America were getting a lot of coverage a few years ago) had vandalized this Representative’s office. Only on upon watching this video did I learn that these two stories of the office vandalization and the migrant caravan were two completely different stories that had absolutely nothing to do with each other. This is an example of bad journalism on the part of Fox News. This was more than likely intentionally done to establish a narrative that members of this migrant caravan are violent in addition to conditioning the viewer to associate the migrant caravan and migrants in general as violent people.
Another tactic of biased media is to present their viewpoints as the “normal” viewpoints.
We can look to the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) for example. Their website looks professional, their name seems “objective,” they even have a section for internships and careers. In the about section, they mention that they’re an independent, non-partisan, non-profit organization. Their motto of “Low-immigration, Pro-immigrant” sounds like your nice, moderate, centrist viewpoint on immigration. The idea of wanting a low immigration number, but supporting the immigrants that are already here will probably sound like a nice, reasonable, happy center for a lot of people. This is your first red flag though - their motto takes a stance on immigration. Specifically, their motto now tells you that they have an agenda that they’re trying to push, and aren’t necessarily concerned about objectivity or morality.
The second red flag for CIS, which should probably be damning enough for everyone to actively avoid this site, is that it was co-founded by eugenicist and white supremacist John Tanton (I guess that they forgot to put that in their ‘about’ section.) Before CIS, John Tanton also founded another anti-immigrant organization, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which spells ‘FAIR’. I don’t need to explain how that acronym is misleading.
Another tactic of biased media is to frame information in a certain way.
The document above is a quiz for PragerU’s video “Feminism 2.0.” The answer to question number 4 “It is easy for feminists to forget that men,” is “d. All of the above.” The way this question and its following answers are framed is intended to give the illusion that women need men to advance in society. It also subverts the main catalyst to these changes - women fighting for things like the right to vote, political empowerment and representation, and birth control. Without women fighting for these advancements, these advancements do not happen.
PragerU has also released other videos that have amassed quite an audience. Their high production quality makes them seem professional. The ‘U’ in the name ‘PragerU’ stands for ‘University,’ which might give some viewers a sense of legitimacy. They also sometimes get speakers that seemingly have the credentials to speak on whatever topic the video is about.
We can see this in their video “Where Are You, Martin Luther King?” where they try to draw distinctions between the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s and racial justice movements of today. They also have a Black man critique said movements of today in an attempt to make his criticisms seem less racist.
But first, I think it’s important to note that this video primes the viewer by establishing a narrative that racism ended in the U.S. with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. However, almost 60s years later we can still see elements of the separate but equal doctrine in today’s schools. But this is an issue for another post.
This narrator then goes on to give a one-sided presentation of the ideas of Martin Luther King Jr. by paraphrasing some of his speeches in a manner that sounds like he is directly quoting him. The line here, “We can’t keep on blaming the white man. There are things we must do for ourselves” is not a direct quote, but rather paraphrased ideas from MLK’s 1957 speech “Some Things We Must Do.” While MLK does talk about things the Black community could do to better help themselves, he does not state the blame for Black disenfranchisement should be shifted from white people to the Black community. In fact, in the same speech he criticizes how moderate whites won’t fully commit to social justice by saying, “Then occasionally, I will say that white persons all over the nation have a great responsibility to come forth with a real liberalism. For many of our northern white friends have a sort of liberalism that is bent on seeing all sides, and it is so determined to see all sides that it fails to get committed to either side. It is a sort of quasi-liberalism that is so objectively analytical that it never gets subjectively committed.”
MLK also had some other less than flattering quotes about white moderates. In is 1963 letter from Birmingham Jail he states that “First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action’; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a ‘more convenient season.’ Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”
Now I’m obviously not an expert on MLK, but I believe this quote from that letter gives us a pretty good sense on MLK’s thoughts on race relations and power dynamics. With that being said, if you wanted to get MLK’s perspective on social issues today, his son Martin Luther King III would probably be a good reference.
So now that we’ve established a few ways that media sources try to manipulate people, are we stuck not trusting any forms of media? In part two of this post I’ll talk about some different resources for gauging the bias of media sources.