Biased Language and How It Impacts Attitudes Behaviors

Biased Language and How It Impacts Attitudes Behaviors

Biased language can be described as a language that provokes feelings of being excluded or demeaned. Accordingly, Bevan 2020 described biased language as “the use of words that intentionally or unintentionally offend people or express negative attitudes concerning a person.” The various factors that biased language is based on include, disability, sex, age, race, ethnicity, identity, intersectionality, and socioeconomic status. An example of racially biased language was in a news article that used the terms blacklist and whitelist, whereby the former implies a bad list while the latter is the opposite. Another example of religion-biased language I saw in an online comment section was using Christmas to refer to holidays, which is generally a Christian celebration. Those of other religions might feel excluded; instead, a term like December holiday is more appropriate.

Biased language can lead to the generalization or stereotyping of individuals, leading to prejudice or bigotry. Stereotyping affects how we talk to other people, our attitudes towards them, and how we behave towards them. For instance, the term black sheep is used to refer to deviants, which can lead to the stereotyping of black people as deviants. Consequently, such a stereotype will affect a person’s perception, attitude, and behavior toward black people, which will most likely be aggressive or fearful. On the other hand, biased language from a receiver’s perception will affect how they view the sender. The receiver will eventually develop a negative perception of the sender, whereby the sender is either racist, sexist, homophobic, or discriminatory, depending on their choice of biased language. Besides, the receiver might also become self-conscious and feel attacked. Get in touch with us at eminencepapers.com. We offer assignment help with high professionalism.

According to Walther, Hoter, Ganayem & Shonfeld (2015), one major significance of computer-mediated context is that it helps reduce prejudice that stems from biased language. This is because computer-mediated communications bring about interactions between different individuals or communities, leading to affable interpersonal connections. Such connections then help ameliorate stereotypes that we tend to form towards others and, consequently, prejudice as well. Further, the second significance of biased language in computer-mediated contexts is cyberbullying. With the growing presence of online communities, biased language has also taken up a significant portion of everyday interactions. Accordingly, many individuals are using biased language to spread hateful content on the internet, also known as cyberbullying. Consequently, the adverse effects of cyberbullying have been evident in suicide, eating disorders, and murders, just to name a few.

References

Bevan, J. L. (2020). Making connections: Understanding interpersonal communication (3rd ed.). [Electronic version]

Walther, J. B., Hoter, E., Ganayem, A., & Shonfeld, M. (2015). Computer-mediated communication and the reduction of prejudice: A controlled longitudinal field experiment among Jews and Arabs in Israel. Computers in Human Behavior, 52, 550-558. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1016/

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Prior to beginning work on this discussion forum, read Bevan, Chapter 4 specifically focuses on Section 4.1, and watch the COM200 Week Two | Discussion Links to an external site. video. https://ashford.mediaspace.kaltura.com/media/COM200+WEEK+TWO+%7C+DISCUSSION/0_69iwrydp

Biased Language and How It Impacts Attitudes Behaviors

In this discussion forum, you will address the idea of biased language and how it impacts attitudes, behaviors, and perceptions, especially in online interactions. Attitudes refer to liking or disliking something, behaviors describe actions people do (speaking, moving, etc.), and perception relates to how humans think or process information or stimuli.

For your initial post, you must do the following:

Use and cite Bevan (Section 4.1) to define and explain biased language.
Share an example of biased language you have seen in some computer-mediated interaction.
Answer the following three questions:
How does biased language reflect the attitudes, behaviors, and perceptions of the sender?
How might biased language impact the attitudes, behaviors, and perceptions of the receiver of the content, and/or the sender, or both?
What is the significance of biased language in computer-mediated contexts specifically?
For this discussion forum, your initial post should be 300 to 350 words in length.