Reporting Platforms and Changing the Vibe

Submitted by MediaSmarts on 02 May 2023.

Written by Dr. Samantha McAleese

Here at MediaSmarts, we’ve just wrapped up another research project called Reporting Platforms: Young Canadians Evaluate Efforts to Counter Disinformation. This project created space for youth from across Canada to examine and assess reporting processes on popular social media apps (like Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and YouTube). We wanted to learn more about how young people feel about current efforts to counter misinformation and disinformation and what solutions they might have to address this particular online harm. To do this, we facilitated three focus groups with 36 participants ages 16 to 29, talked to them about how often they see misinformation and disinformation online and what they do about it, and asked them to comment on whether they trust platforms to keep them safe and informed while scrolling and sharing.  

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Authenticating Information, Internet & Mobile, Social Networking

Science evolves! And so does (and should) health policy and the scientific consensus

Submitted by MediaSmarts on 22 Apr 2022.

Studies have shown that communicating the scientific consensus on a topic can be a helpful strategy in the fight against misinformation. For example, a 2015 study found that “emphasizing the medical consensus about (childhood) vaccine safety is likely to be an effective pro-vaccine message.”

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Authenticating Information, Digital Citizenship, Internet & Mobile, Journalism & News, Social Networking

Fighting misinformation: Why pausing before you share really works!

Submitted by MediaSmarts on 12 Apr 2022.

Two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, it is more clear than ever that dealing with the misinformation surrounding COVID-19 requires us to come at it from every possible angle. We have needed trusted voices to provide strong, clear and sharable counter-messaging on social media.

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Authenticating Information, Digital Citizenship, Internet & Mobile, Journalism & News, Social Networking

Difficult and necessary conversations with our kids

Submitted by Rebecca Stanisic on 25 Feb 2022.

Rebecca Stanisic

It has been a challenging and stressful time for many of us, especially for those who live here in Ottawa and were in areas recently affected by the convoy. For many, the occupation meant concerns about safety, noise, increased anxiety and more. These effects have also been felt by our children.

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Authenticating Information, Digital Citizenship, Journalism & News, Parents, Social Networking, Television

Resources to help us all be better digital citizens

Submitted by MediaSmarts on 23 Feb 2022.

As we consume the troubling news of the past few weeks, we have all seen that there are so many issues we’re dealing with in our digital world that have real life impacts: the spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories, the proliferation of racist stereotypes, online hate and prejudice, and the attacks on journalists and freedom of the press.

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Authenticating Information, Digital Citizenship, Human Rights, Internet & Mobile, Media Literacy 101, Online Ethics

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