BIAS, ITS USES AND ABUSES

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BIAS, ITS USES AND ABUSES
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Sources of Bias in Texts (1)

• Selection of manifest contents
• Arrangement of manifest contents
• Signaling devices (e.g. print size and location
  on page, headline, lead paragraph, sub-head,
  photo, photo-caption)
• Structure of story (e.g. which info comes first,
  which comes last)
• Sources used, sources quoted or cited, their
  range, who or what they represent

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Sources of Bias in Texts (2)

• Authorship, characteristics of
• Relative balance between appeal to audience
  emotion and intellect
• Factual accuracy
• Emphasis, de-emphasis, inclusion and omission
• Overt or covert point of view, argument, polemic
• Interests served (sponsors)

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USES AND ABUSES (1)

• BIAS IS USEFUL when we
• use biased texts to help us recognize different
  viewpoints
• when we use the text as a representative example
  of one particular viewpoint
• when we use bias as a route to deeper
  understanding of
• the person, culture that produced the text
• when we recognize that, despite its bias, a text
  (may) contain useful information, even that a
  bias (passion, interest, concern) may help
  generate information and insight that a neutral
  observer might not pick up on

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USES AND ABUSES (2)

• when we start with the assumption that all texts
  are biased in some sense or another and endeavor
  to assess the kinds of bias that any one
  particular text represents
• when we start with the assumption that all
  perspectives, understandings, especially our own,
  are biased in some sense or another, and that
  improvements in understanding come about through
  the clash of and negotiation between biases