Transcript Identifying Bias

Identifying Bias
Created by Kathryn Reilly
Defining Bias
• Bias occurs when a writer or speaker presents
only one side of an issue to the audience.
• Bias occurs when a writer or speaker presents
only a partial view of an idea or subject, instead
of a full picture.
• Bias occurs when a writer or speaker presents
only the positive aspects of an idea or subject,
and withholds the negative aspects to sway the
audience.
Why Identify Bias?
• Identifying bias
– Alerts the audience they may not be receiving all the
information.
– Alerts the audience that the information they hear may
be manipulated to achieve a specific purpose.
– Alerts the audience to know that the writer or speaker
has a persuasive agenda.
Bias Basics
• Any text may contain bias.
• However, certain texts are inherently bias as they
are created with the purpose of persuading the
reader or listener.
• Four examples include:
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Opinion Editorials
Advertisements
Propaganda materials
Political Speeches
Identifying Bias
• Questions the audience should consider:
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What is the text’s purpose?
Does the text present only one side?
Is the language overly persuasive for or against the topic?
Who paid for the article?
• A special interest group?
• A company?
• An advertising or lobbying agency?
– Does the text contain personal opinions?
– Has the author purposefully left information out?
Identifying Bias: Titles
• A text’s title may give the reader important
clues as to whether or not it will be biased.
• Slavery Ordained of God by F. A. Ross
• The Duty of Disobedience to the Fugitive Slave Act by
Lydia Maria Child
– Both these texts present the topic of slavery,
however both possess biased viewpoints.
Identifying Bias Within a Text
From Slavery Ordained by God
"Let us then, North and South, bring our minds to
comprehend _two ideas_, and submit to their
irresistible power. Let the Northern philanthropist
learn from the Bible that the relation of master and
slave is not sin _per se_. Let him learn that God says
nowhere it is sin. Let him learn that sin is the
transgression of the law; and where there is no law
there is no sin, and that _the Golden Rule_ may exist
in the relations of slavery. Let him learn that slavery is
simply an evil _in certain circumstances_. Let him learn
that _equality_ is only the highest form of social life;
that _subjection_ to authority, even _slavery_, may, in
_given conditions_, be _for a time_ better than
freedom to the slave of any complexion. Let him learn
that _slavery_, like _all evils_, has its _corresponding_
and _greater good_; that the Southern slave, though
degraded _compared with his master, is elevated and
ennobled compared with his brethren in Africa_.
Ross, F.A. Slavery Ordained by God. Project Gutenberg.
Web. 1 March 2012.
• In this excerpt, the
Reverend argues for slavery.
• This text contains bias for
several reasons:
– It professes the Reverend’s
personal viewpoint.
– It presents only one side of
the argument.
– It attempts to persuade the
audience.
– It contains logical fallacies.
Identifying Bias Within a Text
From The Duty of Disobedience…
One thousand five hundred years ago, Gregory, a
Bishop in Asia Minor, preached a sermon in which he
rebuked the sin of slaveholding. Indignantly he asked,
"Who can be the possessor of human beings save
God? Those men that you say belong to you, did not
God create them free? Command the brute creation;
that is well. Bend the beasts of the field beneath your
yoke. But are your fellow-men to be bought and sold,
like herds of cattle? Who can pay the value of a being
created in the image of God? The whole world itself
bears no proportion to the value of a soul, on which
the Most High has set the seal his likeness. This world
will perish, but the soul of man is immortal. Show me,
then, your titles of possession. Tell me whence you
derive this strange claim. Is not your own nature the
same with that of those you call your slaves? Have
they not the same origin with yourselves? Are they not
born to the same immortal destinies?”
Child, Lydia Maria. The Duty of Disobedience to the
Fugitive Slave Act. Project Gutenberg. Web. 1
March 2012.
• Ms. Child’s text also
contains bias.
• This text contains bias for
several reasons:
– She presents her personal
opinion.
– She presents only a single
side.
Identifying Bias Review
• Many texts contain bias.
• A reader should question the author’s purpose
for creating the text and decide if the text is
informative or persuasive.
• The reader should look for bias indicators such as
personal viewpoints, the presentation of only one
side and the manipulation or omission of
information.