Lesson Idea: Media Literacy and Fake News Overview: In a world filled with rapid pace communication through a variety of platforms, we have an abundance of information available at our fingertips. Discerning fact from fiction can be complex. Knowing the source can be challenging, and the messages being delivered can be received in different ways, effecting certain populations of people as well as our country. View the videos in this lesson with your students to cultivate an understanding of media literacy and engage in a discussion about its impact and significance for the future. Procedure: STEP 1. STEP 2. Handout: Media Literacy and Fake News (Google Doc) "Fake News" Sites and Effects on Democracy (4:44) New York Magazine's Max Read discusses his piece examining the rise of “fake news” and whether the internet is a reliable tool for furthering democracy. STEP 3.
Drop Bear The Drop Bear, Thylarctos plummetus, is a large, arboreal, predatory marsupial related to the Koala. Drop Bear distribution map Photographer: © Australian Museum Standard Common Name Drop Bear Identification Around the size of a leopard or very large dog with coarse orange fur with some darker mottled patterning (as seen in most Koalas). Size range 120kg, 130cm long, 90 cm at the shoulder. Distribution Drop Bears can be found in the densely forested regions of the Great Dividing Range in South-eastern Australia. Habitat Closed canopy forest as well as open woodland on the margins of dense forest. Habitat type Vegetation Habitat: closed forest, tall closed forest, tall open forest, tall open shrubland What does this mean? Seasonality Appears yearly, 1st April. Feeding and Diet Examination of kill sites and scats suggest mainly medium to large species of mammal make a substantial proportion of the animal's diet. Feeding Habit carnivorous Mating and reproduction Era / Period Quaternary Period Classification
Fake news. It's complicated. - First Draft News This article is available also in Deutsch, Español, Français and العربية By now we’ve all agreed the term “fake news” is unhelpful, but without an alternative, we’re left awkwardly using air quotes whenever we utter the phrase. The reason we’re struggling with a replacement is because this is about more than news, it’s about the entire information ecosystem. And the term fake doesn’t begin to describe the complexity of the different types of misinformation (the inadvertent sharing of false information) and disinformation (the deliberate creation and sharing of information known to be false). To understand the current information ecosystem, we need to break down three elements: The different types of content that are being created and sharedThe motivations of those who create this contentThe ways this content is being disseminated This matters. This is far more worrying than fake news sites created by profit driven Macedonian teenagers. The Different Types of Mis and Disinformation
What these teens learned about the Internet may shock you! When the AP United States history students at Aragon High School in San Mateo California, scanned the professionally designed pages of www.minimumwage.com, most concluded that it was a solid, unbiased source of facts and analysis. They noted the menu of research reports, graphics and videos, and the “About” page describing the site as a project of a “nonprofit research organization” called the Employment Policies Institute. But then their teacher, Will Colglazier, demonstrated how a couple more exploratory clicks—critically, beyond the site itself—revealed that the Employment Policies Institute is considered by the Center for Media and Democracy to be a front group created by lobbyists for the restaurant and hotel industries. “I have some bright students, and a lot of them felt chagrined that they weren’t able to deduce this,” said Colglazier, who videotaped the episode last January. Or, as one student put it, loudly, “fudge nuggets!” “This isn’t just a problem with kids,” said Wineburg.
A Closer Look: Beware of Photos Bearing False Captions | Picture This: Library of Congress Prints & Photos When working with historical photo collections, it always pays to ask yourself: Does the title match the content? The original photographers sometimes mixed up dates and places, or misspelled words and omitted key info — just like you or I might. Glancing at this pair of photographs, they seem to show the same scene. But the titles etched into the original glass negatives tell conflicting stories. (Spoiler alert: Don’t click on the photos to see their catalog records yet or you’ll get the answer early!) Original caption: Suffragettes, Union Sq., May 2, 1914. Original caption: Union Sq., 5/1/14. So, which caption is most accurate? The now-demolished cottage confirms this is Union Square in New York City. Detail of //hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ggbain.16486 I zoomed in even closer to check for visual clues like signs. With two potential dates to consider, I turned to the New York Times newspaper archive, which clarified the cause of the conflicting captions. Learn More:
Fake News Or Real? How To Self-Check The News And Get The Facts : All Tech Considered Guido Rosa/Getty Images/Ikon Images Fake news stories can have real-life consequences. On Sunday, police said a man with a rifle who claimed to be "self-investigating" a baseless online conspiracy theory entered a Washington, D.C., pizzeria and fired the weapon inside the restaurant. So, yes, fake news is a big problem. These stories have gotten a lot of attention, with headlines claiming Pope Francis endorsed Donald Trump in November's election and sites like American News sharing misleading stories or taking quotes out of context. Stopping the proliferation of fake news isn't just the responsibility of the platforms used to spread it. The idea is that people should have a fundamental sense of media literacy. Sam Wineburg, a professor of education and history at Stanford and the lead author of the study, said a solution is for all readers to read like fact checkers. That's the framework for professionals, but there are ways for everyone to do a bit of fact checking themselves.
The Book Chook: Help Kids Detect Fake News by Susan Stephenson, www.thebookchook.com “Fake news” is a term that has exploded in popularity recently. It is often used to describe articles and memes that have been deliberately fabricated to manipulate opinion or misinform. Many educators prefer to concentrate on developing critical media literacy skills in students rather than buying into a debate over whether news is fake or not. However, I want the title of my article today to reflect what people may use in a Search. Librarians and teacher librarians are experts in helping kids detect and avoid fakery so be sure to ask them for help. Tips for Detecting Fake News * How does the website look? * Does the story push only one idea, and is that idea wacky? * Does the story have poor spelling and overdone punctuation? * Dig deeper. * Investigate the author. * Get past the headline. * Check out the links and sources. * Check any dates. * Did the story start out as a joke or satire? * Are you biased? More Resources SaveSave
How Photos Fuel the Spread of Fake News Even rudimentary skills aren't required to create, say, a meme of Seddique Mateen, whose son Omar Mateen fatally shot 48 people at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, that allegedly shows him visiting Hillary Clinton’s office at the State Department this year. Never mind that Clinton resigned from the job three years before. Photos play a key role in making fake news stories go viral by bolstering the emotional tenor of the lie. They elicit an emotional response, which makes it far more likely that someone will click the link, then share it. Such images can reinforce existing prejudices. These dirty tricks work because most people believe a photograph represents reality. Makela's photo of Clinton shows how insidious, and easy, it has become to use photos to sell a lie. This works to the advantage of those who sell lies as truth, knowing that people believe what they see—and see what they believe.
How to Spot Fake News Fake news is nothing new. But bogus stories can reach more people more quickly via social media than what good old-fashioned viral emails could accomplish in years past. Concern about the phenomenon led Facebook and Google to announce that they’ll crack down on fake news sites, restricting their ability to garner ad revenue. Perhaps that could dissipate the amount of malarkey online, though news consumers themselves are the best defense against the spread of misinformation. Not all of the misinformation being passed along online is complete fiction, though some of it is. A lot of these viral claims aren’t “news” at all, but fiction, satire and efforts to fool readers into thinking they’re for real. We’ve long encouraged readers to be skeptical of viral claims, and make good use of the delete key when a chain email hits their inboxes. In 2008, we tried to get readers to rid their inboxes of this kind of garbage. Here’s our advice on how to spot a fake: Consider the source. Check the date.
Boilerplate’s Origins | Big Red Hair Paul came up with the concept for Boilerplate years before the robot appeared in our books. Initially, he thought about using it in a graphic novel. That evolved into the idea of telling the robot’s story in a more “realistic” way, illustrated by doctored photographs and set against world history as a backdrop. In the year 2000, which for so long sounded like the future but is now in the past, Paul decided to post some robot stories on our website. Not, contrary to some accounts, as a book pitch—he did it just for fun. Those early Boilerplate stories were published as interstitial material in our graphic novel Heartbreakers Meet Boilerplate. Eventually, we did put together a book proposal and landed with Abrams Books.
Battling Fake News in the Classroom In this post-election period, there has been a lot of discussion about fake news, particularly about how it is spread and shared online, and whether it influenced the recent presidential election. On November 22, Stanford University released an influential study showing that middle and high school students—and even some in college—have trouble distinguishing which online resources are credible. The inescapable fact is that young people need to be prepared for the Wild West of information that they live in and will grow up in. It is also imperative that we, as educators, prepare young people for the important job of responsible and informed citizenship. Media Literacy and “Crap Detection” Teaching media literacy is not new, but with the explosion of social media and the lightning speeds at which information is shared, critical evaluation skills have never been more important. The Role of Educators So how can educators address this emerging crisis in digital literacy? What’s Next?
Can You Tell Fake News From Real? Study Finds Students Have 'Dismaying' Inability Stanford researchers assessed students from middle school to college and found they struggled to distinguish ads from articles, neutral sources from biased ones and fake accounts from real ones. Gary Waters/Ikon Images/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Gary Waters/Ikon Images/Getty Images Stanford researchers assessed students from middle school to college and found they struggled to distinguish ads from articles, neutral sources from biased ones and fake accounts from real ones. If the children are the future, the future might be very ill-informed. That's one implication of a new study from Stanford researchers that evaluated students' ability to assess information sources and described the results as "dismaying," "bleak" and "[a] threat to democracy." As content creators and social media platforms grapple with the fake news crisis, the study highlights the other side of the equation: What it looks like when readers are duped. "The photograph had no attribution.
After Comet Ping Pong and Pizzagate, teachers tackle fake news History teacher Chris Dier was in the middle of a lesson last week at Chalmette High School in Chalmette, La., when a student made a befuddling inquiry: “He raised his hand and asked if I knew about Hillary Clinton using pizza places to traffic people.” About a thousand miles away at Wilson High School in Northwest Washington, distressed students in teacher Eden McCauslin’s history and government classes asked why a North Carolina man armed with an assault rifle had appeared at their local pizza shop, Comet Ping Pong, telling police that he wanted to free child sex slaves he believed to be harbored there, a false narrative conspiracy theorists have pushed on the Internet. [Pizzagate: From rumor, to hashtag, to gunfire in D.C.] Hoaxes, fake news and conspiracy theories have abounded on the Web, spreading with increasing speed and intensity during the recent presidential election cycle. As the Comet Ping Pong incident displayed, such false accounts can inspire very real consequences. local
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