Topic 1: News Diets
Questions to consider as you examine the following resources:
Begin by clicking on the link below to take a survey about your news diet.
Click on the link below to see how other teens answered the same questions.
Use the source below to discover how news diets differ among age, race, place, and how they change with as technology changes.
“Many Americans Get News on YouTube, Where News Organizations and Independent Producers Thrive Side by Side” (Pew Research Center).
A revealing new study from the Pew Research Center drives home just how central YouTube has become in many Americans’ news diets. About a quarter of U.S. adults turn to the video-sharing platform for news, but only about half of the news channels on YouTube are associated with established news organizations. According to the study, independent channels — or those without a clear affiliation with an organization — post much of the remaining news content. These channels are often personality-driven and more likely to cover conspiracy theories or approach subjects with a negative tone.
Topic 2: Understanding Our Biases
Questions to consider as you examine the following resources:
What is implicit bias?
Implicit bias is about embedded (but often invisible) ways of thinking that influence the way we interact with others. Prof. Dolly Chugh suggests that this "fog" of cloaked associations comes from sources such as media, news, conversations we hear at home, and our education.
NYT/POV's Saleem Reshamwala unscrews the lid on the unfair effects of our subconscious in this video below.
We all have implicit biases, but how do we recognize them?
Click below to take an Implicit Association Test.
OR Click on the All-Sides link to examine your biases.
Does this visual help you understand biases even better?
Topic 3: Fairness and Accuracy
Questions to consider as you examine the following resources:
It seems like any news report shared on Twitter or YouTube is inundated with "fake news" claims: comments calling out something for being "liberal propaganda" or "paid for by Russia." Most often these claims are just a way of dismissing facts or analysis that someone disagrees with.
The thing is, there are bigger, more harmful examples of bias and bad reportage. These rare but educational incidents get lost in the flurry of baseless "fake news" accusations. Case in point: Mark I. Pinsky at Poynter issued a powerful report on the shameful role Southern newspapers like the Orlando Sentinel and the Montgomery Advertiser played in normalizing and covering up injustice, racism, and violence against Black people in the decades following the Civil War, through the civil rights movement, and continuing today. Here we have an actual, high-stakes example of the news getting something wrong. It's important for us to examine cases like this -- and the political contexts surrounding them -- to build a more informed understanding of "fake news."
Read about a newspaper's shameful and racist past and consider what factors might influence how the news is covered today.
Montgomery Advertiser's apology for its coverage of lynchings. The newspaper was edited by a Confederate veteran who had a position of power and a vested interest in minimizing the damage of lynchings and blaming victims.
And then read the Poynter report below to learn more.
Topic 4: News Bubbles
Questions to consider as you examine the following resources:
The internet and social media give us tools to find out what’s happening almost instantly – sometimes even in real time. But how much can we trust the breaking news we see online? In this video, hear from two experts on the topic -- Renee DiResta and David Barstow -- as they break down some of the ins and outs of how we interpret the breaking news we see online.
Watch this video about getting unstuck.
Americans are stuck in social media news bubbles that block exposure to opposing points of view. Here you'll get concrete advice from leading media experts on how to break free and get fully informed. Narrated by Glynn Washington.
Have students view the We The Voters film “MediOcracy.” Think about where you get your news. How does “incestuous amplification” (selecting news sources to reinforce our own views) relate to you?
Note the playlist below:
TED Playlist: How to Pop Our Filter Bubbles
See 3 Resources for Comparing Perspectives in the News (next column) for more information)
Do we have a RESPONSIBILITY to verify information before sharing it?
Topic 5: Polarization
Questions to consider as you examine the following resources:
Watch: NLP’s Ebonee Rice describes red flag phrases that trigger emotions and help spread misinformation in a segment for Channel 9 in Tucson, Arizona.
The rapid rise of medical misinformation online is causing real harm and making us even more polarized, argue Julia Belluz and John Lavis in a recent New York Times opinion piece. Bogus health claims aren’t limited to Twitter, Facebook and YouTube — the “usual spaces” for sharing falsehoods. Medical misinformation also reaches huge audiences through streaming platforms such as Spotify — including Joe Rogan’s misleading COVID-19 claims on his popular podcast — and Netflix. It also appears in the form of dubious health products and books sold on e-commerce sites like Amazon. Fighting back against this prolific misinformation is no easy task. But the “best health bunk prevention of all,” the authors note, “may be education.”
One of the themes explored in the featured article is the power of feeling you’re part of an “ingroup” and the experience of a separate “nefarious outgroup.” The article says that one of the biggest causes for misinformation currently may be the “rise in social polarization.”
How relevant do you think social polarization is in your community? Do you feel as though you live in an area where people generally have the same political beliefs? Or do you feel you’re an outlier, politically, where you live?
To see how similar or different your community is politically, spend some time looking at the first section of the article “Do You Live in a Political Bubble?” Start by entering your home or school address to see the political party of the thousand voters closest to you. Then look closely at the bubble generated by the interactive: What do you notice and wonder about the political beliefs in your neighborhood?
Scroll down to see a map of the political demographics in a nearby community. How similar or different are they from where you live? What factors do you believe contribute to these demographics?
Now return to the questions above: How much of a role do you believe social polarization plays in your community? Do you think that the political bubble you live in contributes to the spread of misinformation in your area? Why or why not?
How can you fact-check what you're reading? Use these tools below!
HOW TO DO A REVERSE VIDEO OR IMAGE SEARCH
The MediaWise Teen Fact-Checking Network (TFCN) publishes daily fact-checks for teenagers, by teenagers. The program is a verified signatory of the International Fact-Checking Network’s code of principles.
Follow @MediaWise on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook
Source: CommonSense Media (sign in with Clever)
The Spot-The-Troll quiz is an educational tool to help the public learn to spot the markers of inauthenticity in social media accounts. Can you spot a troll?
Source: The Clemson University Media Forensics Hub presents:
Take the quiz to test whether you can sort fact from fiction related to COVID-19 information. The World Health Organization called the deluge of information and misinformation about the pandemic an “infodemic’ for good reason.
The best way for you to help reduce misinformation online is to avoid sharing it. But can you tell the difference between social media posts that are false or misleading and those that are credible?
Source: The News Literacy Project
The Bad News Game puts players in the position of the people who create manipulative news stories, and as such gain insight into the various tactics and methods used by ‘real’ fake news-mongers to spread their message.
Source:DROG (www.aboutbadnews.com),
Can you spot "fake news"? Try Factitious and find out! [Works on Firefox & Chrome only.]
Sources: JoLT & The American University Game Lab
Create Your Own Clickbait Headlines
Russia has a history of using disinformation to “justify” actions condemned by the international community. However, its recent efforts to fabricate a rationale for invading Ukraine were quickly debunked by open-source investigators. They used geolocation to disprove a claim about supposed Ukrainian saboteurs sneaking into Russia; heat-sensing satellite data to disprove Russian claims of an attack; and video analysis tools to show that footage of a purported act of sabotage included audio of explosions taken from a different video.
Will, Jada, Jaden and Willow Smith have disclosed personal details of their family life online. What are you willing and unwilling to post?
8h agoBy CALLIE HOLTERMANN
GET TO KNOW WHAT THE OTHER SIDE THINKS A website designed to open your mind by showing you what you‘re missing in current events, historic conflicts and classic debates due to filter bubbles.
ALLSIDES allows users to see different political perspectives is the same news stories. Stories are labeled as left, center, or right of the political spectrum.
GROUND NEWS allows users to see perspectives in news coverage based on political bias, time, and location.
Viral Rumor Rundown
2/28/2022
No, COVID-19 tests aren’t being used to collect human DNA
NO: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) did not say that human DNA was being collected through COVID-19 tests. YES: In a tweet on Feb. 16, the CDC said that “there’s a 10% chance” that swabs used in COVID-19 PCR tests end up “in a lab for genomic sequencing analysis” — a process used to analyze the genetic makeup of viruses and track the emergence of variants. YES: In a subsequent tweet the CDC clarified that the sequencing and analysis work is on the genome of the virus that causes COVID-19, not on human DNA.
NewsLit takeaway: Conspiratorial rumors about the government and private companies using COVID-19 tests to build collections of human DNA have circulated since at least late 2020. These previous viral falsehoods — along with people’s tendency to interpret information in ways that maintain rather than challenge their existing ideas and beliefs — likely led some vaccine deniers and others to see “proof” of these baseless suspicions in the wording of the CDC’s Feb. 16 tweet.
Photo of protesters getting shoved by police is from 2010, not the ‘Freedom Convoy’
NO: This photo does not show police shoving and kicking so-called Freedom Convoy protesters in Ottawa, Ontario, in 2022. YES: It is a photo of police attempting to clear a group of protesters during the G-20 summit in Toronto in June 2010. YES: Police in riot gear used force to clear some “Freedom Convoy” protesters in Ottawa on Feb. 19.
NewsLit takeaway: When major developments in a protest movement occur, supporters often seek out photos and video to share online to promote their cause. But some supporters go so far as to steal more dramatic visuals from other contexts to help their message go viral on social media. For example, purveyors of disinformation often seek out old photos and video of large crowds — at other protests, but also at nonpolitical events like music festivals and sports team rallies — to inflate the degree of grassroots support for a cause. This particular rumor is aimed at a different approach: exaggerating the degree or intensity of opposition to garner sympathy. Because these visuals are generally powerful, and typically align with actual events, they are often readily accepted by other supporters online. This is another reminder to double-check the authenticity of photos and videos of controversial events from sources you don’t recognize online.
Anti-mask message on BBQ restaurant sign is fake
NO: This is not an authentic photo of the sign for Little Pigs barbecue restaurant in Asheville, North Carolina. YES: The message has been artificially created using an online fake sign generator.
NewsLit takeaway: Provocative signs are optimized to go viral on social media; they’re pithy, visual and easy to process at a glance. But they’re also often fake. Almost any text in photos is easy to manipulate using basic editing software, but the altered photo in this example was particularly simple to make using a fake sign generator website. This same photo — with the exact same background and details — can be found online with a variety of different messages, including a derogatory anti-Muslim statement and a message mocking then-President Donald Trump.
Omaha Public Schools does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, marital status, sexual orientation, disability, age, genetic information, citizenship status, or economic status in its programs, activities and employment and provides equal access to the Boy Scouts and other designated youth groups. The following individual has been designated to address inquiries regarding the non-discrimination policies: Superintendent of Schools, 3215 Cuming Street, Omaha, NE 68131 (531-299-9822).
Las Escuelas Públicas de Omaha no discriminan basados en la raza, color, origen nacional, religión, sexo, estado civil, orientación sexual, discapacidad , edad, información genética, estado de ciudadanía, o estado económico, en sus programas, actividades y empleo, y provee acceso equitativo a los “Boy Scouts” y a otros grupos juveniles designados. La siguiente persona ha sido designada para atender estas inquietudes referentes a las pólizas de no discriminación: El Superintendente de las Escuelas, 3215 Cuming Street, Omaha, NE 68131 (531-299-9822).
