The Impact of Bias in Advertising

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Objectives

Activities will help students:

• Take on other people’s points of view;
• Follow steps in the writing process; and
• Synthesize and reflect on information from a variety of sources.

Essential Questions

• What is bias?
• How does seeing bias against a group with which you identify affect your daily life and choices?
• How does seeing bias perpetuated by a group to which you belong affect your daily life and choices?

Activities

1. Ask each student to think of an advertisement they have seen in the past week. They should describe the advertisement in detail in their notebooks or journals. The advertisement might come from television, radio, the Internet, a magazine or any other source. Preliterate students may sketch the advertisement or draw it in storyboard form or even a comic strip.
2. Bring students together. Explain that they will be talking about the impact of bias in advertising. Tell students that bias is an unfair belief about a group of people that sometimes leads to discrimination.
3. Ask students to look back over the advertisements they have described in their journals. Ask students if any particular biases stand out. For example, does the advertisement perpetuate a stereotype? Does the advertisement represent only some people or convey the message that a particular way of living is the only right way? Encourage students to share any ideas that come to mind.
4. Now, ask each student to look at the same advertisement from the point of view of someone else. They might choose to think as someone who speaks a different language, whose family has much more or much less money, or who practices a different religion. Have a few students share how their perspective on the advertisement changes when they look at it from a different point of view. Ask whether any particular biases stand out?
5. Sticking with their new points of view, have students write a poem or short story or draw a picture expressing a bias against, or perpetuated by, their group that they have noticed in advertisements. Students may choose to focus on the same advertisement as evidence, or they may draw from other advertisements that have been used throughout this series. Ask them to be thoughtful as they consider the relationship between advertisements and biases. Give students a chance to share their work after they have completed the process.

Reflection

Taking on different points of view takes time and practice, but it is an important part of being a critical reader and citizen. Ask students to try out an entirely different perspective at home and notice what different biases come up for them as they look at advertisements. Encourage students to think about perpetuating biases as well as falling victim to them. Give students a chance to share thoughts that emerged as they did this exercise.