Misinformation Tendencies in the Digital Age
A healthy civil society can exist only if the public is well-informed. If people can be easily led to believe rumors or gossip, the consequences can be dangerous.
from the article: “What is News Literacy” – Center for News Literacy –
Stony Brook University School of Journalism
The Digital Age poses four information literacy challenges for civil society:
- The overwhelming amount of information that floods over us each day makes it difficult to sort out reliable from fabricated information.
- New technologies to create and widely share information make it possible to spread misinformation that looks like it’s from an authoritative source.
- The conflict between speed and accuracy has escalated. We all want information as quickly as possible, but accelerating the distribution of information in the Digital Era has also increased the chances that the information will be wrong.
- The Internet and Social Media make it much easier to select only the information that supports our preexisting beliefs, reinforcing rather than challenging them.
These challenges have created the demand for a new kind of literacy—a literacy that empowers news consumers to determine whether information is reliable and then act on it.
TIPS from Stark State Digital Library (Click Here)
Warning Signs of Fake News Sources
- Avoid websites that end in “lo” ex: Newslo. These sites take pieces of accurate information and then packaging that information with other false or misleading “facts” (sometimes for the purposes of satire or comedy).
- Watch out for websites that end in “.com.co” as they are often fake versions of real news sources
- Watch out if known/reputable news sites are not also reporting on the story. Sometimes lack of coverage is the result of corporate media bias and other factors, but there should typically be more than one source reporting on a topic or event.
- Odd domain names generally equal odd and rarely truthful news.
- Lack of author attribution may, but not always, signify that the news story is suspect and requires verification.
- Some news organizations are also letting bloggers post under the banner of particular news brands; however, many of these posts do not go through the same editing process (ex: BuzzFeed Community Posts, Kinja blogs, Forbes blogs).
- Check the “About Us” tab on websites or look up the website on Snopes or Wikipedia for more information about the source.
- Bad web design and use of ALL CAPS can also be a sign that the source you’re looking at should be verified and/or read in conjunction with other sources.
- If the story makes you REALLY ANGRY it’s probably a good idea to keep reading about the topic via other sources to make sure the story you read wasn’t purposefully trying to make you angry (with potentially misleading or false information) in order to generate shares and ad revenue.
- If the website you’re reading encourages you to DOX individuals, it’s unlikely to be a legitimate source of news.
- It’s always best to read multiple sources of information to get a variety of viewpoints and media frames.
In the above image captioned: “Obama Signs Executive Order Banning the Pledge of Allegiance in Schools Nationwide – ABC News,” can you determine why the article is deemed fake news (HINT: see bolded bullet point in the above “Tips from Stark State Digital Library” ).
Go to the TeenVogue website and read the original source of the image above entitled: “The Best Tips for Spotting Fake News in the Age of Trump, by William Colglazier, January 17, 2027.
For an infographic on the steps for evaluating websites, click this link for a fact sheet created by Stark State Digital Library.
It is important for the future of this country that rumor and gossip is not relied upon as real news.