What can you

say about this

picture?
The global standards that
Islam sets for marriage
age are flexible — because
men make the rules in
patriarchal cultures. In
Yemen, for example, the
age of consent is nine,
with no restrictions on the
age of the husband.

Those girls aren’t their

brides, however, they’re
relatives who get to dress
like the bride according to
local tradition.
EVALUATING
FORMS OF
MEDIA
REFLECTING
DIFFERENT
CULTURES
WHAT ARE MEDIA
MESSAGES?
Media messages contain
information and ideas that are
shared to a large audience of
people.
WHAT ARE MEDIA
MESSAGES?
If these are not scrutinized properly,
they may become agents of
misinformation and lead people to form
wrong judgment and images on the
subject of the wrongly presented
media message.
WHAT ARE MEDIA
MESSAGES?
By critically evaluating media
messages, we ensure that the ideas
presented are accurate, relevant,
and appropriate to be posted or
shared with everyone.
EVALUATING
MESSAGES
Why do we evaluate messages?
Why do we evaluate messages?
The importance of evaluating the
effectiveness of the messages is
by developing and using
strategic questions to identify
strengths and weaknesses.
 STRATEGIC
EVALUATION
How do we evaluate messages?
How do we evaluate messages?
In order to evaluate whether a
message is effective, we can ask
ourselves a series of questions
which reflect a message’s
simplicity, specificity, structure
and stickiness.
“FOUR MAIN QUALITIES FOR AN
EFFECTIVE MESSAGE”
Simplicity
Specificity
Structure
Stickiness
SIMPLICITY
SIMPLICITY
In order to ensure that the messages
have simplicity, we should ask
ourselves two questions:
Is the purpose evident?
Is the core message clear?
SPECIFICITY
SPECIFICITY
Refers to our choices of language and its
usage on order to ensure language is
specific we may ask ourselves:
Is language specific?
Is language concrete, rather than abstract?
Does it use words which have additional
meanings and could perhaps be
misconstrued?
STRUCTURE
STRUCTURE
Ideas should be organized and easy to
follow.
Does the messages have a STRUCTURE?
Is there a more effective way to arrange the
ideas?
STICKINESS
STICKINESS
The messages should display
coherent and unity of ideas.
Does the idea of the message
flow smoothly?
EVALUATING
IMAGES
It is important to critically evaluate
images you use for research. Study
and presentation images should be
evaluated like any other source, such
as journal articles or books, to
determine their quality, reliability and
appropriateness. Visual analysis is
an important step in evaluating an
image and understanding its
meaning.
Three steps of evaluating an
image and these are:
Identifying Source
Interpret contextual
information
Understand implications
CONTENT
ANALYSIS
 What do you see?
What is the image all about? Are there
people in the image? What are they
doing?
How are they presented?
Can the image be looked at different
ways?
How effective is the image as a visual
message?
To evaluate messages and images of
different types of text reflecting
different culture the following should
do:
Understand how the specified
cultures live.
How the people in the specified
group communicate each other.
To evaluate messages and images of
different types of text reflecting
different culture the following should
do:
Learn the symbolism of their
culture.
Be aware in every detail such as
artifact, language, and
symbolism.
To evaluate messages and images of
different types of text reflecting
different culture the following should
do:
Get the meanings being
addressed by the images
Get the important elements
conveyed by the images
Getting the audience for the
images
CULTURAL
TEXTS
WHAT IS A
TEXT?
A text is not a literal text, but in
Semiotics refers to a combination
of signs, signifieds and
mechanisms like metonymy. A
text could be a sentence, a
paragraph, an image, a story, or a
collection of stories.
WHAT IS A
CULTURAL
TEXT?
A collection of signs in a single
photograph or painting, a video
clip, a television show, a feature
film. Whenever signs come
together in the land of semiotics,
they become texts.
What is
this?
These texts can be understood,
rearranged and put together in
different combinations, with
different meanings to different
groups of people.
Where groups different in
age, race, nationality,
sexual orientation may
read and understand a
collection of signs in
different ways.
Cultural texts contribute
and shape a society’s
culture through the use of
sign systems, storytelling
tools and symbols
DETECTING
BIAS IN THE
MEDIA
Media bias is ubiquitous
(everywhere) and not easy to
detect. It is always useful to
compare several sources of
information and, in doing so, it
becomes clear that media
coverage is never completely
objective.
Media have tremendous power
in setting cultural guidelines
and in shaping political
discourse. It is essential that
news media, along with other
institutions, are challenged to
be fair and accurate.
Bias by omission:
For every news story that is
selected, there are many others that
are left out.
•Do the news stories you see show
a balanced view of real life?
Bias by omission:
•What are the characteristics they have
in common? (e.g. Are they mostly
about violence, famous people,
wealth?)
•Do some news sources include items
that are ignored by others?
Bias by emphasis:
What stories are on the front page or
“at the top of the hour?” Which
stories get the largest headlines, or
the first and longest coverage on TV
or radio?
Bias by emphasis:
Consider how this placement
influences people’s sense of what is
important.
Bias by use of language:
The use of labels such as
“terrorist,” “revolutionary,” or
“freedom fighter” can create
completely different impressions
of the same person or event.
Bias in photos:
Unflattering pictures can
create bad impressions, and
partial pictures of scenes
can completely change the
context of an event.
Bias in the source:
An article about a cure for
cancer written by a drug
company is not the same as
an article by an independent
researcher.
Bias in the source:
Often, private companies,
governments, public relations
firms, and political groups
produce press releases to gain
media exposure and to influence
the public.
Bias by headlines:
Some headlines can be deceptive, as
their main purpose is to grab
attention. Many people read only the
headlines, which can create a
distorted sense of what is really going
on, or turn a non- event into a
sensational event.
Bias by repetition:
The repetition of a particular
event or idea can lead people to
believe that it is true, very
widespread, and much more
important than it really is.
Bias in numbers and statistics:
Statistics need to be interpreted; they
are often used to create false
impressions. Of the following
statements, which statistic would you
use to try to convince someone that the
death penalty is a good idea?
Bias in numbers and statistics:
– Almost 30% of those surveyed support
the death penalty.
– More than 70% of those surveyed are
against the death
penalty.
Bias in diversity:
•What is the race and gender diversity at
the news outlet you watch compared to
the communities it serves?
•How many producers, editors or
decision-makers at news outlets are
women, people of color or openly gay
or lesbian?
Bias in diversity:
In order to fairly represent different
communities, news outlets should
have members of those communities
in decision-making positions.
Bias from the point of view:
Political coverage often focuses on
how issues affect politicians or
corporate executives rather than
those directly affected by the issue.
Bias from the point of view:
For example, many stories on parental notification of
abortion emphasized the “tough choice” confronting male
politicians while quoting no women under 18–those with the
most at stake in the debate. Economics coverage usually
looks at how events impact stockholders rather than workers
or consumers.
Demand that those affected by the issue have a
voice in coverage.
DIFFERENT
TYPE OF
TEXT
DIFFERENT TYPE OF TEXT
Narrative
Descriptive
Directive
Expository
Argumentative
DIFFERENT TYPE OF TEXT
(advertisements, editorials,
sermons, shopping lists,
poems, telephone books,
novels, etc.)
Narrative texts
Narrative texts have to do with real-world events and time.
They may be fictional (fairy tales, novels) or non- fictional
(newspaper report). They are characterized by a
sequencing of events expressed by dynamic verbs and by
adverbials such as “and then”, “first”, “second”, “third”
Example: First we packed our bags and then we called a
taxi. After that we… etc.
Descriptive texts
Descriptive texts are concerned with the
location of persons and things in space.
They will tell us what lies to the right or left,
in the background or foreground, or they will
provide background information which,
perhaps, sets the stage for narration.
Directive texts
Directive texts are concerned with concrete
future activity. Central to these texts are
imperatives (Hand me the paper) or forms
which substitute for them, such as polite
questions (Would you hand me the paper?)
or suggestive remarks (I wonder what the
paper says about the weather).
Narrative, descriptive and
directive texts have
grammatical forms
associated with them which
may be expanded to form
sequences of a textual
nature
They are all centered around real-
world events and things. In
contrast, expository and
argumentative texts are
cognitively oriented, as they are
concerned with explanation and
persuasion, which are both
mental processes.
Expository texts
Expository texts identify and
characterize phenomena. They
include text forms such as
definitions, explications,
summaries and many types of
essay.
Expository texts
Expository texts:
• may be subjective (essay) or objective
(summary, explication, definition)
• may be analytical (starting from a concept
and then characterizing its parts; e.g.
definitions)
Expository texts
Expository texts:
• may be synthetic (recounting
characteristics and ending with an
appropriate concept or conclusion; e.g.
summaries)
 “Always be critical
and aware as you
read, watch, or listen
to mass media. Keep
alert for these many
forms of bias.”
Thank
You!