Web Bias

Understanding the Nature of Bias and Authenticity on the Web

"I want the news delivered unbiased. I thought that was the whole point with journalism." ~Aaron McGruder

Wikipedia reports that as of 28 March 2010 there are approximately 3,235,437 articles in the English Wikipedia, built collaboratively by over 11 million contributors since it's beginnings in 2001.  To consider that this is only one source available on the world wide web gives a sense of enormous numbers, the internet becomes a staggering resource for information. With such information easily accessible to anyone with an online connection, for the content to be useful, it's critical to analyze how to best ascertain reliable information.

Definitions
It's helpful to begin with clarity of meaning

BIAS: a particular tendency or inclination, esp. one that prevents unprejudiced consideration of a question; prejudice.

AUTHENTICITY: worthy of acceptance or belief as conforming to or based on fact. 

So the purpose in researching, finding material and authenticating it is to have some reasonable assurance that the information is unprejudiced, not skewed and based on fact.

Controversial Sugar Substitute
I'd like to focus on the example I began in this week's forum: ASPARTAME: the name for an artificial, non-saccharide sweetener used as a sugar substitute in many foods and beverages.

In 1995, a friend of a friend became diagnosed with M.S. (Multiple Sclerosis). She had been exhibiting weakness and numbness in her limbs, pain and irritation, trouble walking along with various other symptoms. The symptoms had been going on for some time with increasing severity and impairment in her daily life. It eventually came to light that she was a heavy user of sugar substitutes including aspartame. When she stopped using these substances, the symptoms eventually disappeared. Needless to say, I became aware of my own use, and have reduced it considerably, turning to Stevia which is a natural product. 

I applied and researched this topic as a focused study into fact-checking for bias and authenticity on the web. On initial google search, there are numerous and differing points of view offered, and 2,190,000 instances found. After researching and reading general history, several differing perspectives applying John Hopkins University's model for authenticating internet information my point of view has changed considerably about this substance.

I believed that much of what I knew before beginning this exercise fits in better with last weeks topic of Urban Legends. In conducting research and applying the fact-checking tools we have been using, easywhois.com, checking authorship, credibility, currency, place within the body of knowledge on the topic, I have opened my perspective.

Nill Ashley at the Harvard Law School reports the following. Aspartame is the most controversial and most consumed food additive in the U.S. "Sloppy research methods" were used and the substance approved by the FDA. "FDA's approval of aspartame for human consumption, and the agency's tenacity in holding on to its position on this matter led to a heightened level of public scrutiny of the agency as well as increasingly virulent attacks on aspartame." Ashley goes on to report the controversy and empirical data proving that in fact, there are no clear indications for it's dangerous reputation. This study helped to dispel many of the myths that I held and attributed to Aspartame and its potential dangerous side effects. (Ashley, 2000)

In Conclusion

Ashley concludes with "As the controversy surrounding aspartame has petered out in governmental forums for example, it has once again flared through scare tactics amongst consumers. The Internet provides the public with access to enormous amounts of data, but that data is oftentimes one-sided and not entirely reliable." (Ashley, 2000) This served as an eye-opening exercise in critical thinking for me. Dispelling long held beliefs by using tools and techniques to validate and truly assess information is a key skill that I will continue to improve and use on a daily basis.

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References
Ashley, N. G. (2000). The History of Aspartame. Retrieved Mar. 28, 2010, from Harvard Law School, Cambridge, MA. Web site: http://leda.law.harvard.edu/leda/data/244/Nill,_Ashley_-_The_History_of_Aspartame.html.

Urban Legends

Authenticity and StoryTelling

"It's all storytelling, you know. That's what journalism is all about." ~ Tom Brockaw,  Northwestern University Byline, Spring 1982

Storytelling has existed from our very earliest ancestors. Word-of-mouth or the “oral-tradition” has been the very basis of our cultural mythologies. Tribes told “stories”, myths evolved, "old wives tales" were passed down generation to generation and eventually fairy tales developed and were written down. In addition to cultural stories, family myths developed and were passed down one generation to the next, sometimes embellished. As a species, we humans keep alive our messages to one another through communicating and through story.

Cultural Norms
There is a story I often tell when teaching about cultural norms that become outdated yet continue to live on. I heard it as a story then customize it to match my family history. My version goes something like this:


BECAUSE THAT'S THE WAY IT'S ALWAYS BEEN DONE!
Every holiday, for as long as I can remember, my mother would prepare a special meal. Favored by eveyone was a wonderful ham, the recipe passed down from my grandmother and from her mother before her. Every year Mom would take the ham, cut off about 3”, cover both pieces in a combination of spices, and bake side by side. Always cooked to perfection, it was a family favorite.


One year, a friend came to share in the holiday and asked why the ham was cut into 2 pieces. My mom responded with various reasons, "it's better that way", "each piece gets more heat and is crispier", etc. but eventually came to, "that’s the way it’s always been done". My Aunt Annie, who is a bit older than my Mom, chimed in, “well, that’s the way Grandma did it." 

The answer was simple, Grandma immigrated from Italy and lived through the great depression. They only had ONE SIZE ROASTING PAN, so they had to cut the ham to fit it. Though enough years had passed, and we could all afford multiple roasting pans, everyone was still doing it the way they were taught, “because that’s the way it’s always been done.”


Family Myths and More

Whether family or cultural, stories are shared one to another representing a "truth" that has some importance. Tom Saunders explores this in his article, Family Mythology: The Final Frontier: "family mythology as stories of explanation which family systems develop as "truth" about how its members interact" (Saunders, 1992). My story above can reveal several "truths"depending on my purpose for telling the tale, one being how the system resisted change and awareness about learning to adapt. The "truth" is that the story above is a STORY - never happened in the way or with the characters detailed but is adapted and customized to serve a purpose.


There is an element of "truth" that is maleable in service of an important message. It is human nature to tell, to share, to communicate. Our earliest stories were cave images. As I was growing up it was pictured as folks around a fire, and talking over a fence. In fact, as an organizational development consultant, we referred to this tendency in organizations as "water cooler" conversations, it's the stories, rumors and undercurrent that gets shared, distorted, and then proliferates in the company, much like the old telephone game.


Myths and Urban Legends at the Speed of the Internet
The digital age, the speed of the Internet, and the ease in communicating has fueled the development of storytelling and its distortion in the form of Urban Legends. These stories and legends have a common purpose: to somehow generate an emotional hook. Many are based on fear, caution or unusual circumstances of some kind, an example of phishing that I shared on the forum is a good example.


As I explored many components about our current day Urban Legends, the definition I most resonated with from Princeton Web: a story that appears mysteriously and spreads spontaneously in various forms and is usually false; contains elements of humor or horror and is popularly believed to be true. Looked at objectively, these stories tend to be unbelievable or another version is "to good to be true." Often playing upon our emotions in order to control behavior or to illicit some kind of response. A good example is the story about a "hook-hand killer" which began in the 1950s and has had many versions. It's primary purpose was to warn, caution and prevent premarital intimacy specifically in cars.





Authenticity - True or Not

So many of the urban legends that circulate the web have elements of truth. The more plausible stories have just enough detail and just enough truth to bypass our internal discernment. Cognitive dissonance allows us to overlook information that doesn't fit when enough of the story does fit. So perhaps the best way to assess is with objective and critical thinking.


Along with the "debunking" sites, snopes.com and factchecker.com, I found Shermer's Baloney Detection Kit very helpful to this end.

1. How reliable is the source of the claim?
2. Does the source make similar claims? (eg. if you are into magic (or evolution), then all your ideas have a magic (or evolution) bent)
3. Have the claims been verified by somebody else?
4. Does this fit with the way the world works?
5. Has anyone tried to disprove the claim?
6. Where does the preponderance of evidence point?
7. Is the claimant playing by the rules of science
8. Is the claimant providing positive evidence? (it's too easy to just bag the other side)
9. Does the new theory account for as many phenomena as the old theory?
10. Are personal beliefs driving the claim? 

Gatekeeping & concepts of self in media...

Media and Manipulation of Body Image
I have long been aware of and concerned about media's manipulation of images especially of womens' bodies. This practice has created an epidemic of eating disorders and body dysmorphia, especially in adolescent girls trying to fit the media presented norms. Recently, Filippa Hamilton, a Ralph Lauren model made news when an extreme distortion of her image appeared on the cover of fashion magazine Marie Claire.

"I was shocked to see that super skinny girl with my face," she told the Daily News. She was fired from Ralph Lauren for "being too fat." While the cover was pulled, it created a controversy reported on various news channels and blogs.

As Karen Dill explained, often the sense of self is informed by perceptions from media. Media's influence on us, our culture and our society, continues to grow more and more powerfully.

Idealization of Impossible Beauty
Research suggests that the idealization of body image via media is in increasingly serious issue.  Young girls strive to achieve this impossible beauty and thinness often debilitating into serious life-threatening eating disorders. Renee Botta in her article in Journal of Communications states, “Media images have a potentially indirect effect by forming an unrealistically thin ideal, as well as a potentially direct impact on body image disturbance.”  (1999)

There is an extreme social pressure to be thin that is exacerbated by these images in magazines and through various media channels held up as today’s image of beauty. The magazine cover shown above is visibly distorted and not even proportionately possible.

Questions about its efficacy and ethical practices are of importance to me and to the future of media. How does one discern truth from fiction or embellishment or in this case distortion? Photoshop gives advertising a very powerful tool to manipulate our visual field and perceptions of reality.


Personal Experience
I much prefer the real me...very strange to see the distortion and experience it personally - my own sense of self became distorted.
Since I have some experience with Photoshop, I experimented with the images below. I have struggled to maintain a thinner body, with the aging process fast winning out. Instead of appreciating this thinner image, my subjective experience is not pleasant but rather distorted. I have had a similar reaction to young girls who I sometimes mentor. They can be super -thin. The influence of media in this plays an increasingly visible and manipulative role.

Additional reading
Eating Disorder Recovery Center
Media/Advertising
Society pays a significant amount of attention to body image and physical attractiveness, youthfulness, sexuality, and appearance. The covers of magazines display pictures of men and women alike, whose images are offered as near perfection in society's consensus. These photographs are often additionally computer-enhanced and taken in near perfect circumstances. more...

A Definition of Critical Thinking

We think so because other people all think so; or because - or because - after all we do think so; or because we were told so, and think we must think so; or because we once thought so, and think we still think so; or because, having thought so, we think we will think so...~Henry Sidgwick

Critical thinking is the ability to apply logic, open-mindedness, rigor, and logical principles, to analyze and discuss topics, claims, situations, and issues in a clear and precise manner, citing supportive evidence. 

“Take-away” Realizations - Key Elements

• ability to review with an ANALYTICAL approach - what is being said, factually?
• ability to discern what is being INFERRED - what conclusions are being drawn from observations and hypotheses?
• ability to INTERPRET - what does it all mean - how do the puzzle pieces fit together?
• ability to SELF-REGULATE - how does one examine one's own interpretation and assumptions and self-correct?
• ability to EVALUATE - what is the logical strength of the claim?
• ability to EXPLAIN - what are the results and evidence of one's reasoning? 

Biases 

From the readings and our discussion, I am increasing aware of the impact of bias on the critical thinking process. Emotions, as we have discussed, are a strong component, to be recognized and given due examination. Assumptions are often endemic and seem to be a part of what one deems as factual. Perhaps, this is the first question when reviewing academic questions - what are my assumptions and biases? And then applying rigorous attention to evidence. A hearty task, indeed.

On the Lighter Side

 

from http://aplng.la.psu.edu/ Dept of Linguistics