This month in the library we are focusing on the subject of fake news. In today's digital world, news and information literacy is a far more complex subject than it was when the phrase was coined. Today, students must know how to distinguish between real, factual news reporting and look-alike false stories churned out to deceive and/or influence its audience. You can view several displays about fake news in the library and in the main hallway of Leggett Hall.
News
Literacy
The
ability to use critical thinking skills to judge the reliability and
credibility of news reports, whether they come via print, television or the
Internet.
--Stony
Brook University’s Center for News Literacy
A majority of U.S. adults—62%—get news on social media
--May
2016 Pew Research Center Study
We are
guaranteed a free press. We are not
guaranteed a neutral or a true press. It
is up to the reader or viewer to make reliability and credibility decisions.
Ask Yourself:
- Who made this?
- Who is the target audience?
- Who paid for this? Or, who gets paid if you click on this?
- Who might benefit or be harmed by this message?
- What is left out of this message that might be important?
- Is this credible (and what makes you think that)?
This video TEDEd by Damon Brown offers strategies for analyzing news sources:
Fake
News Comes in a Variety of Flavors
- Pure fake news sites—fabricated stories to lure traffic
- Hoax sites—false information to trick readers
- Satirical sites—present news with comical, exaggerated spin (example: The Onion)
- Born digital images and edited images—misrepresent visual reality
- Sometimes journalists are wrong, biased, and/or missing full context
Oxford Dictionaries recently announced post-truth as its 2016 international Word of the Year.
POST-TRUTH, adjective: Relating to or denoting
circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public
opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief:
‘in this era of post-truth
politics, it's easy to cherry-pick data and come to whatever conclusion you
desire’
‘some commentators have observed
that we are living in a post-truth age’
It is well worth noting that the concept is not new. Oxford traces post-truth’s history from a peripheral term simmering for at least a decade to its dramatic spike this year.
Back in 2005, Stephen Colbert introduced the Word truthiness, now defined by Wikipedia as a quality characterizing a “truth” that a person making an argument or assertion claims to know intuitively “from the gut” or because it “feels right” without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts.
Back in 2005, Stephen Colbert introduced the Word truthiness, now defined by Wikipedia as a quality characterizing a “truth” that a person making an argument or assertion claims to know intuitively “from the gut” or because it “feels right” without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts.
FACT: 6
Media Giants now control 90% of the mainstream news we read, watch or listen to
TEST YOURSELF:
ABC News 10 Question Quiz: Can You Pick the Fake News Headline?
Some Rules of Thumb
Check
About and About Me pages: Clicking
on or investigating authors’ names to consider their credentials in context
should be a regular part of the research journey.
Interrogate
urls: We see quite a bit of domain manipulation these days. For
instance, what looks like an .edu domain, followed by .co or “lo” is likely a
fake or deceptive site. If you are seeing a slightly variant version of a
well-known URL, do a little investigating.
Suspect
the sensational: When we see
something posted that looks sensational, it is even more important to be
skeptical. Exaggerated and provocative headlines with excessive use of capital
letters or emotional language are serious red flags.
Go back to
the source: When an article mentions a study, if you can, go directly to
the source study and check its reliability as well.
Investigate: Try
to verify the information in multiple sources, including traditional media and
library databases. You can begin to rule out the hoaxes by checking out sites
like the nonprofit, nonpartisan FactCheck.org, or
popular sites like Snopes or Hoax-Slayer.
What
exactly are you reading?: Even
when you find yourself in a traditional news site, identify what type of
writing you are reading. Is it news reporting, or a feature story, or an
editorial, or work by a guest blogger, or a review, or an op-ed, or a disguised ad, or a comment?
Check
your own search attitude and biases: Is
your search language biased in any way? Are you paying more attention to
the information that confirms your own beliefs and ignoring evidence that does
not?
Use a
little energy: Make sure you’ve done your due diligence in seeking and
validating the best possible news across media sources.
Stop
before you forward (or use): When you
see a widely shared or forwarded link, be suspicious of a hoax or a fake
story. Can you verify the information outside of the social media
platform on which you discovered it?
Be
suspicious of pictures!: Not all
photographs tell the truth. Images are normally edited, but sometimes they are
digitally manipulated. A Google reverse image search can help discover the
source of an image and its possible variations.
Sources:
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