Bandwagon Trickery

Often when I think of biased information in the news, my immediate reaction is to blame the news media entirely.  Yet, the discussion on cognitive biases, the Bandwagon effect, confirmation bias, base rate fallacy, and cognitive dissonance remind me that bias in the media has two sides: the media itself and us as viewers and consumers.  Besides hungering for the sensational stories about death and sex, we hold innate biases which also affect the presentation of the news.  Reporters have to carefully shape stories that comply with the public’s internalized biases.  For example, I became a victim of the Bandwagon effect when we conducted an experiment in my psychology class.  After walking around the school, one girl confidently proclaimed that the flag was positioned at half-staff while another less persuasive boy contended that it had risen to full-staff.  Most of us joined the bandwagon and declared that we too had seen the flag and that it was flying at half-mast, even though it was actually flying at full-mast.  Until the teacher weighed in, we remained convinced that we were right, especially since there were so many people supporting each other.  Thus, this reaction is a good example of the Bandwagon effect.

The Department of Information concept freaked me out.  In no way, shape, or form should our government have anything to do with feeding us filtered information.  The most disturbing idea was that the government would be able to declare selected information as fact or fiction.  With the highly politicized and polarized government that we have today, this action would be a death sentence.  The government in power would never allow any information into fact that portrays the current system in a negative light.  It is significant that the three countries utilizing the department are North Korea, China, and Iran.  The fact that these particular countries with restrictive societies use this form of control to deliver information provides evidence that such a department is a disturbing and frightening idea. Sure, there may be biases in the information we read and hear today, but at least we can pick and choose our sources.  Having one source categorize fact paves the way for more bias all slanted in one direction.