Fake news has been blamed for affecting the U.S. presidential election and with deepening the political divides in countries all over the world. Unfortunately, it has been so overused that it has become an almost meaningless term.
The fact that helping people develop their critical-thinking skills will take years should not be an excuse to delay embarking on that journey today. In fact, although the U.S. has played an important role in developing news literacy, it is a laggard when it comes to adoption. Italy, Argentina, Vietnam and other countries have made remarkable progress already. They have done it by making News Literacy a public-policy priority, with politicians, educators and philanthropists joining forces to support curriculum development, teacher training and large-scale adoption.
It is often said that in a democracy citizens get the government they deserve. In the 21st Century, empowered consumers will get the information they demand. A new generation of news-literate citizens who demand high-quality information will shape the future of journalism, determining in real time the balance between information that is important versus that which is titillating or just plain wrong.
The ability of the next generations of citizens to judge the reliability and relevance of information will be a leading indicator of the public health of civil societies around the world. This is one race the U.S. cannot afford to lose.
Key Concepts Include:
- Fake News is a term that has become overused and is now meaningless.
- The current Information Disorder involves misinformation, disinformation and malinformation, all of which present special challenges.
- Efforts to combat these challenges through improvements to information and social media platforms will inevitably fail.
- It is up to all citizens to learn to spot and reject information that misleads the public.
- The key literacy skills that will be required are:
- Interrogating information instead of simply consuming it
- Verifying information before sharing it
- Rejecting rank and popularity as a proxy for reliability
- Understanding that the sender of information is often not its source
- Acknowledging the implicit prejudices we all carry
Objectives of this Lesson:
- Discuss the problem underlying the term “fake news” by learning to differentiate among the seven types of misinformation and disinformation.
- Understand the importance of empowering citizens to resist the spread of misinformation and disinformation.
Lesson Vocabulary:
- Fake News
- Mis-information
- Dis-information
- Mal-information