Alvin Tse

Teacher: Ms. Cinder Merritt (ENG2D)

How Does the Author Use Bias to Impact the Audience?

Every author has their intentions of writing an article, and sometimes one needs to be careful of how the

author’s word choices and placement choices can cause one to think along a certain direction. This is

especially true of an article on a British online newspaper The Independent, where Rob Merrick

investigates a British aid plan that relieves refugees fleeing to Europe redirected to different countries

such as Asian and Latin American countries. The author attempts to deceive the British public into

believing that the UK government is responsibly providing refugees with superior alternatives to settling

in the UK by creating distance, attempting to speak highly of the UK with glittering generalities and

name-dropping in an endeavour to increase credibility.

Firstly, the author attempts to use an abundance of loaded words and a suggestive photo choice to create

distance between the refugees and the audience. The author’s loaded words downplay the situation into

very general terms, most of which the British public are familiar with. He uses words such as

“vulnerable” and “facing freezing conditions” to describe their situations; stating that the refugees are

“vulnerable” clearly implies that they are in need of help and physical support, and “facing freezing

conditions” conveys a bleak, cold image that the refugees are facing. This is familiar to the British public

in the cold weather that this article was published in. Facing similar conditions themselves and with such

general terms, the situation of the refugees can be easily dismissed by the British public. The author

further suggests that the government will also “pay for better infrastructure in far-flung countries willing

to take refugees who had hoped to settle in Europe”. The word choice of “far-flung” in this quotation

magnifies the author’s intention to reduce an emotional connection for the refugees to a minimum; the

author does not specify where these “far-flung” countries are, effectively communicating the notion “out

of sight, out of mind”; suggesting that this crisis is remote and is thus irrelevant to the UK public. The

notion and the author’s intentions are stressed when the destination the refugees are redirected to is twice

referred to simply as “Asia and Latin America”, both of which are geographically far from the UK, and

relatively unspoken of, thus being seemingly more arbitrary to the British public (Merrick). Finally, the

photo chosen for the article also suggests that the author is preventing the British public from making any

connections with the refugees. The photo chosen shows a crowd of black men in summer clothes under

sunlight looking towards the same direction. The skin colour of the men may cause the public of the UK,

a country who left the EU as a move of nationalism and patriotism (O’Toole), to think of them as

outsiders. The summer clothes and sunlight give the reader a sense of warmth, and suggest that the men

are perfectly warm in the weather – the ledge they rest on is also spotless, further allowing the audience to

believe that they are not too desperately in need of help. Finally, none of them are looking directly at the

camera. Eye contact is a powerful stimulator of love and compassion, and the fact that no one is looking

directly at the camera in the photo chosen further seizes any opportunity for the audience to sympathise

with the refugees. Hence, we can conclude that the author does not want the audience to connect with the

refugees in crisis, in order to have full opportunity to keep the focus on the UK’s compassion and

generosity.

The author chooses a picture that will hinder connections between the reader and the refugees (Merrick)

The author also attempts to speaks highly of the UK and their willingness to aid in the crisis, but

ultimately fails due to lack of specificity and a myriad of contradictions. Firstly, the author uses glittering

generalities to praise the UK and their actions. The author uses words such as “lifesaving supplies”,

“emergency medical care”, “legal support” and “urgent health assistance” to glamourise the aid package

that the UK is offering (Merrick). Most of the terminology that the author uses is globally approved and

recognised as “helpful” supplies, so it is easy for the British public to overlook the vagueness of the

statistics provided. Also, a list of numbers is provided near the end of the article to suggest all the

contributions the UK government has given to the public. The author uses an inverted pyramid to present

these statistics – he tends to place bigger numbers near the top of the list, and the foremost aim is to

“provide 22,400 life-saving relief items including tents, blankets, winter clothes such as hats and gloves

and hygiene kits including mother and baby products”, the least vague aim on the list. However, it is

evident that some items on the list are ambiguous – for example, the last strand suggests that more than

1,500 refugees will be provided with “urgent health assistance”, without any specification of what health

assistance this may be. This lack of specificity shows that the figures given in the first place are not

confidently trusted by the author himself, and that he is desperate to use every statistic that works in his

stance’s favour to convince the audience of it. The author also includes a multitude of contradictions that

he fails to cover up during his attempt to speak highly of the UK government. The author introduces

quotes that are entirely non-compliant with what he has said in the rest of the article. For example, he

quotes the Prime Minister to have said in Malta that the package was an aid to “help migrants return home

rather than risk their lives continuing perilous journeys to Europe”. This contradicts the rest of the article

where the author promotes the government’s choice of helping refugees sustain lives in “far-flung”

countries such as “Asia and Latin America”. A similar contradiction happens in the aforementioned list at

the end of the article, where a strand states that the package “allows up to 22,000 people to reunite with

family members they have been separated from” (Merrick). This reinforces the author’s inconsistency

between his stance and his quotes and data, and therefore hinders the validity of the article and its stance

once again. The various happenings of contradictions and ambiguousness therefore hinder the author’s

ability to speak highly of the UK government, and shows his struggle to shed positive light onto the UK

government due to his dissonant cognitive stance.

Finally, the author makes numerous endeavours to name-drop and insert quotes to increase his credibility.

The author uses various organisations to suggest legitimacy of the scheme. For example, he mentions the

UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) multiple times to suggest that the British aid package bolsters an existing

project. This automatically allows the audience to see this project as legitimate and thus the author gains

credibility simply for mentioning any involvement of the agency. The author furthermore quotes

“government sources” for stressing that refugees will only move to Asia and Latin America under their

own will. The exact government sources are not stated, and even an idea of which department of the

government the sources are from is not provided. This name-dropping shows that the author is attempting

to increase his credibility by using any source that vaguely represents where it has come from. The author

also uses various quotes to further legitimise his stance. The author uses a quote from International

Development Secretary Priti Patel that mentions “mass migration” fuelled by “conflict, drought and

political upheaval”. Simply using the word “conflict” severely downplays the terror and pain that the

refugees have to go through in their daily lives. The same quote mentions “mass migration”, which are

used for very large scale movements, sometimes even of animals, once again causing a disconnect

between the audience and the refugees. However, it is noteworthy that Patel labels the UK’s effort as their

“latest support”, directly contradicting a former statement from the author that this is “the first time

Britain’s aid budget has been used to bolster [the scheme]” (Merrick). It is evident that the author has

attempted to increase his credibility by crediting his sources to NGOs and quotes, however has done so in

vain due to the dissonance between his quotes and his narration.

In this article, the author’s use of loaded words, glittering generalities and name-dropping shows that he is

desperate to lead the British public into believing that the UK has done much to provide superior

alternatives to refugees and turning them away from their home country. However, upon closer analysis,

it is evident throughout the lack of specificity and the multitude of contradictions that the author’s stance

and opinions are incongruent. This article is a prime example of how an author with a clear stance has the

ability to misdirect and deceive his audience completely.

Word Count: 1473

Works Cited

Merrick, Rob. “EU Malta Summit: Refugees Heading to Europe to Be Redirected to Asia and Latin

America in New £30m British Aid Plan.” The Independent [London], 3 Feb. 2017. The

Independent,

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-malta-summit-refugees-europe-redirect-settle-asia-lat

in-america-theresa-may-30-million-aid-plan-a7561296.html. Accessed 14 Feb. 2017.

O’Toole, Fintan. “Brexit Is Being Driven by English Nationalism. And It Will End in Self-Rule.” The

Guardian, 19 June 2016. The Guardian,

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/18/england-eu-referendum-brexit. Accessed 14

Feb. 2017.