Media Literacy: Identifying Bias

This guide provides an overview of media literacy topics.

Bias

Bias: A prejudice or leaning that may aim to influence judgments in an unfair manner; slant; prejudice.

the inclination to interpret information selectively so that it reinforces a preestablished set of beliefs.
a belief in which someone only accepts fact that corroborate his or her preexisting subjective opinions about something. Any fact or opinion that contradict this belief is ignore, dismissed as false, or twisted to fit a pre-ascribed agenda.

Discover Your Bias
Bias starts with you. Learn about your own bias and how it compares with others. Tools provided by AllSides to rate your own bias. compare your leanings with the rest of America, and much more.
A Quick Puzzle to Test Your Problem Solving
This puzzle by The New York Times exposes a particular kind of confirmation bias.

Unconscious forms of prejudice or negative attitudes about someone or something.
Can be directed toward a range of subjects, including groups of people, products, area, or concepts.
The person exhibiting implicit bias is unaware of this partiality and likely would deny having this proclivity if challenged.

Project Implicit
Project Implicit is a non-profit organization and international collaboration between researchers who are interested in implicit social cognition - thoughts and feelings outside of conscious awareness and control. The goal of the organization is to educate the public about hidden biases.
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Project Implicit was founded in 1998 by three scientists – Tony Greenwald (University of Washington), Mahzarin Banaji (Harvard University), and Brian Nosek (University of Virginia). Project Implicit Mental Health launched in 2011, led by Bethany Teachman (University of Virginia) and Matt Nock (Harvard University). Project Implicit also provides consulting services, lectures, and workshops on implicit bias, diversity and inclusion, leadership, applying science to practice, and innovation. If you are interested in finding out more about these services, visit https://www.projectimplicit.net.

AllSides
AllSides exposes bias and provides multiple angles on the same story so you can quickly get the full picture, not just one slant.
Media Bias Ratings
AllSides rated the bias of nearly 600 media outlets and writers.
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Unless otherwise noted as editorial content, all bias ratings are based on online versions of news coverage, not TV, print, or radio content.

While there should be a difference between the media bias seen in news coverage and the bias revealed in opinion and editorial content, increasingly there is not. AllSides often provides separate media bias ratings for news and opinion/editorial content from the same source.
Objectivity Spectrum
Lesson taken from the open textbook, "Social and Political Dimensions of Information Literacy: Readings and Research Skills", by Todd Heldt