It’s Media Literacy Week, so we are devoting today’s Student Opinion prompt and our Lesson of the Day to the role of misinformation, disinformation and “fake news” in our society.
Lesson Overview
Featured Article: “How to Deal With a Crisis of Misinformation” by Brian X. Chen
In this lesson, you will first think about your own relationship to consuming and sharing information. Next, via the related article, you’ll learn about practical techniques like lateral reading that can help you think critically about what you see, hear and read. Finally, you can choose from several activities around creating a healthier “news diet” for yourself and examining your generation’s ability to distinguish reliable from unreliable information in general.
Warm Up
What political memes have you seen lately? Have you shared any? Tell the truth: Before you shared, did you slow down, pause and ask yourself, “Am I sure enough about this that I should share it?”
If you didn’t, you’re hardly alone, but in the article you’re about to read, Peter Adams, a senior vice president of the News Literacy Project, a media education nonprofit, points out, “If everybody did that, we’d see a dramatic reduction of misinformation online.”
Now take a quick look at something else you’ll read about in this article — the website Lead Stories. Scroll through the Fact Check articles posted in the last few days.
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How many of these are stories you have come across yourself, whether on social media, in conversation with friends and family, or any other way?
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Did you believe them when you heard about them? Did you share any?
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If you hadn’t heard about these until now, do any seem plausible to you? Which and why?
Questions for Writing and Discussion
Read the article, then answer the following questions:
1. What is the “disease that has been spreading for years now” and why is it so harmful?
2. How, according to Alan Duke, has misinformation changed in recent years? Why is the meme probably the most dangerous? What example does he give?
3. What has a group of teenagers who regularly track false information for the Poynter Institute noticed? How and why is misinformation creeping into videos?
4. What reasons does the author give for why “false news is bad news for all of us”? Can you think of any other reasons?
5. What is lateral reading, and how do you do it? How does it work with images? With videos? Are you likely to try it on your own? If so, give an example of when and how you might try it.
6. Why is mainstream media more trustworthy than user-generated content, even if nothing is perfect? What set of publications do you trust?
7. What examples does this article give of dangerous conspiracy theories? Have you come across any of them? Now that you have read this piece, how might you fact-check them?
Going Further
Option 1: Answer our Student Opinion question, “Should Media Literacy Be a Required Course in School?”
We ask: Can your generation distinguish reliable from unreliable information on the internet? How much do you think that matters? Tell us what you think.
Option 2: Who is more vulnerable to misinformation — older adults or teenagers?
The Times has reported that Americans under 25 are most likely to believe coronavirus-related misinformation about the severity of the disease and how it originated.
In a survey of 21,196 people in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, researchers identified a clear generational divide. Respondents 18 to 24 had an 18 percent probability of believing a false claim, compared with 9 percent for those over 65, according to the study, conducted by researchers from Harvard University, Rutgers University, Northeastern University and Northwestern University.
Yet The Times has also reported that older people are more likely to share false news articles on social media:
Consider what happened in 2016 on Facebook, the platform that adults over 65 are most likely to use. Researchers from Princeton and New York University determined that sharing articles from “fake news” sources — outlets that propagate false or misleading content masquerading as legitimate news — was rare.
But those who did engage with such outlets were far more likely to be older than 65. That cohort shared twice as many articles from phony sites as 45- to 65-year-olds and nearly seven times as many articles as the youngest group.
What do you make of this? Read both pieces, then ask yourself, what might make older people particularly susceptible to “fake news” shared on social media? What might make young people particularly susceptible to misinformation on the internet?
Now imagine if you were in charge of designing a program to match teenagers and older adults to attack the problem of misinformation together. What knowledge, information or skills might older adults be able to offer teenagers? What knowledge, information or skills might teenagers be able to offer older adults? Could each group make up for the other’s vulnerabilities? How could you make a program like this rewarding and interesting for both groups?
Option 3: Take our News Diet Challenge.
The article you just read advises you to “choose your news carefully.” A few years ago, we invited teenagers to do just that, by improving their news diets with a three-step challenge. The video above is by one of the winners.
Scroll through the list of things we learned that year — 2017 — and reflect on how many are still true for you, your friends or classmates today. Then, consider taking the news diet challenge yourself, either by doing all three steps or by tailoring it to your current needs.
About Lesson of the Day
• Find all our Lessons of the Day in this column.
• Teachers, watch our on-demand webinar to learn how to use this feature in your classroom.
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October 26, 2020 at 03:00PM
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Lesson of the Day: ‘How to Deal With a Crisis of Misinformation’ - The New York Times
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