AllSides: A New Online Dictionary | Urszula Pawlicka-Deger

In the face of proclaimed ‘post-truth era‘ and ‘era of fake news’, there is an urgent need of investigation of language and exploration of its political bias. People use the same words in totally different contexts depending on their political and ideological views. Thus, the challenge is to disclose an author’s perspective and critically read information. From now we can also look to a new online dictionary, AllSides Dictionary, that provides a “balanced definition of 400 controversial terms, revealing how they are perceived differently by people with different political perspectives.”

AllSides is a news hub that offers guidance to readers on the potential political bias of articles and news providers. The Dictionary is a project work-in-process, created by contributions from various academic fields. The Dictionary may become the obligatory source of knowledge for students to develop their critical thinking and understanding of controversial topics.

One of the terms included in AllSides Dictionary is ‘Feminism‘ which definition begins with the following words: “It’s hard to imagine another word that invokes such strikingly different connotations than the word feminism”. Further, the definition provides the explanation of the word from two different perspectives:

“For many (most) on the left, the word feminism is a categorically positive reference to the larger fight for women’s rights and the overall push for equal rights and opportunity for women alongside men. For many on the right (not all), feminism has become a categorically negative reference to a vocal and aggressive minority of women pushing everyone else to allow them to ‘act the same as men.’ For some conservatives, the feminist movement disregards unique and special aspects of womanhood in favor for a universalized and androgenous view of gender. In addition to overlooking the distinctive female elements, feminism is seen as eradicating and even trying to destroy the distinctive and unique complementarity between men and women – as well as the traditional family”.

Beside ‘Feminism’, you can read about the words ‘Diversity‘, ‘Equality‘, ‘Refugee‘, ‘Terrorism‘, ‘Discrimination‘, and much more. The last word includes not only interesting explanation but also ‘Questions To Play With’, such as “Do you think discrimination is being over-applied and over-used, or under-recognized and under-seen?”, “Have you ever seen something labeled as ‘discriminatory’ or ‘discrimination’ in a way that you think was unfair or inaccurate?”, “Have you ever felt discriminated against? Did anyone question your feeling?”, “Have you ever heard someone say they were discriminated against and didn’t agree with their characterization of what happened?”.