Questioning Bias and Propaganda

Questioning Bias and Propaganda

Democracy can be an effective form of government only to the degree that the public (that rule it in theory) are well-informed about national and international events and can think independently and critically about those events. If the vast majority of citizens do not recognize bias in their nation’s news, if they cannot detect ideology, slant, and spin at work, if they cannot recognize propaganda when exposed to it, they cannot reasonably determine what media messages need to be supplemented, counter-balanced, or thrown out entirely.

On the one hand, world-wide news sources are increasingly sophisticated in media logic (the art of “persuading” and manipulating large masses of people). This enables them to create an aura of objectivity and “truthfulness” in the news stories they construct.

On the other hand, only a small minority of citizens are skilled in recognizing bias and propaganda in the news disseminated in their country. Only a relative few are able to detect one-sided portrayals of events or seek out alternative sources of information and opinion to compare to those of their mainstream news media. At present, the overwhelming majority of people in the world, untrained in critical thinking, are at the mercy of the news media in their own country. Their view of the world, which countries they identify as friends and which as enemies, is largely determined for them by that media (and the traditional beliefs and conventions of their society).

What critical readers do is recognize one-sidedness and seek out viewpoints that are dismissed or ignored. They also note which stories are highlighted (e.g., on the front page) and which are buried in the background (e.g., on page 24). Here are some of the key questions to be asked when analyzing and interpreting news stories:

• Who is the intended audience?
• What point of view is being privileged?
• What point(s) of view is (are) being dismissed or played down?
• How can I gain access to the point of view being negated (from those who most intelligently defend it)?
• Which stories are featured on the front page and why? What information is “buried” in the article and why?

It is difficult to manipulate critical consumers of the news because:

• They study and question alternative perspectives and world views, learning how to interpret events from the perspective of multiple views.
• They question multiple sources of thought and information, not simply those of the mass media.
• They question the viewpoints embedded in news stories.
• They mentally re-write (reconstruct) news stories through questioning how stories would be told from multiple perspectives.
• They question news constructs in the same way they question other representations of reality (as some blend of fact and interpretation).
• They assess news stories by questioning their clarity, accuracy, relevance, depth, breadth, and significance.
• They question so as to disclose:
  • contradictions and inconsistencies in the news.
  • the agenda and interests served by a story.
  • the facts covered and the facts ignored.
  • what is represented as fact (that is in dispute).
  • assumptions implicit in stories.
  • what is implied (but not openly stated).
  • what implications are ignored and what are played up.
  • what points of view are systematically put into a favorable light and which in an unfavorable light.
  • stories reflecting bias toward the unusual, the dramatic, and the sensational by putting them into perspective or discounting them.
  • when social conventions and taboos are being presupposed.

The same questioning habit applies in academic work. Asking whether a research paper must be 10 pages addresses an assignment requirement. Questions about the evidence, assumptions, and reasoning of the subject address what the student is trying to understand.