These activities will help you learn more about bias, the role of the press and our role as news consumers.
1. Explore the idea of bias through a class exercise. On the board or on pieces of paper around the room, write the names of types/groups of people at your school. Then give students 10 minutes to walk around the room and write the adjectives they associate with these labels. Have a class discussion about the words that emerge. Which are positive? Which are negative? Are the students biased toward or against certain types/groups? Why? How do their own background and identity shape the words they listed under each label?
2. The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press is an independent, nonpartisan public opinion research organization. Explore the findings from the Pew Research Center’s poll measuring Americans’ opinions of the news media. (You can find the full report here: http://people-press.org/report/543/) Create a 15-minute presentation for your classmates on the five poll results that you find most interesting. Create graphs or other visual aids to illustrate …show more content…
Can where you get your news affect how you perceive media bias? A national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press finds that the Internet is slowly closing in on television as Americans’ main source of national and international news. In December 2010, according to the survey, 66 percent of Americans said television was their main source of national news — down from 82 percent as recently as 2002. Forty-one percent say the Internet is their major source of news, up 17 points since 2007. (You can find the full report here: http://people-press.org/report/543/) Write an essay that explains the report’s numbers and discusses how this shift in how people get news may affect their perception of bias. Do you think the shift in where people are getting news has a connection to the increasing number of people who think the news media are politically biased? Why or why
1. Explore the idea of bias through a class exercise. On the board or on pieces of paper around the room, write the names of types/groups of people at your school. Then give students 10 minutes to walk around the room and write the adjectives they associate with these labels. Have a class discussion about the words that emerge. Which are positive? Which are negative? Are the students biased toward or against certain types/groups? Why? How do their own background and identity shape the words they listed under each label?
2. The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press is an independent, nonpartisan public opinion research organization. Explore the findings from the Pew Research Center’s poll measuring Americans’ opinions of the news media. (You can find the full report here: http://people-press.org/report/543/) Create a 15-minute presentation for your classmates on the five poll results that you find most interesting. Create graphs or other visual aids to illustrate …show more content…
Can where you get your news affect how you perceive media bias? A national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press finds that the Internet is slowly closing in on television as Americans’ main source of national and international news. In December 2010, according to the survey, 66 percent of Americans said television was their main source of national news — down from 82 percent as recently as 2002. Forty-one percent say the Internet is their major source of news, up 17 points since 2007. (You can find the full report here: http://people-press.org/report/543/) Write an essay that explains the report’s numbers and discusses how this shift in how people get news may affect their perception of bias. Do you think the shift in where people are getting news has a connection to the increasing number of people who think the news media are politically biased? Why or why