A Handbook for Inspecting Social Media & News Stories
2022 AWA Gold Medal, Nautilus & Readers' Favorite Silver Medal Winner
A Handbook for Inspecting Social Media & News Stories
2022 AWA Gold Medal, Nautilus & Readers' Favorite Silver Medal Winner
"At a time when we are being bombarded with information - to include the good, the bad, and the just plain ugly, it would be to our personal and professional advantage to become a critical consumer of information. Perhaps - 'question everything' is now the gold standard. Bias Is All Around You will help everyone begin that process."
-- Mark McCaslin, Ph.D., March 2021
Author of the Acclaimed Theory of Potentiating, Creating a Good Society & Good People
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“What Bias is All Around You really does is instill the value of integrity. Integrity is defined as doing the right thing when no one is looking. If we only listen to those who are part of our club, our political affiliation, our religion, our neighborhood, if we hastily cling to false narratives as well as share them, then all of humanity loses. Let’s all take more time to vet information so we can all be more confident in how we use it. That is what Bean and his team have demonstrated in this short easy to read handbook. This is a handbook that deserves all our admiration. Three cheers to the Bean team!!!”
-- Senator Michael MacDonald (R) Michigan July 2021
“BRAVO, BRAVO!
Clearly Erik Bean and his team, Illustrator Gail Gorske and Editor Sherry Wexler, have very carefully thought about this book’s audience — everyone who wants to contribute meaningfully to responsible civil discourse where damaging language has been spiritually and emotionally draining, contributing to an alarming loss of critical thinking. Bias Is All Around You works hard to present complex information in an easily digested format. This book invites us to become re-acquainted with critical thinking in a non-threatening manner through examples that teach the reader how to vet information bombarding us daily. The inclusion of a Bias Assessment Tool can help readers curtail their personal biases as well as understand the sources of their information, practically removing opinion out of the vetting equation. Thank you for writing this timely and very necessary book — and not a moment too soon!”
Dr. Angela Celeste May July 2021
President, Michigan Psychological Association Foundation Board
President, A.M. May & Associates, Incorporated
Author of Freedom: What is the Experience of Living Without Negative, Self-Imposed Limitations?
"Digital and social media are so pervasive that it's very hard to escape their influence. Every source of information today has hidden bias that can create divisive communities across the world. By following a pragmatic framework outlined in this thought-provoking book, Researcher and Author - Erik Bean, shows you how to quickly alleviate the hidden agenda behind any piece of information and provide you with the ability to think critically. This is an essential read for anybody interested in shaping a positive future where information is helpfully used with consideration."
-- Rahul Jerome, June 2021
Founder, Zorbiant Media, United Kingdom
is a beautifully illustrated 57-page 7 x 10 handbook available in paperback via Amazon.com, in hardcover via Barnes & Noble, and as a 72-minute unabridged Audible file. “A life worth living is a life well led” as the famous saying goes. We need to take the lead because vetting information properly for mental health is one of the biggest challenges of our time. Why? We are inundated with a barrage of seemingly unending and conflicting information from 7 primary sources of all potential bias.
If you cannot properly assess information bias, it could:
1. Lead you to follow a false cause
2. Leave you feeling foolish
3. Tarnish your credibility
4. Attract the wrong people
5. Create undue stress
6. Compromise your values
7. Harm your mental health
These undesirable outcomes need not occur! For it’s time to read between the lines and assess bias now! Together, we can chart a new discourse, one that uses information wisely, with prudence, and goodwill.
Join Erik Bean and Award-Winning Illustrator Gail Gorske as the two take you on a rigorous yet introspective journey to snuff out bias, to understand algorithms that affect Internet and social media information and provide you simple assessment tools that allow you to be more confident if you use the information and share it.
Erik's expertise is media literacy, digital or analog, including information bias in all forms, videos, podcasts, social media, television, radio, newspapers, and magazines, for example. He presented a unique paper to suggest legislation and other social media policies to help offset a growing number of fake internet ads masquerading as news at the Oxford 2018 Internet, Policy, & Long Live Democracy Conference. He holds an M.A. in journalism from Michigan State and he also holds a doctorate in education with sanctioned research studies in cultural competence, leadership, and mindfulness. Co-author of the 20/20 Prudent Leadership book series and the award-winning book Ethan’s Healthy Mind Express: A Children’s First Mental Health Primer, that focuses on inclusion, neurodiversity, and internet safety. In June of 2023 Erik's peer reviewed article, Seven Initial Prominent Sources of All Information Bias Impartiality Types Parsed was published in the European journal, Media Literacy and Academic Research. Read his latest study which also comments on the overall partiality of artificial intelligence (AI) within academic, for-profit, government, hidden agenda, individuals, nonprofit, and watchdog groups.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY GAIL GORSKE
Illustrator Gail Gorske, is a master paper arts professional whose award-winning illustrations include nature photography and those found in Ethan's Healthy Mind Express and the 20/20 Prudent Leadership Book Series. Her images have inspired generations to critically think and cross all boundaries of race, religion, gender, and nationalities.
EDITOR SHERRY WEXLER
Editor Sherry Wexler holds an L.M.S.W. and is a graduate of Wayne State University. She understands the complexity of bias from an inclusion and cultural perspective. Her work like Bean and Gorske's, includes editing the award-winning book Ethan’s Healthy Mind Express.
TIM VOS, Ph.D.
FOREWORD CONTRIBUTOR
With over 4,000 citations referencing his work on Gatekeeping Theory, journalism's role in democracy, and media criticism, foreword contributor, Dr. Vos is director of the School of Journalism, Michigan State University.
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