What Happens to A,B, and D, without the "C"?

One of the most important benefits of "lifelong" learning is the process of connecting previous learning and life experience to our current reality. This process helps us to better understand patterns, similarities, and outcomes as we move along life's journey. My blog this week seeks to apply the concept of lifelong learning to the reading materials, video presentations and forum discussions of the last 4 weeks. While 4 weeks is not a lifetime, I'll use my understanding of some of the methods and ideas my cohort and I have discussed, combine those with some life experiences, and offer a point of view that I believe is relevant to our discussion this week with respect to bias in the media.

The letters, A, B, and D in the blog title are the beginning letters of three words that separate and distinct definitions, but in my view constitute a relationship and meaning that call us to action each time we visit web site, listen to a telecast, podcast, read a newspaper or engage with a media source. The letter A is "Advocacy", B is for the word "Bias" and D stands for "Deception". The fourth letter begins a term that describes what action is absent most often during media interaction, and how we are sometimes "duped" without it. This term is called critical thinking."

According to the The American Heritage College Dictionary, "Advocacy", " Bias, " and "Deception are defined as follows:

• Advocacy (v) : To speak, plead, or argue in favor of.
• Bias (n): A preference or an inclination that inhibits impartial judgement.
• Deception (n) : The use of deceit , to mislead or to give a false impression.

(The American Heritage College Dictionary. 4th ed. Houghton Mifflin, 2007, 2004,2002, P.20.138.366)

While the practice of injecting the true meaning of these words into a form of media communication can impact the way we hear it or receive it , of these three the most difficult for me to digest is deception. In other words, when a media source engages in a deliberate attempt to deceive its audience its sole motive is deception, rather than advocacy or expressing a bias for or against something. In todays media saturated society, popular television personalities such as Glenn Beck, Shawn Hannity, Keith Olberman and others, seem credible and trustworthy at first glance. However, after listening and reading their commentary for a period of time, it becomes clear that they prefer to use a form of journalistic info-entertainment to try and persuade us to react in way that will generate an improvement in their ratings, which they hope in turn will lead to revenue growth for the media outlet. They use words like " socialism" or "communist"to tap our emotions. They then combine that with a generous use of rhetoric interspersed with fact and fiction, which is deceptive by its very definition. Web sites can also be deliberately deceptive. Examples of this include, martinlutherking.org/the beast.html and Canadian Health & Care, whose web address is niepleuxa.com. Remember the old adage" Don't judge a book by its cover?" While this may be true, we do need to be able to look beyond what is obvious in the media. One way to accomplish this is by becoming more media literate and by being more thoughtful each time we engage with a media source.

In some instances it is much easier to detect a bias versus an attempt to deceive. After listening to Michael Shermer's comments on science and evolution in the video" The Baloney Detection Kit", I decided to research the funding partner of the video. It was only then, did I discover that it had been financed by the Foundation of British ethologist, and evolution protagonist, Richard Dawkins, (born, March 26, 1941). When I watched the video a second time, I watched it taking into account Shermer's obvious pro-evolution bias. However, I didn't then, nor do I now believe that there was a deliberate attempt to deceive the audience.

What is then the "so what" of all of this? It boils down to our ability to determine if a media source is biased, deceptive or advocating a particular position or agenda. This may well depend on not just improving our media literacy as mentioned earlier, but also how we develop our skill and capability in the area represented by the "C" in our blog title; critical thinking.

During the last few weeks I've reviewed several definitions of this discipline, including those by authors, Michael Scriven and Richard Paul. I also was very impressed with the framework of critical thinking created by David B. Ellis, in the book" Becoming A Master Student" ( David B. Ellis, 1998). However, while doing some additional research on the subject, I came across another interesting approach found in the book, " Critical Thinking" - A Concise Guide"( Tracey Bowell, Dr Gary Kemp, 2008). These two professors of Philosophy have confined their definition of critical thinking to a logical framework, which precisely analyzes the effectiveness of a persuasive argument by determining whether it is just rhetoric or truly gives us a reason to believe or act.

To be clear, the use of critical thinking as a practice is an effective way to detect bias, advocacy and deception. However, I found the approach used in Bowell and Kemp's book not only interesting, but also much easier to use, because it simplifies the critical thinking process to the analysis of an argument to determine whether the argument actually provides a reason for us to believe.

In the end, whether the media source is biased, advocates a position or agenda, or deliberately attempts to deceive, without the discipline of critical thinking regardless of the methodology, you will rarely understand the intent of the media source that is trying to engage you. If this happens the ultimate outcome will be that our quest for lifelong learning especially with respect to media literacy is seriously compromised!