Media Literacy and Fake News (1 Viewer)

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    Ayo

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    The Canadian Journalism Federation is taking fake news very seriously. I've worked with media literacy for years, and this is - to date - the most expansively public approach that I've seen, in advance of the Federal Election.


    If you are engaged online, you have likely been subjected to something that was not true, and yet there isn't much pursuit in trying to determine factual accuracy of the articles and information. And most of us - probably every single one of us here - have fallen for it.

    Recent polling by Ipsos, Earnscliffe Strategy Group and MIT researchers suggests nearly all Canadians have come across misinformation online, yet only 40 per cent feel they know how to differentiate between fake news and the real thing.

    The polls also found 90 per cent of Canadians admitted to falling for fake news in the past, and only a third of them regularly check to see if the stories they’re consuming are legitimate.

    I don't think that their approach is going to be enough. I think the most effective utility it will have is bringing awareness. But fuller approaches to media literacy are going to be necessary to combat the deluge of increasingly deceptive media. These are hard skills that can be learned, but with the advent of new 'deep fake' technology, media literacy is going to have adapt, too.

    I would like to see greater emphasis on media literacy in the US. Because even though this statement is for the Canadian audience, it definitely - maybe even more so - applies to the US where news is more infotainment and sensationalized than it is up here:
    “To be an engaged citizen, you have to have access to quality journalism… you have to understand what is quality journalism and what is not,” said Richard Gingras, vice-president of Google News.

    Another source includes one approach - the SPOT approach: https://www.manitoulin.ca/news-media-canada-launches-new-tool-to-help-people-spot-fake-news/

    SPOT is an acronym that acts as a simple way to remember the four principles of identifying misinformation. It works like this:
    S: Is this a credible source? Check the source of the article—and be skeptical.
    P: Is the perspective biased? Think critically and look for varying viewpoints on an issue.
    O: Are other sources reporting the same story? Be your own fact-checker and verify the validity of the story.
    T: Is the story timely? Check the date the story was published—sometimes, stories use old information to take advantage of a timely occurrence.

    It's obviously not enough, but a decent start.
     
    I don't think teaching kids to see racism in everything and constantly search for ways that they have been oppressed is healthy for society or the individuals. It's a risky experiment some are playing.
    would you want kids taught to see racism where it does exist and the pernicious effect it has had on both the enforcers and victims of that racism?
     
    would you want kids taught to see racism where it does exist and the pernicious effect it has had on both the enforcers and victims of that racism?

    Not if it is being taught by people who think that the practice of math is a racial issue.
     
    Not if it is being taught by people who think that the practice of math is a racial issue.
    so you've determined that there is no racial component to the way math has ever been taught?
    in a 'media literacy' thread i can't imagine that you've arrived at that conclusion just by your own guesswork, so could you share the info you've sifted through to arrive at the determination you have?
     
    so you've determined that there is no racial component to the way math has ever been taught?
    in a 'media literacy' thread i can't imagine that you've arrived at that conclusion just by your own guesswork, so could you share the info you've sifted through to arrive at the determination you have?

    I think I have spent less time seeking to discover how someone might perceive that the practice of math oppresses people than you are imagining. Maybe you can persuade me.
     
    Sorry - didn't mean to derail my own thread. I was bouncing something off what JE brought up, when it comes to creativity and how it can be fostered and how creativity can be something to push back against what he called "certainty"

    Because I think that notion of 'certainty' operates against a healthy skepticism, which is critical to media literacy. It wasn't meant to be anti-STEM (not at all, and this would be very apparent with regard to where I work) but rather pro-critical thought which is something found in humanities, too. And that the humanities are generally the disciplines where media literacy is taught and fostered, and another reason why I think they shouldn't be dismissed.

    We need to be less 'certain' and more interrogative as we wade through media messages and equip kids with the tools to be engage critically and that some fixed 'certainty' isn't really the goal.

    And I think JE is onto something when he says that high stakes standardized testing can have an abstract effect on how students view certainty/authority as well as practical impact on how and what is actually able to be taught.

    Maybe I could have made those links clearer and how I was connecting those points with regard to the thread.
    I don't think the STEM conversation derailed the thread and wasn't implying that it did. It has a natural connection to teaching media literacy. The foundation of media literacy is critical thinking and analysis. Humanities teaches and develops those skills more than most STEM curricula. I think media literacy falls under humanities, so comparing humanties to STEM is a complimentary discussion to media literacy.

    Raising the issue of race in a school's curriculum is another discussion altogether. Since all discussions involving race are highly charged, introducing race into any discussion ends up derailing the thread into a discussion about race. It's already happening in this thread even though I politely asked people to start a new thread and take the discussion there.

    Also, you started this thread so if you derail it, then it's all on you, brother.
     
    This is going to be sort of "out there" but it is something I have been thinking about lately and a message board probably isn;t the best place to try and discuss but here goes:

    There is a bias that rns through almost the entirety of our information due to:
    1. There really are actually very few primary sources of reporting on news and events; and
    2. The people writing about these events are basically all from the same "caste" In what might be an outdated term they might be called the " 'liberal' bourgeoisie" or something to that effect.
    The owners of media capital and to some extent, their consumers, demand it.
    A long time ago I used to study South Asian history/philosophy and was interested in Indian Materialism - but quickly found that there were virtually no source material from the materialists themselves. The reason being that the Brahmins were the ones that wrote things and controlled the flow of information, for the most part. And they were vehemently opposed to materialism and hence all you really have today is their criticism of the movement.

    While I don;t think its as drastic as that - there is and almost always has been something similar with the flow of information in this country. Even its recognition, imo, spells a certain bias - given that is exactly what this "caste" is concerned with.

    In some ways, or perhaps many, this is sort of a Marxist way of looking at the media. And what is odd, is I think that when peeling back all the political manipulation of the term there is an intuitive sense of this when people talk about "media elites" and stuff like that.
    Rel fact-checking of that sphere would have to be totally outside of it. I am not sure what that exactly means, though.

    I'm still thinking about this, JE. Fwiw, I really enjoy it when you're thinking 'out there' because it prompts interesting questions. In this case, I understand your point and it's well taken. We're supposed to interrogate something when (1) there are few ways to actually get at the incident in question and (2) we're supposed to do it within a frame circumscribed by the very thing we're supposed to be interrogating. We need to get outside of it.

    I think that's a totally fair point.

    My response, half-formed though it might be right now, would be to offer a couple of things.

    First, the very notion of 'media.' In the middle. To sit between. So, we have this entity that exists between us and a particular, covered incident somewhere away from us. There are only so many ways for that to happen. I know people like to lament 'social media' writ large, but it has been pretty impactful with how news has been covered and how we get those images.

    I think this has operated to interrupt the traditional paradigm of Professional Journalist with Professional Cameracrew reporting from Place A through Network B into your living room by Broadcaster X.

    It goes without saying that this, too, is not without its perils.

    We saw, for example, with Andy Ngo's 'first person' coverage in the northwest a few weeks ago. Phone camera taking footage but also it was then edited, in deliberate and calculated fashion, to support an agenda. But we saw through that because another person had a camera.

    This is absolutely crucial in media literacy now - the implicit faith we have in these so-called 'firsthand account.' In law enforcement, it's played a huge role.

    Prior to the phone, we had nightly local news to cover events and these sources, for a long while, racially broadcast and emphasized stories and produced/mediated stories in order to capitalize on the paranoia of the 'dangerous black man' and law enforcement was put in place to stop them. Well, now we realize that it was never this easy.

    So, what else is there to interrupt or disrupt this nature of reporting? I don't know. But I agree that it is an area of concern.

    That brings me to my second point which is that even despite this, when it comes to print and visual media, there are all sorts of rhetorical devices and manipulative strategies that writers and producers can employ to deviously trick their readers/viewers. Many of these are not now, but might have a new variation adapted for evolving media.

    These are concrete, specific things that people/students can be oriented to so that they can be identified, concretely, and evaluated more thoroughly. We see some of them in message boards. Glittering generalities, essentializing, ad hominem, non sequiturs, red herrings, and so on. Even if a 'production' exists within the media's perpetual circle, it can still be deconstructed along these lines many times. And the results can help us understand if we are being deliberately misled.

    Sometimes, this is savvy enough we can't. And even when done poorly, people can get caught. Moreover, I don't think the goal is to catch everything, but rather to increase the general ability to identify these things so that we aren't so prone to believing things that are objectively, demonstrably untrue and designed to inflame division and antagonize divisively.

    Thus, I think we have a ways to go before we actually need to fully consider the implications of the conundrum you illustrate above.

    And that last people about division brings me to my final point.

    I started to think about why this was so important to me. I mean, I'd obviously thought about it for years, but what was my root issue - at least right now - and has to do, I think, with the essentializing and totalizing that much of media contributes to. That is, somebody from Group A in Place B coming to know about Person Y and Place Z. Without direct, authentic contact we rely on these reports and these things can demonize, rather than humanize, people different from us.

    And that becomes an impediment to empathy. But even before we get to that point, it makes it easy for us to be divided and manipulated. Empower ignorance. Stoke fear. Prey on paranoia. All to make some Other seem more dangerous, more threatening than they are. Make them or their society less civilized, more savage, less deserving of our consideration and less worthy of something like citizenship or refuge. Make it seem like they are worthy of going to war against. And so on.

    For me, a root cause is this essentializing. If a person is Someone from Group X over yonder from Place Y, then *I KNOW FOR A FACT THAT THEY MUST BE LIKE THIS!*

    That's incredibly dangerous. And media is being employed to that specific end.

    I think, right now, that's where my passion for this comes from.

    I have no delusions that anyone made it this far, though, lol
     
    Last edited:
    Raising the issue of race in a school's curriculum is another discussion altogether. Since all discussions involving race are highly charged, introducing race into any discussion ends up derailing the thread into a discussion about race. It's already happening in this thread even though I politely asked people to start a new thread and take the discussion there.

    Thanks for the clarification.

    I'm not all that interested in a discussion on race in school and curricula for this topic, unless it's related to media literacy. Liberties were taken with my reference to the 'liberal cabal' but that was explicitly directed to the metonymical associations between media and a 'liberal agenda'

    of course, the reality is that in a lot of schools that are very conservative, media literacy would - then - run the risk of being too conservative in nature. I've taught in schools like that. Schools where FOX News was played on all of the TVs in classrooms and CNN was anathema. So if we're going to wring hands, then we should do so more equitably. If, that is, the concern is the principle.

    I've said before that I use media examples from left and right. Documentaries. News reports. Facts vs opinions. YouTube. Twitter. Etc. Online blogs. News paper articles. Long form essays. Academic articles. And so on.

    Where I am now is quite, quite conservative. In the last mock election, it was something like 70% voting Progressive Conservative (Canada's conservative party). Unhinged liberal rants would not really go over well and my credibility would, as a result, be compromised.

    That's all aside from the issues around race in curriculum, incl math and science.

    Whether it's Ben Shapiro's total bungling of the origin of Algebra. To the fact that a story like "Hidden Figures" exists. Or physical anthropological science that exists for hundreds of years to prove white supremacy - not that long ago, either, relatively speaking. To concepts around "race" and its relative fiction genetically (these are particularly enduring). To biases in standardized testing. To the lack of availability of a course like AP Physics in poor, black schools. To the school-to-prison pipeline. Segregation existed a lot longer in schools than it hasn't and we're moving toward resegregation in a lot of places. I don't think race is everywhere in education, but it's in a lot of places, and merits discussion.

    But I'm with you that it's for a different thread.
     
    I'm still thinking about this, JE. Fwiw, I really enjoy it when you're thinking 'out there' because it prompts interesting questions. In this case, I understand your point and it's well taken. We're supposed to interrogate something when (1) there are few ways to actually get at the incident in question and (2) we're supposed to do it within a frame circumscribed by the very thing we're supposed to be interrogating. We need to get outside of it.

    I think that's a totally fair point.

    My response, half-formed though it might be right now, would be to offer a couple of things.

    First, the very notion of 'media.' In the middle. To sit between. So, we have this entity that exists between us and a particular, covered incident somewhere away from us. There are only so many ways for that to happen. I know people like to lament 'social media' writ large, but it has been pretty impactful with how news has been covered and how we get those images.

    I think this has operated to interrupt the traditional paradigm of Professional Journalist with Professional Cameracrew reporting from Place A through Network B into your living room by Broadcaster X.

    It goes without saying that this, too, is not without its perils.

    We saw, for example, with Andy Ngo's 'first person' coverage in the northwest a few weeks ago. Phone camera taking footage but also it was then edited, in deliberate and calculated fashion, to support an agenda. But we saw through that because another person had a camera.

    This is absolutely crucial in media literacy now - the implicit faith we have in these so-called 'firsthand account.' In law enforcement, it's played a huge role.

    Prior to the phone, we had nightly local news to cover events and these sources, for a long while, racially broadcast and emphasized stories and produced/mediated stories in order to capitalize on the paranoia of the 'dangerous black man' and law enforcement was put in place to stop them. Well, now we realize that it was never this easy.

    So, what else is there to interrupt or disrupt this nature of reporting? I don't know. But I agree that it is an area of concern.

    That brings me to my second point which is that even despite this, when it comes to print and visual media, there are all sorts of rhetorical devices and manipulative strategies that writers and producers can employ to deviously trick their readers/viewers. Many of these are not now, but might have a new variation adapted for evolving media.

    These are concrete, specific things that people/students can be oriented to so that they can be identified, concretely, and evaluated more thoroughly. We see some of them in message boards. Glittering generalities, essentializing, ad hominem, non sequiturs, red herrings, and so on. Even if a 'production' exists within the media's perpetual circle, it can still be deconstructed along these lines many times. And the results can help us understand if we are being deliberately misled.

    Sometimes, this is savvy enough we can't. And even when done poorly, people can get caught. Moreover, I don't think the goal is to catch everything, but rather to increase the general ability to identify these things so that we aren't so prone to believing things that are objectively, demonstrably untrue and designed to inflame division and antagonize divisively.

    Thus, I think we have a ways to go before we actually need to fully consider the implications of the conundrum you illustrate above.

    And that last people about division brings me to my final point.

    I started to think about why this was so important to me. I mean, I'd obviously thought about it for years, but what was my root issue - at least right now - and has to do, I think, with the essentializing and totalizing that much of media contributes to. That is, somebody from Group A in Place B coming to know about Person Y and Place Z. Without direct, authentic contact we rely on these reports and these things can demonize, rather than humanize, people different from us.

    And that becomes an impediment to empathy. But even before we get to that point, it makes it easy for us to be divided and manipulated. Empower ignorance. Stoke fear. Prey on paranoia. All to make some Other seem more dangerous, more threatening than they are. Make them or their society less civilized, more savage, less deserving of our consideration and less worthy of something like citizenship or refuge. Make it seem like they are worthy of going to war against. And so on.

    For me, a root cause is this essentializing. If a person is Someone from Group X over yonder from Place Y, then *I KNOW FOR A FACT THAT THEY MUST BE LIKE THIS!*

    That's incredibly dangerous. And media is being employed to that specific end.

    I think, right now, that's where my passion for this comes from.

    I have no delusions that anyone made it this far, though, lol
    Malcolm Gladwell has been talking a lot lately about our innate trust default - that our species does a very poor job of picking out lies
    Obviously this supports the idea of a need for media literacy

    And obviously there should be professional standards as well. ‘Science’ is typically the closest thing we have to ‘objectivity’, but good science recognizes human bias in observation and data collection, and thus has put in levels of peer review- but we have seen the limits of that system
    Maybe social media needs to have some gatekeeping about only labeling something ‘news’ if it comes from an organization with strong/independent ombudsman

    Then more individually we need to keep encouraging doubt as a much more important state of mind than certainty
    At least I think it should be... now I’m not sure...
     
    I think I have spent less time seeking to discover how someone might perceive that the practice of math oppresses people than you are imagining. Maybe you can persuade me.
    But I’m not making the argument ‘for’ I have not studied that material, so I have no idea if they can support their premise
    I do know that similar things have been shown about racial exclusion in humanities
    We also know that the practice of medicine has been highly racialized, so it could follow that the teaching of it is probably similar
    So it’s not too much of a stretch to think math would be subject to the same biases other subjects are/have been
    But
    tbc
    As per our responses I was pointing out that
    1. He pdf you posted did not indicate what you implied
    2. You have not posited or supported any theory about why the idea of ethnic studies math is invalid
     
    Here is a good one for ABC...



    yikes... 2017 footage from a Kentucky gun range. Wonder what that vetting process was. A source with a source.

    ABC News is conducting an investigation into the matter, according to a source, who said that the video was obtained from a reliable source on the ground but that it was difficult to verify because of border and security concerns.

    What border? What security concerns? Hatfields and McCoys?
     
    yikes... 2017 footage from a Kentucky gun range. Wonder what that vetting process was. A source with a source.

    I don't think this was a mess up but intentional and they got caught. You can tell from their footage they darkened it and made it a bit more grainy. Not only making it more foreboding but to try and mask it from the original source. They also removed quite a bit of the bottom of the video, or zoomed in so you cannot see the crowds watching it.
     
    I don't think this was a mess up but intentional and they got caught. You can tell from their footage they darkened it and made it a bit more grainy. Not only making it more foreboding but to try and mask it from the original source. They also removed quite a bit of the bottom of the video, or zoomed in so you cannot see the crowds watching it.

    Yea, this is only ok if you make it really clear you're using stock footage. It's pushing fearmongering like this.
     
    I don't think this was a mess up but intentional and they got caught. You can tell from their footage they darkened it and made it a bit more grainy. Not only making it more foreboding but to try and mask it from the original source. They also removed quite a bit of the bottom of the video, or zoomed in so you cannot see the crowds watching it.

    the phones with the screens are an obvious cut. I assumed the “source” did that - the editing and post production.
     
    So, the clip on YouTube could use some explanation, it’s not clear to me exactly what appeared on the newscast.

    I wish it had been done more explicitly so we can see what was used, and then see that beside the original.

    I bet someone will lose their job at ABC over this. And rightfully so.
     
    So, the clip on YouTube could use some explanation, it’s not clear to me exactly what appeared on the newscast.

    I wish it had been done more explicitly so we can see what was used, and then see that beside the original.

    I bet someone will lose their job at ABC over this. And rightfully so.

    I understand wanting to see the side by side - I just did a search and found a side by side on twitter @polishpatriotTM.

    Someone should be fired - but it doesn't stop there. Although ABC apologized on twitter, they made no mention of the "error" on their evening news.

    IMO, failing to acknowledge that as publicly as possible, or at least on the same medium it was published, is arguably worse than the original sin.

    They may have been duped initially, but there is absolutely no excuse for not making a good faith effort to inform their viewers that they put out bad info.
     
    This ABC situation actually illustrates something I was going to bring up in this thread. Members of the public noticed something off, and alerted ABC, then ABC retracted, apologized, and is investigating. I sure would be, they probably paid good money for that video thinking it was real.

    Ombudsman help keep news organizations honest and true to their readers/citizens. I recall discussions on the actual fake news (completely made up sites, stories, 100% fake), was to have a "consumer reports of media". Something non governmental, but with some clout.

    https://www.npr.org/sections/publiceditor/2006/01/31/5180984/does-an-ombudsman-do-any-good this is from 13 years ago.
     

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