Communication Commons^™

Review, Democracy And Fake News: Information Manipulation And Post-Truth Politics, Peter Krapp

Secrecy and Society

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Developing Digital Detectives: Essential Lessons For Discerning Fact From Fiction In The ‘Fake News’ Era, Ashley Cooksey

Journal of Media Literacy Education

No abstract provided.

The Impact Of Media And Information Literacy On Students’ Acquisition Of The Skills Needed To Detect Fake News, Reem M. Al Zou'bi Dr.

Journal of Media Literacy Education

This research investigated the impact of media and information literacy (MIL) on education faculty students’ acquisition of the skills needed to detect fake news. A one-group experimental design was employed with a randomly selected sample of 100 Jordanian undergraduate students. The participants completed one pre-test and two post-tests, each of which consisted of 10 closed-ended questions and one open-ended question on how to detect fake news. The results indicated that studying MIL has an impact on students’ acquisition of the skills needed to detect fake news. The findings also suggested that the methods students employed to identify and detect fake …

Taking Corrective Action When Exposed To Fake News: The Role Of Fake News Literacy, Brigitte Huber, Porismita Borah, Homero Gil De Zúñiga

Journal of Media Literacy Education

Fake news poses a threat to democracy. The rise of social media and its lax content regulation have facilitated a dynamic environment where mis- and disinformation are spread. However, social media is also the place where false information may be corrected. Initial scholarly efforts begin to highlight what is needed for citizens to take corrective action when exposed to fake news on social media. This study is a further step in that direction by introducing the construct of ‘fake news media literacy’. Relying on survey data from the U.S. (N = 1338), we show that news media literacy in terms …

Measuring Fake News Acumen Using A News Media Literacy Instrument, Tyler W. S. Nagel

Journal of Media Literacy Education

News media literacy education is gaining increased attention in the age of fake news and post-truth America. However, as with any pedagogical goal, it is important to be able to evaluate the success of the delivery. In a survey built on existing news literacy frameworks, 1476 students at a large Canadian polytechnic answered questions about their own news literacy, fake news acumen, and news consumption habits. Analysis of the data suggests that conscientious fake-news attitudes and behaviors are correlated with an existing news media literacy scale, providing a method of evaluating the success of fake news education efforts.

Beyond ‘Fake News’: Opportunities And Constraints For Teaching News Literacy, Judith E. Rosenbaum, Jennifer L. Bonnet, R. Alan Berry

Journal of Media Literacy Education

Teaching news literacy has, in recent decades, become cross-disciplinary, and as a result, more collaborative. This paper centers the importance of this collaboration by describing a workshop designed and taught by a media studies professor, a media literacy expert, and their subject librarian. In this essay, we discuss the workshop in terms of best practices for teaching about media and information literacy in an era marked by digital news consumption and the proliferation of claims of “fake news.” First, we elaborate on the value of the collaboration between the discipline, the library, and the field, as it allowed us to …

Taking Corrective Action When Exposed To Fake News: The Role Of Fake News Literacy, Brigitte Huber, Porismita Borah, Homero Gil De Zúñiga

Journal of Media Literacy Education Pre-Prints

Fake news poses a threat to democracy. The rise of social media and its lax content regulation have facilitated a dynamic environment where mis- and disinformation are spread. However, social media is also the place where false information may be corrected. Initial scholarly efforts begin to highlight what is needed for citizens to take corrective action when exposed to fake news on social media. This study is a further step in that direction by introducing the construct of ‘fake news media literacy’. Relying on survey data from the U.S. (N = 1338), we show that news media literacy in terms …

Lamboozled!: The Design And Development Of A Game-Based Approach To News Literacy Education, Ioana Literat, Yoo Kyung Chang, Joseph Eisman, Jonathan Gardner

Journal of Media Literacy Education

Given the need for innovative, engaging, and youth-centered approaches to media literacy, as well as the potential of active pedagogies to facilitate youth civic education and efficacy, games emerge as a particularly promising and under-utilized avenue for news literacy education. Our research asks, how might we use game-based learning to tackle fake news and stimulate news literacy among a youth audience? Here, we reflect on the process of designing LAMBOOZLED!, a news literacy game for middle school and high school students, based on a multilevel game design framework that allowed us to articulate learning objectives, consider suitable mechanics, dynamics and …

Fake News Or Is It?, Liz Kielley

Library Staff Presentations & Publications

How can you tell if something is credible or fake news? Reliable information helps us make good decisions but with the proliferation of social media, sometimes it is hard to tell if we should believe it or delete it. We tend to want to believe those things that align with our world view, but is it true just because we want it to be? What is opinion and what is fact? Let’s sharpen our critical thinking skills and discover some tools that we can use to help us figure it out. We will learn what drives fake news, how to …

Today’S Fake News Is Tomorrow’S Fake History: How Us History Textbooks Mirror Corporate News Media Narratives, Nolan Higdon, Mickey Huff, Jen Lyons

Secrecy and Society

The main thrust of this study is to assess how the systematic biases found in mass media journalism affect the writing of history textbooks. There has been little attention paid to how the dissemination of select news information regarding the recent past, particularly from the 1990s through the War on Terror, influences the ways in which US history is taught in schools. This study employs a critical-historical lens with a media ecology framework to compare Project Censored’s annual list of censored and under-reported stories to the leading and most adopted high school and college US history textbooks. The findings reveal …

Front Liners Fighting Fake News: Global Perspectives On Mobilising Young People As Media Literacy Advocates, Sun Sun Lim, Kai Ryn Tan

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

With young people at the vanguard of technology adoption and media consumption, many governments are actively incorporating young people into their public education campaigns, and young people are enlisting themselves as media literacy advocates. This article reviews a selection of such media literacy programmes to unpack their key thrusts and components so as to identify best practices and learning points. It will also closely investigate one particular youth-led effort and chart its conception, execution and development.

Bridging The Gap? The Impact Of A Media Literacy Educational Intervention On News Media Literacy, Political Knowledge, Political Efficacy Among Lower-Educated Youth, Sabine Geers, Mark Boukes, Judith Moeller

Journal of Media Literacy Education

Scholars generally agree that there is a gap between lower- and higher-educated citizens on civic competence, which solidifies during adolescence. This two-wave panel study examines how an educational intervention focused on media literacy influences civic competence among lower-educated youth (age 16 to 26). Additionally, the level of civic involvement among participants is tested on three measures of civic competence: news media literacy, political efficacy and political knowledge. The findings suggest that the educational program has influenced the level of political efficacy and news media literacy. Furthermore, participants with the most active involvement in the program, i.e. co-created the educational video …

“I Sometimes Have Doubts About The News On Facebook”: Adolescents’ Encounters With Fake News On The Internet, Joyce Vissenberg, Leen D’Haenens

JURNAL KOMUNIKASI INDONESIA

Fake news is increasingly present on the internet and on social media, and youths, who mainly follow the news on these platforms, are at risk of being misinformed and deceived. This study aims to serve as an important knowledge base about adolescents’ definitions of, experiences with, and opinions about fake news on the internet. A qualitative content analysis of open-ended survey responses regarding experiences with fake news online among 214 Flemish youths (aged 15 to 19) provides insight into the sources of fake news, the topics covered in fake news, and the characteristics of fake news according to these youths. …

News Literacy And Fake News Curriculum: School Librarians’ Perceptions Of Pedagogical Practices, Lesley Farmer

Journal of Media Literacy Education

The high profile of fake news reveals underlying trends in the production and consumption of news. While news literacy is a lifelong skill, the logical time to start teaching such literacy is in K-12 educational settings, so that all people have the opportunity to learn and practice news literacy. School librarians can play a critical role in helping students gain news literacy competence. This study investigated the needs for K-12 students to be news literate and their current level of skills as perceived by in-service teachers and school librarians in California. Respondents thought that their students were most competent at …

“Fake News,” Misinformation, And Political Bias: Teaching News Literacy In The 21st Century, Jennifer Bonnet, Judith Rosenbaum

Library Staff Publications

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.

Initiatives To Counter Fake News In Selected Countries: Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, Egypt, France, Germany, Israel, Japan, Kenya, Malaysia, Nicaragua, Russia, Sweden, United Kingdom, Peter Roudik, Graciela Rodriguez-Ferrand, Edouardo Soares, Tariq Ahmad, Laney Zhang, George Sadek, Nicolas Boring, Jenny Gesley, Ruth Levush, Sayuri Umeda, Hanibal Goitom, Kelly Buchanan, Norma C. Gutiérrez, Astghik Grigoryan, Elin Hofverberg, Clare Feikert-Ahalt

Copyright, Fair Use, Scholarly Communication, etc.

Comparative Summary by Peter Roudik, Director of Legal Research

This report examines the legal approaches of fifteen countries, representing all regions of the world, to the emerging problem of manipulation with “fake news” using mass and social media, especially the impact of fake news on ongoing political processes and elections, and the legislative measures undertaken to counteract the dissemination of false information. Fake news as a phenomenon is not new and has been known since ancient times, but the present-day proliferation of digital and social media platforms, which allow for much broader distribution of information to a global audience, makes …

Both Facts And Feelings: Emotion And News Literacy, Susan Currie Sivek

Journal of Media Literacy Education

News literacy education has long focused on the significance of facts, sourcing, and verifiability. While these are critical aspects of news, rapidly developing emotion analytics technologies intended to respond to and even alter digital news audiences’ emotions also demand that we pay greater attention to the role of emotion in news consumption. This essay explores the role of emotion in the “fake news” phenomenon and the implementation of emotion analytics tools in news distribution. I examine the function of emotion in news consumption and the current status of emotion within existing news literacy training programs. Finally, I offer suggestions for …

In An Era Of Fake News, Information Literacy Has A Role To Play In Journalism Education In Ireland, Isabelle Courtney

Irish Communication Review

Framed by the problem of fake news and misinformation, a recent study into journalism education in Ireland focused on the overlaps that exist between two professions: journalism and librarianship. The emerging literature on fake news is overwhelmingly coming from these two disciplines. Historically both have deep roots in truth and fact and employ a specific range of tools for the evaluation of information. Librarians use a framework called information literacy, while journalism educators speak of media literacy, fact-checking and verification of sources. With the many overlaps in media and information literacy, journalists and librarians would appear to be natural partners …

The Promises, Challenges, And Futures Of Media Literacy, Monica Bulger, Patrick Davison

Journal of Media Literacy Education

Media literacy has become a center of gravity for countering fake news, and a diverse array of stakeholders – from educators to legislators, philanthropists to technologists – have pushed significant resources toward media literacy programs. Media literacy, however, cannot be treated as a panacea. This paper provides a foundation for evaluating media literacy efforts and contextualizing them relative to the current media landscape. Media literacy is traditionally conceived as a process or set of skills based on critical thinking. It has a long history of development aligned along the dialectic between protection and participation. Contemporary media literacy tends to organize …

Joint Declaration On Freedom Of Expression And “Fake News,” Disinformation, And Propaganda, Mickey Huff

Secrecy and Society

No abstract provided.

Examining Student Perceptions Of Their Knowledge, Roles, And Power In The Information Cycle, Lucinda Rush

Libraries Faculty & Staff Publications

This project report describes a collaborative effort between librarians, staff, local journalists and students at Old Dominion University (Norfolk, VA) to provide a venue for a discussion about ‘fake news’. Post-event questionnaire results are analysed to explore what students learned as a result of attending the event as well as student perceptions of their own understanding and ownership of the roles that they can play in the information cycle.

Fake News: Can We Correct It All And Does It Matter If We Don't?, Emma C. Brickfield

Economics Department Student Scholarship

This paper looks to identify if correcting fake news articles is sufficient to prevent people from making decisions based on factually incorrect information. Through an experiment, I find that correcting a fake news article makes a person less likely to put money towards the issue that the fake story supported. I also find that over time people are more likely to forget the corrections but that it does not change their economic decision at a statistically significant rate.

The Specific Character Of News Literacy Teaching In Russia And The Dynamics Of The Media Literacy Level Of Russian Students, Svetlana Shomova

First Global News Literacy Conference

This paper provides a short comparative analysis of known News Literacy teaching programs and methods in the structure of universities in various countries. It will focus on topics that are specific to Russian higher education and which are especially significant to the study of news literacy deficits in Russia. Thus, in the course of News Literacy teaching the National Research University Higher School of Economics puts a special emphasis on the consideration of news in historical retrospective and the role of news content in media spaces; the risks and challenges of “news” as a type of text message; discussions about …

Customizing News Literacy Course In Different Class Settings, Huyen Nguyen

First Global News Literacy Conference

One challenge for the news literacy instructor/lecture/trainer is to tailor lessons to different class settings. Fortunately, I have had opportunities to design news literacy courses for different class sizes, from small groups to big classes, and for different time durations, from a 3-­‐session training course to 10-­‐ week and 15-­‐week courses, as well as for students of different cultures, from Vietnamese students to Chinese and American students.

In this paper, I primarily review my experience designing and teaching News Literacy courses for two 30-­‐ student classes at Ohio University and University of Social Sciences and Humanities. In addition, I share …

A Brief History Of Fake News, Amy Fry

Amy Fry