Media Literacy and Bias

Analyzing Historical Sources for Bias

We’ve learned how to tell if a source shows bias. Now it’s time to practice with a historical source from the internet.

I’m doing my National History Day project on the Spanish American War, between the United States and Spain in 1898. I follow some history sources on Twitter and one of them posted this video from the Library of Congress Website. The video claims to show footage of a battle in the Philippines, but Mr. Lexington says we can’t assume that what a source shows is true. The video looks real, but can I trust it?

Let’s figure this out by watching the video.

Now let’s evaluate the video and figure out if it is really from the battle. Finish the next section by typing your observations, reflections, and questions about the video. Click the link below if you want to print the document and fill in your responses.
>> Primary Source Analysis Tool

Wow! I am so glad we checked to see if we can trust that film. If we hadn’t looked at it closely, I might not have figured out that the men in the film were really actors, not soldiers – or that it was made in New Jersey, not the Philippines. Now I know that I shouldn’t use this film as a source for what happened in battle during the Spanish-American war. I can still use it as a source to find out what people thought about the Spanish-American War at the time.