Research Notes #3
Understanding bias, fighting disinformation, and doing good
Research Notes is a product of hippiegrrl media. At hippiegrrl media we believe that Black Lives Matter, Climate Change is Real, This land is Indigenous land, Women have autonomy, Love is love is love, No human is illegal, and Science=Truth. Please wear your mask and stay safe. Welcome to the newsletter. We value your readership.
In this issue, we will look at the concept of bias, how to fight the onslaught of disinformation that is constantly streaming at us through social media, and look at an action you can take to make a difference.
If you have yet to do so, please be sure to review the first issue of Research Notes for a primer on the CRAAP method. This will ground our discussion on bias.
As always - thank you for reading, and if you have a friend (or foe) that you think would be interested in reading Research Notes, please share!
What is bias?
Since May of 2020, many high profile companies have talked about instituting anti-bias, anti-racist training in their organizations in order to combat the structural racism that has infected their workplaces from the very beginning. This surge in anti-bias training is a positive response to centuries-old violence done in the name of white supremacy, but it is merely the first step in a long road to healing and reconciliation. Due to this surge, brought on by the killings of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor and supported by countless past acts of violence toward Black people in America, the word bias has been used in multiple contexts and it is worth noting the many definitions of bias that exist.
The term bias is defined as “an inclination of temperament or outlook, especially: a personal and sometimes unreasoned judgment” (Merriam-Webster), but this definition does not fully encompass the meaning that we imbue the word with, in common usage. Webster also notes that a synonym of bias is prejudice, which starts to get at the meaning most often used.
The commonly used meaning can also inform policies, such as the recent ban on anti-bias training that was signed by the President in September of 2020. This Executive Order notes, “in order to promote economy and efficiency in Federal contracting, to promote unity in the Federal workforce, and to combat offensive and anti-American race and sex stereotyping and scapegoating”, continuing on to state, “it shall be the policy of the United States not to promote race or sex stereotyping or scapegoating in the Federal workforce or in the Uniformed Services, and not to allow grant funds to be used for these purposes. In addition, Federal contractors will not be permitted to inculcate such views in their employees.” (whitehouse.gov)
As you can see, the order equates anti-bias training with being unpatriotic. It also claims that anti-bias training is unnecessary, because the statement, “one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex” among many others like it, is false. (whitehouse.gov) Not only is the order written to basically erase the concept of bias from the system of governance in America, but it perpetuates all the racist stereotypes that actually do exist and can be dispelled through anti-bias/anti-racist training.
Here, the common usage makes it seem as though bias and prejudice are one and the same when they are simply similar. One can have a bias that has nothing to do with prejudice, but prejudice always leads to bias. In order to combat this misrepresentation of bias, via the common usage, we can turn to academic language to define the word for us.
What is academic bias?
Academic bias is the tendency for researchers to skew a study based on their personal beliefs. In academia, when one is writing a piece for publication, it is imperative that the author(s) name and claim their bias. We all have beliefs that may sway our opinions in one direction or another and naming those beliefs can dispel any bias that may appear throughout the study.
For example, in the last issue, I wrote about the Electoral College. I did not name my bias at the top of the piece, but as you read through you may have noticed that I did, in fact, write from a perspective that was skewed. My personal beliefs around freedom, equality, equity, and the like always inform my writing. This is why I include a statement of beliefs at the top of each newsletter. These beliefs are my own, as the primary writer for the hippiegrrl media group. This is how one successfully proceeds with research that is as anti-biased as possible. Humans will always hold bias based on belief, but admitting to our bias in the first place can lend a great deal to our credibility when the data is presented.
How bias supports disinformation
Before we can talk about the intersections of bias with disinformation, let us first review this concept. You may have heard this term being used frequently in the past few months or years, but disinformation has been prevalent in media since the beginning. You might also think that misinformation and disinformation are basically the same things, but disinformation is much more insidious.
Misinformation is a miscommunication of facts that exists when humans are writing, proofing, and editing pieces for media. If facts are not checked thoroughly before going to print, a publication can mistakenly present misinformation to its readers. A reliable news source will print a correction in a future issue of the publication, in order to correct the record.
Disinformation is information that is purposely put out into the media landscape as a way to sway people’s opinions, cause unrest, and create bias among the masses. Sound familiar? It should because it is something we commonly refer to as propaganda. The difference nowadays is in the way that disinformation is spread. We are all consumers of media, but we also share media in a way that we couldn’t do in the past. Having individual consumers share their messages far and wide and sew division on a grand scale, with zero effort on the part of the original creators, is a dream come true for the propagandists.
Another feature of disinformation that is so compelling to current day propagandists is that it is easily supported by humans offline. By playing on and playing up the bias that groups already hold for each other, the architects of the messaging have a simple job; drop a seed of disinformation in a thread on Twitter and watch a huge group of followers amplify the message. As the message spreads online, offline groups grow as well, and age-old messaging gets new life by reinforcing the divisions that already existed.
Christmas day in Nashville
On 25 December 2020, an explosion occurred in downtown Nashville, Tennessee. At the time of the explosion, no details were known about the person or persons responsible for the blast, but already on Twitter, there were hundreds of conspiracy theorists interjecting their opinions into newscasters’ threads. If you care to go down a Twitter rabbit hole, just look up #NashvilleBombing and you can see all the disinformation still being shared on the platform today.
Twitter lives at the intersection of conspiracy theories, disinformation, propaganda, and actual fact. As a reader of Research Notes, you are armed with the tools to recognize and dispel the information from three of the corners of this intersection and follow the trail of actual facts. A quick google search and a bit of reading from reputable sources before retweeting can go a long way to improving the state of the internet and, specifically, social media. It is our duty, as savvy internet users, to not only refrain from sharing disinformation but also correct misinformation that we come across in our social media travels. After all, we are all in this together.
Ways to participate this week
Aside from vetting your sources well and trying your best not to share disinformation online, what other actions can you take this week to improve society on a local, regional, or national level?
Here are a few ideas to get you started: