Web Bias

After reading through the materials this week I came to the conclusion that as information consumers, we suffer from blind trust and laziness. We are not as critical of information on the internet as we are about information from other sources (i.e. television, radio, etc..). I believe this is attributed to our belief that television and radio are controlled by dominant gatekeeprs. I think many people see the internet as an information source where consumers are in control.

Of course one of the problems with the internet is that we can’t take any website at face value. Out of all of the things I reviewed, I found the content on the martinlutherking.org website the most disturbing. Having a young son who will be starting school in a few years, I found the contents of this site cleverly misleading. One of my colleagues mentioned during class discussion that we tend to trust any website with a .org address. I tend to agree with this. The professional appearance of the site, the ambiguous links and titles found on the site, and the .org address together, created a false image of creditability. It wasn’t until I started to read the contents of the site that I discovered the true intention.

I don’t believe that we are all as critical as we think we are. While there tends to be a natural distrust of television news, the same cynicism doesn’t always apply to the internet. Since there is no proper policing of the web, it’s possible for groups like stormfront.org to create sites to lure in children and other surfers who may be easily influenced. This is very dangerous to me and one of the reasons why I found the content on the “Teaching Legal Professionals How To Do Research" web page so incredibly helpful. I will definitely be using the information I found on this website as a guide to analyze all of the information I uncover while conducting research.

Week 4 at NSO: Gate keeping, the psychology of music, and unplugging from the tEcosystem

Dr. Karen Dill: Gate keeping and concepts of self in media.

I was very impressed with Dr. Dill’s presentation. The gate keeping and agenda setting theories presented during our discussion provide new ways to critically analyze mass media. While I agree with the premise of both theories, I don’t believe every form of media functions as a gate keeper.

According to Dr. Dill's presentation the term gatekeeper is a control metaphor which basically defines who is controlling what we see and hear. For example, we know that CNN, Fox News and MSNBC in many ways serve as media gatekeepers. In the United States many of us look to the major news outlets for our information about what is happening in the world. We usually don’t know about a particular issue or topic unless we see it in the news. I would argue (this would be a good paper) that few people do any type of investigation into what is going on in the world outside of television news. For many Americans, television news is their primary source of information. If this argument is indeed true (which I believe it is) then yes, the major news networks serve as gatekeepers via the national news.

While I agree that major television news networks are gatekeepers, I don’t feel that all forms of media are controlled by gatekeepers. For example, I believe music, art and film are forms of media that support individual expression of thoughts and ideas. We know that any form of art created has room for interpretation. A painting doesn’t tell you what to think, or talk about. The painting provides an image that makes you think. A photograph is an image that makes you think. Music strikes emotion inside of us based on what we hear. It’s open to our own interpretation. Two people can view a work of art or a photograph and see two different things. This is also true in the world of music and film. We don’t all share the same emotions in reaction to sounds and images.

Even though I don't believe all forms of media adhere to the gate keeping theory, I do believe they all set an agenda. The agenda setting theory presented basically stated that the media establishes what we talk about. I do believe this is true. An example of this would be the crisis in Darfur. Many Americans are limited in their ability to travel outside of the country and experience life in other cultures. Many Americans would have never known about the crisis in Darfur had it not been presented to them in the news via television and radio. The media was the tool used to set an agenda to discuss the crisis in Darfur and its effect on humanitarian issues. Knowledge of the crisis helped to launch worldwide discussion on human rights issues that many of us throughout the United States never knew existed.

What I took from the presentation overall was a sense of how important it is in this day and age to critically analyze the information presented in the media. We can’t always believe everything we see and hear. The current healthcare debate is a perfect example of how we need to pay more attention to what hear and conduct our own investigation to determine if it’s true. It’s amazing how our choices in the source of news, influences the position one may have on the issue of healthcare. If I’m conservative and I watch Fox news, then naturally I’m skewed toward the argument that government shouldn't’t be involved in healthcare. The media in this case doesn’t present relevant facts to support this position; it is instead playing on my emotions and serving my conservative interest. This is one reason why so much bias exists and prevents a constructive debate. In sum, as consumers of media we need to research the information presented in order to critically analyze it for the purpose of avoiding the bias created by the gatekeepers.

Dr. Isbouts: The Persuasive Role of Music

Music is a form of expression that is universal. It crosses all cultural, socioeconomic and gender lines. It is a universal language that used properly, can bridge inherent human divisions. The cognitive dissonance that can take place between sound and image is important to understand in the realm of media psychology. Since cognitive dissonance is basically the contradiction of ideas it is easy to see how our reactions to the sounds associated with music can defer from our reactions to visual stimuli.

For example, in the most recent film version of The Titanic, the music provided a calming effect despite viewing disastrous images. So, while it was difficult to watch and comprehend the massive loss of life, the music almost calmed me and provided a romantic backdrop to what was happening on screen. The contradiction here is that I often become quite uncomfortable with death and images of death to the point that I can’t view it on screen, but the music calmed me and made it possible for me to view these images without becoming too uncomfortable or fearful of my own life.

Dr. Isbouts presentation demonstrated how powerful music is in the realm of media. A comment was made that music is always there which makes it hard to detect. I don’t think I ever realized how true this statement really is until I created my short film during the media boot camp session. The images and narration were powerful, but the music set the tone for the emotion one should feel about the death of the manufacturing era in certain parts of the United States. I concluded that music as a language and form of expression is just as powerful if not more powerful than the actual images we see.

Dr. Ohler: How Plugged In Are You?

I found this to be a thought provoking presentation. Why? Mainly because it provided me with tools to critically examine and acknowledge my own perceptual blindness. The definition of perceptual blindness is to see what we are already predisposed to be looking for. I personally believe that perceptual blindness is easy to detect in others, but very difficult to detect in ourselves.

Mass media in many ways may serve as a gatekeeper to perceptual blindness. For example, whenever we hear about a particular crime, we may already have an image in our minds of what the perpetrator looks like. If you are listening to the radio and hear that there was a robbery at the local gas station and you live in Los Angeles you may assume that the assailant was African American, or Hispanic. Why? It is because ethnic minorities, particularly African Americans and Hispanics dominate the crime stories in our major news outlets.

The media is very powerful. Television, film, radio, newspapers and the Internet have the power to change perceptions. The media also has the power to create perceptions. Our limited experience with others outside of our immediate bubble causes us to develop relationships with others through mass media. We develop a sense of others and how they are and what they believe based on what we see. The information presented during our class discussion provided some ways in which the media promotes perceptual blindness.

For example, as people we tend to:

•Have belief systems rooted in emotion, which guides most decisions
•Join groups to support beliefs, not challenge them
•Use and depend on technologies that always connect and disconnect

According to the presentation, anything created by us (human beings) is bias. I tend to agree with this. It is human to only see things through our own lens of limited life experience and interaction.

We now live in an age where the tEcosystem is our new reality. There is no way to escape it. It is so heavily intertwined in our everyday lives, that we don’t even realize the effect it has on our thinking on a day to day basis. This is why it’s important to understand the effects of new media from a psychological perspective. We are so addicted to using it that we better understand what using it is doing to us.

I realized based on this presentation how addicted I am to television, my cell phone and the Internet. When I couldn't get an Internet signal on my laptop I began to panic. What would I do without the Internet? I felt as if I was missing out on the “rest of the world” and I immediately went into a withdrawal. Our inherent bias in creating media and our subsequent addiction to media can be a dangerous combination if we don’t learn to get past our perceptual blindness. While new media is interesting and fascinating and has so much potential; it also encompasses power that is scary in the wrong hands. Overall, this presentation drove home how absolutely powerful the media is, how intertwined it is in our lives and the ability the media has to change who we are and our perceptions of others. This presentation made me realize just how important a media psychologist is in this day and age.

3-2-1…….

I was extremely impressed with all of the presentations. I learned a lot of new things in conjunction with hearing some things I already knew. The three things I didn’t know before are listed below:

1. I didn't know, or understand the impact of music from a psychological perspective on media.

2. I didn't know there was a real threat of addiction to new media.

3. I didn't know how sensitive men could be to the images in media and the effect media potentially has on male body image (this would be an interesting research topic, since so much focuses on women.)

Two things I will tell colleagues:

1. Fielding is an awesome school

2. Those of us who pride ourselves on being expert critical thinkers and media critics don’t know half as much as we think we do.

One change I will make in my own professional practice? I will stop assuming that I have all the answers and be more critical of my own perceptual blindness.

Urban Legends

To believe, or not to believe, that is the question. Authenticity on the web is an oxymoron to me. The web is vast and limitless. There are very few checks and balances in place to determine the authenticity of the information presented through the web. The standard rules and regulations of journalistic information reporting don't apply to the web. With so much information available it is easy to get lost in the information that appeals to our own anxiety and fear.

As I was going through the tools provided for this week's activities I clicked on the urban legends link on the class blog site. I was taken to a page on About.com where I was challenged to spot the fakes in a series of photographs. I clicked through several photos and found myself surprised by my inability to determine which photos were actually real. I also discovered that my reactions to the photos and their authenticity were heavily based on gut and emotional reactions. During this exercise I learned that I am extremely cynical. I was only accurate with my answers 50% of the time. I guessed that just about every one of the photos were fake. I was surprised to find out how many of the photos were actually real. For example, the photo with the desert camel spiders. The spiders were huge and I just knew they were photoshopped to add an extra element of shock and awe. To my surprise the photo was real.

What are my “take-away” realizations based on this week’s activities? I personally feel based on what I read that we live in a culture that seeks to sensationalize in order to perpetuate fear and ignorance. I believe we live in a society that seeks to highlight events that are sensational. I also believe that some stories are manufactured to make them more exciting then they really are. We live in a world with exposure to news and information 24/7. You can find out almost anything you want to know, as well as a great deal of information you don’t want to know. Yet it is often times extremely difficult to determine the difference between what is fact and what is fiction. Learning to think critically is extremely important if we want to become better at determining what is fact and what is fiction. A good example of this would be the recent healthcare debate. As media consumers we need to become savvy enough to conduct our own research into the information presented. I also believe it's important to understand and analyze the argument from both sides. The ability to focus on the facts of the argument, instead of the emotion it generates, is an example of critical thinking and how it can assist us in making informed decisions.

A Definition of Critical Thinking

Critical thinking encompasses the ability to engage in critical thinking, draw conclusions, and make decisions from a factual point of view as opposed to an emotional point of view. Critical thinkers will confront the bias in their own thinking and use a combination of factual data, life experience, the life experience of others and any other relevant and empirical data to reach a conclusion.

Critical thinking incorporates the ability to analyze statistical information and not only draw conclusions, but also generate other relevant questions. Critical thinkers possess the ability to criticize their own thinking and learn to integrate new information into their thought process, even when it conflicts with initial theories and beliefs.

Critical thinkers possess valuable intellectual traits whether they were learned, or inherited that set them apart from others. These intellectual traits include but are not limited to:

• Intellectual humility-Those who possess intellectual humility understand and accept their own limitations when it comes to knowledge.

• Intellectual courage/empathy- Possessing intellectual courage and empathy means having the ability to steadfastly maintain a commitment on an issue that is inherently right, even though it may not be popular with the majority.

• Fair mindedness- Being fair minded means you have the ability to dispel selfish tendencies that are naturally apart of individual thinking.

• Faith in reason- Having faith in reason generally means you have confidence in your ability to reason so you avoid constantly questioning your own decisions.

I tend to agree with the majority of the information presented in the readings for this week's activity. As a future media psychologist, I believe one of our most significant challenges is confronting the media's impact on media audiences. In analyzing the media's effects, we are also in many ways looking into its impact on critical thinking.

For example, I may want to conduct a study that would shed light on how CNN news coverage of the 2008 election impacted the final results. Did their coverage of the candidates have an impact on the audience's perception of each candidate? Did people vote for Barack Obama due to a skew of slightly more positive media coverage on CNN? These are just a few examples of the types of questions I may seek to answer as a media psychologist. This will surely be a fun and invigorating challenge.