Embedded Bias

Unbeknownst to many readers, media portray bias in conflict stories by using the following devices:

• Excising, which means portraying a conflict without showing the other side, or by ignoring or even obscuring it. The enemy is absent and only symbolized.

• Sanitizing, which means understating the violence or damage and this is often done by limiting the body count or not showing blood and dead bodies. Government and media do this to boost morale during a crisis.

• Equalizing, which tries to show that both sides have equal might despite the fact that one group may have high technology weapons and a bigger army. It serves to justify the firepower that the stronger force may unleash on the weaker one.

• Personalizing shows “the human face” of the soldiers, rebels or the victims. It shows them in the hospitals, at the frontlines, or with their families and friends.

• The demonizing mechanism was widely used during the 2003 US-led war against Iraq when media repeatedly called Saddam Hussein “evil,” a “murderer,” a “butcher.” No such graphic words, however, were used for US officials who ordered the massive air assaults on Afghanistan and Iraq that killed thousands of innocent civilians or for the US prison authorities who ordered Iraqi soldiers to strip the prisoners and take pictures of them in dehumanizing conditions.

• Contextualizing, which refers to the provision or non-provision of historical context to a story. When a story lacks historical context, readers fail to see the entire picture.

-Tamar Liebes, Reporting the Arab-Israeli Conflict

Comments are closed.