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Evaluate: Assessing Your Research Process and Findings – The Information Literacy User’s Guide: An Open, Online Textbook Introduction In 2010, a textbook being used in fourth grade classrooms in Virginia became big news for all the wrong reasons. The book, Our Virginia by Joy Masoff, had caught the attention of a parent who was helping her child do her homework, according to an article in The Washington Post. Democracy without Journalism?: Confronting the Misinformation Society - Oxford Scholarship Abstract Democracy without Journalism? is about the ongoing journalism crisis and the policies we need to confront it. It exposes the historical roots, market failures, and policy inaction that led to the loss of local journalism and the proliferation of misinformation through both social media and mainstream news.

Emily Bell thinks public service media today has its most important role to play since World War II The ability of the media to secure democracy is being challenged by great disruptions: ad funding doesn’t work that well anymore and large, non-transparent platforms are increasingly central in our information flow. Emily Bell, director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia, thinks public service media may be about to play its most important role since World War II. Facebook and Google have taken over not only an increasing share of the attention, but also much of the ad market. This has taken away another large chunk of the revenue that supports journalism, following classified ads in the unbundling of the business model that once made newspapers a thriving business. The rise of subscription models and paywalls has begun to inject fresh money in some media houses, but those who aren’t subscribing to journalistic media could be left worse off.

Truth, truthiness, triangulation: A news literacy toolkit for a “post-truth” world We were guaranteed a free press, We were not guaranteed a neutral or a true press. We can celebrate the journalistic freedom to publish without interference from the state. We can also celebrate our freedom to share multiple stories through multiple lenses. But it has always been up to the reader or viewer to make the reliability and credibility decisions. It is up to the reader or viewer to negotiate truth. Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics - Oxford Scholarship Abstract This book examines the shape, composition, and practices of the United States political media landscape. It explores the roots of the current epistemic crisis in political communication with a focus on the remarkable 2016 U.S. president election culminating in the victory of Donald Trump and the first year of his presidency. The authors present a detailed map of the American political media landscape based on the analysis of millions of stories and social media posts, revealing a highly polarized and asymmetric media ecosystem. Detailed case studies track the emergence and propagation of disin ... More

theconversation Facebook has had a bad few weeks. The social media giant had to apologise for failing to protect the personal data of millions of users from being accessed by data mining company Cambridge Analytica. Outrage is brewing over its admission to spying on people via their Android phones. Its stock price plummeted, while millions deleted their accounts in disgust. Facebook has also faced scrutiny over its failure to prevent the spread of “fake news” on its platforms, including via an apparent orchestrated Russian propaganda effort to influence the 2016 US presidential election. Bias News - Evaluating News - LibGuides at University of South Carolina Upstate Hyperpartisan - Websites, Facebook Pages, and Social Media Accounts These are websites, social media pages, or accounts designed to spread information presented through a highly partisan, biased lens. Hyperpartisan websites or Facebook pages may share a combination of fake news and partisan content (misleading stories, partisan memes and videos, et cetera) that is not considered fake news, but could still contain misleading or out-of-context information designed to confirm a particular ideological view. Hyperpartisan pages and accounts are often fake news purveyors that generate shares and clicks in order to either push a particular political view or profit from user engagement on social media platforms. Misleading Information Misleading or out-of-context information does not on its own constitute fake news.

Why We're Polarized by Ezra Klein “The American political system—which includes everyone from voters to journalists to the president—is full of rational actors making rational decisions given the incentives they face,” writes political analyst Ezra Klein. “We are a collection of functional parts whose efforts combine into a dysfunctional whole.” In this book, Klein reveals the structural and psychological forces behind America’s descent into division and dysfunction. Neither a polemic nor a lament, Klein offers a clear framework for understanding everything from Trump’s rise to the Democratic Party’s leftward shift to the politicization of everyday culture. America is polarized, first and foremost, by identity. Seven glaring holes in Mark Zuckerberg’s House of Representatves testimony The time has come: Mark Zuckerberg, the 33-year-old CEO of Facebook, not known for his public speaking skills, is finally facing Congress, where he is sure to hear some tough questions and admonishments from lawmakers. Members of three Congressional committees summoned Zuckerberg after the latest scandal to hit his company, in which the shadowy political consultant Cambridge Analytica obtained information of up to 87 million users without their permission. But they’ll also likely grill him on Russian meddling on the platform during the 2016 election, and the spread of disinformation. What they’ll ask him

Fact-Check It: Digital Tools to Verify Everything Online - Poynter Over the past few years, misinformation has exploded online. Hoaxes go viral on social media after most breaking news events, manipulated videos dupe internet users into sharing them and fake news sites publish fabricated stories and cash in on the traffic. But as the amount of fakery on the internet has expanded, so too have tools that help users verify information. Fact-checking reporter Daniel Funke and digital tools reporter Ren LaForme will share some of the best tools, tips and methods for verifying information online.

Revealed: Facebook hate speech exploded in Myanmar during Rohingya crisis Hate speech exploded on Facebook at the start of the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar last year, analysis has revealed, with experts blaming the social network for creating “chaos” in the country. Evidence of the spike emerged after the platform was accused of playing a key role in the spread of hate speech in Myanmar at a time when 650,000 Rohingya refugees were forced to flee to Bangladesh following persecution. Digital researcher and analyst Raymond Serrato examined about 15,000 Facebook posts from supporters of the hardline nationalist Ma Ba Tha group. The earliest posts dated from June 2016 and spiked on 24 and 25 August 2017, when ARSA Rohingya militants attacked government forces, prompting the security forces to launch the “clearance operation” that sent hundreds of thousands of Rohingya pouring over the border. Serrato’s analysis showed that activity within the anti-Rohingya group, which has 55,000 members, exploded with posts registering a 200% increase in interactions.

NewseumED Are your students savvy searchers? Can they spot the difference between a straight news article and an opinion piece? Do they recognize bias in their sources … or in themselves? You are in one of Fact Finder: Your Foolproof Guide to Media Literacy’s 11 flexible, multimedia lesson plans to tackle these challenges. Free Online Course on Identifying Misinformation Is that photo of a shark swimming down a highway in Texas real? Is that story published on what looks like the website of a national broadcaster all as it seems? Is that Twitter account being quoted across the mass media legitimate – or is it a bot, troll or imposter? In the past three years, we’ve trained thousands of journalists to answer such questions – and many more. Similar skills and techniques allowed the Washington Post to scrutinize digital footprints and avoid falling victim to a hoax about Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore in November. They are the same that enabled Storyful to alert its media clients worldwide that the wrong person was being publicly blamed for a mass shooting.