Media Bias Lesson

Lesson objective: Students will be able to explain why we should approach mass media with caution

Length: 1 class period (50 minutes)

What is media?

Although we usually use the word media to describe the mass media, it is actually just the plural form of the world "medium". A medium is anything that can be used to store or pass on information. When it comes to computers, we refer to CD-ROM's and pen drives as types of media.

Many types of media are used only for one-to-one communication (e.g. - phones, letters, faxes, emails, etc.). Mass media refers to things that are used to transfer information or ideas to a large group of people all at once. Examples include:

Print media (books, newspapers, magazines, posters)
Broadcast media (TV, radio)
Internet media (web pages, message boards, blogs, podcasts, social networking sites)
Other mass media (films, computer games)

Being careful with mass media

Whether we realize it or not, the mass media has a tremendous influence on our lives and especially on our thinking. It is like food for our mind and just like we can control the types of foods we eat, we can also control (to some extant) the ideas going into our brains. We can do this in two ways:

One way is to be selective about what we let in. Just like we can avoid eating too much junk food, we can avoid watching too much "junk" on TV.
A second way is to critically evaluate what does go into our minds. These days, it's hard to avoid the impact of mass media. However, we can learn to think for ourselves and not take everything we hear or see in the mass media as being automatically correct.

In other words, we should always remember that the mass media is not only a tool for passing on information, it is also a potentially dangerous tool! Just like a knife can be useful, it can also become dangerous when used improperly (either by mistake or on purpose). Therefore, in the same way that we are careful with knives, we should also be careful with the mass media.

There are two major reasons why the mass media has the potential to be dangerous:

It is primarily controlled by people who have wealth and power. It is therefore often one-sided in presenting issues. This especially comes into play in terms of advertising. Since only large (often multi-national) companies can afford to advertise in the mass media, they have the edge over smaller competitors with more local products. This therefore serves to help increase globalization over localized economies
It is unnatural. Humans did not evolve to take in so much mass media. For example, watching too much TV can:
deaden our senses
lessen our creativity
make us hyperactive (because watching TV is such a passive activity, our bodies store up energy which will need to be released at some point)

We have become used to an artificial (man-made) view of reality and often think that we know about things which we have only experienced virtually.

Marshall McLuhan was a famous Canadian who studied the mass media and came up with the term "global village". He is also famous for saying, "the medium is the message." What do you think this means? (Remember that a medium is anything that can carry information/messages).

Answer: McLuhan is saying that the choice of medium affects how the information is presented and therefore affects the information itself. It's like the difference between drinking wine out of a crystal glass and drinking it out of a plastic one. Or the difference between reading a book or seeing it as a movie.

Being aware of media bias

Earlier we talked about certain mistakes that people sometimes make when they think. Well, the same sort of mistakes are also made by the mass media and therefore the impact of those mistakes can be even greater. Consider the following:

We prefer stories - Much of what we see on TV and in films is, of course, stories. However, the types of stories chosen often reflect the unscientific beliefs in our culture (such as aliens, witches, or ghosts). This only reinforces the idea that these types of things might actually be true.
Mental shortcuts - Earlier we talked about stereotyping and generalizations. Whenever we take one small example and apply it on a large scale, we are making a generalization. Generalizations can often be dangerous and unfortunately, the mass media often helps to reinforce common generalizations and stereotypes (e.g. - black people are gangsters; Muslims are terrorists; etc.)
We seek to confirm what we already believe - This mistake is made in the mass media most of all. In fact, there's a word that is used whenever we are one-sided in our presentation of the facts -- bias. Most of what we see in the mass media has some sort of bias to it (ie. it supports one particular view over another). If we are unaware of this, we might end up accepting other people's opinions, thinking that they are facts.

It is very important to understand the difference between a fact and an opinion. A fact is something that can be shown to be true either by direct observation or by referring to a reliable source (e.g. - there are fifteen desks in this classroom). An opinion, on the other hand, is one person's personal feeling about something and therefore cannot be shown to be either true or false (e.g. - the desk by the window is the best seat in the room). [ Have students give more examples... ]

When we are looking only at facts, we are being unbiased (or objective). If we are considering opinions, we are being biased (or subjective).

In life, it is impossible to be objective and unbiased all the time. Therefore, we should not be surprised to see bias in the mass media. The important thing is to realize that the biases are there so that we can either balance them in our own mind or balance them by accessing many different sources, all with different biases.

There are many different types of bias. These can include: racial, ethnic, religious, nationalistic, class, corporate, cultural, political, sensationalist, gender, etc. [ give examples of each ]. We should also be aware that sometimes statistics (which claim to be facts) can even be biased.

An example of bias in the American mass media is CNN vs FoxNews or CBC vs CTV. One has a more liberal bias and the other a more conservative bias. Can you think of more examples?