Current Topics: An Undergraduate Research Guide : Misinformation and Media Bias/Evaluating News

This research guide provides information on media literacies, misinformation, and fact checking.

Below are some definitions to keep in mind when evaluating news and media sources. 

• Satire: Sources that use humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to comment on current events, particularly in the context of contemporary politics. 
• Bias: A tendency that comes from a particular point of view or outlook based on personal opinions and judgment. 
• Propaganda: Information that may be biased, untrue, exaggerated, or framed in such a way to convince a target audience to accept a framework as true.
• Sponsored Content: Long-form advertisements that resemble news stories and are embedded in a news website as any other story would be.
• Fake News: Sources that intentionally fabricate information, circulate deceptive information and content, or grossly distort actual news reports. Fake news is information that has no factual basis or information that is fabricated by those who do not have the appropriate credentials to be writing news stories.   

Bias refers to preferences or prejudices in favor of certain kinds of beliefs, ideas, or people. We all hold both explicit and implicit biases.

• Explicit bias describes beliefs about the world that we are consciously aware of and that inform our perspectives on a variety of issues. Explicit biases might include political preferences we know we hold or extreme and overt prejudices. 
• Implicit bias is more subtle and describes the unconscious prejudices that influence our perceptions of different kinds of people and ideas. Even people who regard themselves as neutral and without prejudice display some forms of implicit bias. Once implicit bias is made conscious, it can become easier to unlearn. 

Why is it important to understand bias?

• The biases we hold impact the way we view information. We are more ready to believe a news story, headline, or image if it confirms rather than challenges our biases.
• Our biases may also influence the way we seek and receive information. We often look for information in sources that reinforce our biases. We are also more likely to passively view news shared by people in our social circles who are more likely to share our biases.
• Bias is deeply ingrained into every culture. As such, there is no such thing as an "unbiased" reporter. Journalists, bloggers, researchers, and professors all approach their topics with bias, but they also have relevant expertise. Good journalism, like good scholarship, is done with curiosity and open-mindedness, rooted in facts about the world and honest about the judgments it makes.

Test Yourself

Harvard University's Implicit Bias Test can help you learn if you have implicit biases around race, gender, sexuality, disability, indigeneity, age, size, and nationality. Remember that these tests are just one way to help you come to terms with your biases, but they are a good way to get started.

Further Reading

• Understanding Bias
  (The American Press Institute) "Understanding Bias" explains that the notion of bias as purely negative is outdated and cannot serve modern journalism. Instead, they argue that journalists must exercise critical thinking rather than strive for pure objectivity.
• Speaking of Psychology: Understanding Your Racial Biases
  (American Psychological Association) In this podcast conversation, Yale psychologist John Dovidio explains how unconscious bias can manifest as "averse racism," a subtle form of prejudice which influences how different groups of people relate to one another.
• How to Think about "Implicit Bias"
  (Scientific American) This article defends implicit bias from critics who assert that bias can only be overt. It considers some of the social consequences of this kind of thinking.

The articles and links below provide tips on how to identify fake news and emphasize the importance of confirming the accuracy of information before sharing it with others.  

The librarians at UW-Madison are experts at helping you to learn and apply strategies for assessing the value of information you encounter. It is incumbent on you, however, to ultimately decide how to responsibly interpret and disseminate information. To help you get started, we have developed an "Evaluation Tip Sheet" that is useful for analyzing scholarly and popular articles. 

The resources below, including our tip sheet, offer checklists and questions to ask to help verify the legitimacy of news sources. 

Although many news articles may exhibit some level of bias depending on the author or source, it is important to remember that journalists should follow a code of ethics. Below are resources that discuss the ethics of journalism. 

Below are helpful websites that fact check news articles to ensure you are receiving and sharing accurate information. 

How do we interpret election poll information, and how do we know it's accurate? As with all news sources, we should think critically about these polls to ensure inaccurate information does spread as fake news. Below are resources to help read election poll information, along with tips on how to interpret this information carefully and correctly. As you read polls, keep in mind that polls only give us an imperfect sense of what various populations believe in a moment in time. Polls are not meant to determine who should win an election or which policies would best meet certain political objectives.