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Emotional Impact and Bias

Guiding Questions

  • How do media creators use emotional appeal to influence feelings and behavior?
  • Why is it important for readers to recognize the emotional impact?
  • How does the way news is written influence what we think and how we feel about events?

Objectives

  • Students will…
    • Identify emotional language in news articles
    • Recognize potential bias in news articles
    • Explain how emotions can influence beliefs and judgments

Resources

Student Resources

  • A device with access to the internet

Anticipate

  • Ask students: “When was the last time a piece of media (television, internet, or radio news for example) made you feel a certain way? (anger, sadness, happiness)”
  • Think-pair-share: “What emotions did it trigger?” “Did you want to share the piece right away? Why?”

Engage

  • Explain:
    • define bias as a tendency to favor one side or perspective, often shown through selective facts, loaded language, or omission of information.
    • define emotional impact as language, images, or headlines designed to provoke feelings
  • Provide students with two headlines from the same current event:
  • Have students do the following:
    • Identify Emotional Language
      • CBC: Uses factual, restrained wording such as “closure,” “security reasons,” and “10 days.” Tone creates mild concern without dramatizing.
      • New York Times: Uses heightened terms like “incursion,” “shutdown,” “blame.” Tone creates alarm and political tension.
    • What emotion does each headline want readers to feel?
      • CBC: Concern, procedural seriousness.
      • NYT: Urgency, alarm, and a sense of international conflict.
    • Look for Bias / Perspective
      • CBC: Focuses on official procedures and safety.
      • NYT: Framing centers on political conflict and blame, emphasizing potential threat.
    • Identify What’s Missing?
      • Students should consider:
    • Lack of clarity about the true cause of the shutdown.
      • Missing perspectives (local residents, airport staff, travelers).
      • Whether emotional framing influences how serious or dangerous the event feels.
    • Recognize Tone Differences Across Sources
      • International/wire services: More neutral, factual.
      • S. national political coverage: Spotlight on conflict, risk, and speculation.
  • Ask students:
    • Using the two headlines about the El Paso airspace closure, what emotions do you think each outlet wants readers to feel? What specific words create these feelings? Whose perspective is centered? Whose is missing?

Explore

  • Assign students to find one article (news, opinion, or online media post) on any topic students care about (sports, politics, pop culture, world events, technology) from a recognizable source (news site, blog, magazine).
  • Read or skim it once for understanding
  • Answer the following questions
    • What emotions does the article seem to want you to feel?
    • What specific words, images, or phrases trigger that emotion?
    • Whose perspective is most represented?
    • Whose perspective is missing or minimized?
    • Do you notice facts mixed with opinions? Where?
    • Would a different group of people react differently to this article? Why?
  • Then, hold a class discussion:
    • Which emotions came up the most often? (anger, fear, sympathy, pride, etc.)
    • Did different sources use similar emotional tactics?
    • How might emotion make people less likely to question what they are reading?

Assess & Reflect

  • Have students complete one of the following prompts as an exit ticket:
    • “One way emotional language can influence public opinion is…”
    • “After this lesson, one thing I will look for when reading news is…”

Extend (Optional)

  • Challenge students to find two different articles on the same topic from different sources and compare emotional tone.
  • Rewrite an emotional headline to make it more neutral.