Material and Data for "Visual Indicators To Increase Detection Skills Of Linguistic Bias"

This repository includes all files relevant to the paper "Visual Indicators To Increase Detection Skills Of Linguistic Bias". Abstract The influence of linguistic bias in online news articles, shaping public opinion, is a growing concern, particularly in the context of rising political polarization. While there is a growing body of literature on misinformation indicators, none have been sufficiently tested to counteract the influence of media bias. Hence, we design and test six indicators - bias bar, bias gauge, bias highlights, political scale, sentiment scale, and trust score - for their impact on linguistic bias detection and perception. First, we expose participants to short, social-media-like statements along with one indicator and query bias perception. Second, we evaluate bias detection by removing the indicator and asking participants to mark biased words. In addition, we examine how trust, sharing discernment, and sentiment relate to bias perception and detection. Our results show that highlighting biased phrases and showing total bias with contextual information in a gauge significantly improve bias detection skills. However, the strongest predictor for reduced bias detection was political congruency between the statement and the participant. We suggest designs for bias interventions aimed at minimizing the persuasive effects of linguistic bias in online news environments, providing a foundation for future research and practical applications in media bias mitigation. Files All Bias Indicators.zip contains the svgs for all indicators and all statements. R_code.zip contains the files for the statistical analysis R_plots contains additional plots from the statistical analysis, such as demographic data visualizations and analysis of single statements. src contains the code for the statistical analysis. data contains the data, both raw and pocessed. Study Screenshots.zip includes all steps of the study as screenshots from the live study platform. Study Material.xlsx contains the material, including the expert annotation process.