In the past two weeks I have watched two thought-provoking movies: Green Book and Same Kind of Different as Me. The former (as you may know) won Best Picture for last year. I watched it on the plane. The latter was from 2017, and I found it on Netflix. I love them both for the lessons they …
media
The impact of the words we use – Islamic? Islamist?
Today’s Toronto Star newspaper article by Shree Paradkar bears blogging about. It’s a perfect example of how bias works, and how language helps to fuel both unconscious bias, and hatred. The columnist - Shree Paradkar - makes many excellent points. Here are a few of my favourites. You can …
[Continue reading] The impact of the words we use – Islamic? Islamist?
Seeing Ourselves in Media Matters
A TV Commercial Yesterday I saw a commercial on TV that made me smile. Picture this: It starts with a close up of little feet running through mud, and into the house. At which point we see that the little girl (4 years old? 5?) – complete with skirt and crown - is chasing a frog. Around the …
Visual Representation
Lack of Diversity One of the things that irks me is the lack of diverse representation in images. If you take a look at the images that are used on websites, in ads, on posters, on billboards, the majority of the people used are white, thin, depicting heterosexual relationships, able bodied, and …
Bias in Olympic Coverage
The Olympics are a perfect place to sit back and watch how (unconscious?) bias filters in to reporting. Consider who is shown on the podium and who is not. Consider who is getting airtime and who is not. Consider how we talk about athletes, and who we hear about (and who we don’t). Consider who …
Blind Spot – Part 2: Social Mindbugs
Last week I introduced you to social mindbugs. This week, I’m going to make the case a little more, because I know that it’s challenging to take in that what our unconscious mind believes can lead us in a direction/to a behaviour or conclusion that our conscious mind would abhor. In case you missed …
How we (still) use race to identify people…
I’ve been thinking a lot about the two recent shootings in Toronto and the role of race in how media gets reported. Turns out I’m not the only one – earlier this week the morning DJs (Mark and Jem) on G 98.7FM brought it up and a few people called in. True, the Eaton Centre shooting affected more …
[Continue reading] How we (still) use race to identify people…