Assign #8A Identifying and Fighting Fake News
Read all six articles on Fake News or that provide examples of Fake News.
From Headline to Photograph, a Fake News Masterpiece The New York Times
Click on article in Canvas under Files-NYTimes article Fake News
THE BIG IDEA: Research experiments conducted by social scientists
help illustrate why its so insidious for President Trump and his
congressional defenders to keep parroting the debunked
conspiracy theory, which originated with Russian intelligence agencies,
that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 U.S. election.
People who are repeatedly exposed to the same false information, even if
theyre initially told that it is false, feel fewer qualms sharing it on social media
after each additional time they see it. In five experiments involving more than
2,500 Americans, Daniel Effron, who teaches organizational behavior at the
London Business School, and Medha Raj, a PhD student at the University of
Southern California, documented how seeing a fake headline just once leads
individuals to temper their disapproval of the misinformation when they see it
a second, third or fourth time. They outline their findings in the new edition of
Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
The researchers asked online survey participants to rate how unethical or
acceptable they thought it would be to publish a fake headline, and how likely
they would be to like, share, block or unfollow the person who posted it.
Participants were much more prone to like or share headlines theyd seen
previously and less likely to block or unfollow the person who posted them,
even if they were warned the information was false. The results shows a
tendency of humans to misremember false headlines as true because theyve
seen them before. The researchers argue that repeating misinformation in the
echo chamber of something like social media lends it a ring of truthfulness
that can increase peoples tendency to give it a moral pass, regardless of
whether they believe it.
Misinformation can stoke political polarization and undermine democracy, so
it is important for people to understand when and why it spreads, said Effron.
3. Fake News 101: Who publishes fake stories and why do they do it?
4. Fake News 101: Why do we believe this stuff?
https://dynamicsofwriting.com/2020/10/06/fake-news-101-who-publishes-fake-stories-and-why-do-they-do-it/
5. How to spot and avoid spreading fake news
https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-opinion-fake-news-literacy-20200928-x5cn23oof5gwfmez63fy2gzpra-story.html?utm_medium=email&utm_source=nlp-oct-2020-newsletter&emci=bd19015c-3212-eb11-96f5-00155d03affc&emdi=4051270e-3815-eb11-96f5-00155d03bda0&ceid=8409401
6. The Sift- News Literacy Project
Viral rumor rundown
https://rumors.newslit.org/meme-comparing-gas-prices-uses-old-photos-out-of-context/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=gsan&utm_campaign=gsan-oct26-2021&emci=eec0d417-ca35-ec11-9820-c896653b26c8&emdi=68b24d04-6536-ec11-9820-c896653b26c8&ceid=8409401
related:
https://www.poynter.org/commentary/2021/covering-colin-powells-death-and-controversy-generated-by-one-fox-news-personality/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=gsan&utm_campaign=gsan-oct26-2021&emci=eec0d417-ca35-ec11-9820-c896653b26c8&emdi=68b24d04-6536-ec11-9820-c896653b26c8&ceid=8409401
https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/colin_powell_death_vaccines.php?utm_medium=email&utm_source=gsan&utm_campaign=gsan-oct26-2021&emci=eec0d417-ca35-ec11-9820-c896653b26c8&emdi=68b24d04-6536-ec11-9820-c896653b26c8&ceid=8409401
Answer the following 10 questions in complete sentences:
1. Why is it so easy for Fake News, Alternative Facts or Disinformation to exist and thrive in a democratic society?
2 .What is your role as a citizen and consumer of news to stop the spread of Fake News?
3. Provide an example of Fake News that you believed in a short paragraph with the details of the story.
4. Where did you find the Fake News story?
5. What did you do when you read/saw/heard the Fake News story-delete, share, other? Why?
6. Have you continued to get news from that same source?
7. Why is Fake News a threat to a democracy?
8. What would you say to someone who was telling you something that you new absolutely was Fake News? Would you challenge them? Would you ask them for the source of the information? Would you stay silent, go home and google the Fake News and send them a link to the actual facts?
9. What steps can you personally take to stop the spread of Fake News?
10. Earned Media, getting media to pick up your story and run it in their media outlet, helps brands because it acts a third part endorsement. Why is a distrust in media a problem for Public Relations? Will consumers trust and believe what they read in the press, see on the news, or read onlin?
