Digital Literacy 2.0 : Misinformation/Fake News Online

In an era where claims of "fake news" abound and more people turn to social media for their daily updates, knowing how to find and critically appraise information is more important than ever. The workshop discussed in this article aims to provide college students with the news literacy needed to make educated decisions about the information they find online. Courses: This workshop is relevant for courses that address the evaluation of information, the value of different sources, the role played by personal biases, and the provenance of ideas, including Introduction to Communication, Public Speaking, Persuasive Communication, Health Communication, and Media Studies. Objectives: This activity aims to help students compare and contrast the different meanings of "fake news" and misinformation; identify the various biases that impact selection and interpretation of information; develop a set of guidelines with which to evaluate information quality; and apply evaluation guidelines to contemporary news items.

Misinformation causes serious harm, from sowing doubt in modern medicine to inciting violence. Older adults are especially susceptible—they shared the most fake news during the 2016 U.S. election. The most intuitive explanation for this pattern lays the blame on cognitive deficits. Although older adults forget where they learned information, fluency remains intact, and knowledge accumulated across decades helps them evaluate claims. Thus, cognitive declines cannot fully explain older adults’ engagement with fake news. Late adulthood also involves social changes, including greater trust, difficulty detecting lies, and less emphasis on accuracy when communicating. In addition, older adults are relative newcomers to social media and may struggle to spot sponsored content or manipulated images. In a post-truth world, interventions should account for older adults’ shifting social goals and gaps in their digital literacy. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved)

A persistent story about the 2016 US presidential election was the preponderance of fake news stories on social media, and on Facebook in particular, that had no basis in fact but were wholly concocted to quickly amass clicks that could be converted into advertising revenues. This study steps outside of arguments about the spread or efficacy of fake news to instead interrogate its symbolic dimensions and its meaning for both journalism and the larger system of political communication. To conceptualize the role of fake news as a particular symbol, this paper approaches the journalistic condemnation of fake news as an 'informational moral panic.' This concept builds off Cohen's classic formulation of moral panics as public anxiety that a particular social threat will lead to declining standards. The ability to define a phenomenon as an informational moral panic is an exercise in cultural power that ascribes deviancy to particular actors while validating others. In the case of fake news, the anxiety is not so much directed toward a particular group but aimed at the larger transformation of informational spaces made possible by social media. An examination of journalists' responses in the US press during November 2016 reveals four domains of focus ‒ production, platform, subsidy, and consumption – each with its own narratives of blame and remedy. Fake news becomes a particular signifier that condenses broader concerns surrounding the eroding boundaries of traditional journalistic channels, click-driven news, the extension of mediated voices, and the growing role of social media in news distribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

“Fake news” has emerged as a global buzzword. While prominent media outlets, such as The New York Times, CNN, and Buzzfeed News, have used the term to designate misleading information spread online, President Donald Trump has used the term as a negative designation of these very “mainstream media.” In this article, we argue that the concept of “fake news” has become an important component in contemporary political struggles. We showcase how the term is utilised by different positions within the social space as means of discrediting, attacking and delegitimising political opponents. Excavating three central moments within the construction of “fake news,” we argue that the term has increasingly become a “floating signifier”: a signifier lodged in-between different hegemonic projects seeking to provide an image of how society is and ought to be structured. By approaching “fake news” from the viewpoint of discourse theory, the paper reframes the current stakes of the debate and contributes with new insights into the function and consequences of “fake news” as a novel political category. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes a discussion-based approach for teaching college students to identify the characteristics of ethical journalism and scholarly writing, by comparing fake news with credible information in a strategically planned slideshow. Much has been written on the need to instruct our students about disinformation. This librarian shares a lesson plan that engages students' critical thinking skills by using a blend of humor, analysis, and a compelling visual presentation. The teaching method is contextualized by research on the distrust of the press and scientific evidence since the rise of hyper-partisan cable news, Russian troll farms, and alternative facts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, policy makers, scholars, and critics have increasingly warned about the dangers associated with fake news. In response, they have proposed numerous solutions to fake news, media literacy being one frequently mentioned. However, there is currently no agreed upon definition of fake news or its origins and practices. Scholars cannot develop effective pedagogy to address fake news without a deep understanding and firm definition of fake news. As a result, this study employs a criticalhistorical lens of a media ecosystem framework to define fake news. The data for this study came from three areas; an extensive review of scholarship in the Communication, History, Media Studies, and Media Education disciplines; newspaper and congressional archives; and news stories. My methodology identified the producers of fake news; the purpose behind the production of false or misleading content; the themes found in fake news content; and the consequences associated with the consumption of false and misleading information. The findings of this study serve as a foundational basis for the development of a critical news literacy program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thirty years ago, fake news was resigned to tabloids at the grocery store. Now, fake news is often more convincing than real news. Many library users lack the appropriate skills to discern between what is real and what is not, and many more get their information from social media memes. When memes are more effective than actual news, what can librarians do to teach information literacy? Librarians can use memes to promote information literacy; they can even create their own! [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Monadism and postmodernism have displaced utilitarian ethics and modernist cultural norms. Social media users' individual virtual spaces present personal desires as "truth." Interactions are experienced as discrete/disconnected moments. Thinking is done through highly individualized narratives, as if all content is for one's own entertainment, with no "real world" consequences attached to it. Clever postmodern playfulness through prosumerist appropriation and transformation of content from one meaning to another seems more important than intelligence for uniting people in a "post-truth" society. While freeing audiences from traditional media gatekeepers, challenging ideas are consumed with sarcasm, perpetuating/amplifying social problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]