Verifying Political Information - Introduction
There are four reasons why it’s especially important to engage critically with election news – and political news in general.
Young Canadians learn to tell fact from fake for Media Literacy Week 2018
OTTAWA, April 18, 2018 – MediaSmarts, Canada’s centre for digital and media literacy, and the Canadian Teachers’ Federation (CTF) are pleased to announce that this year’s Media Literacy Week will focus on helping students decipher truth from fiction online.
The Spotify Problem
We have a few smartphone rules in our house: no phones after 9:30 p.m., no phones at the dinner table or other family events, and no phones in bedrooms.
Driving and Touch Screens
Our son turned 15 last month, and we’ve had plenty of wary, nervous comments since then about how driving is just around the corner. Next year, he’ll be getting his beginner’s licence! Just 11 more months before he’s behind the wheel!
Authentication and citizenship
Being well-informed – and being careful to only share good information – are essential parts of being an active citizen in a democracy. It’s important to think before you share political information with family and friends – especially during an election.
Verifying Online News - Introduction
Most of us turn to online sources for news, whether it’s reading a newspaper online or sharing a news story with our friends and family. But news stories are one of the hardest things to verify: sometimes early reports that turn out not to be true still circulate on social media and people may spread false reports for political or commercial reasons, or just for “fun.”
Election and Political News
Journalism has been described as the lifeblood of democracy, and elections, likewise, have long been journalism’s bread and butter. The relationship between the two, however, has always been fraught. ”
Political Disinformation
While it’s important to be skeptical of political news, especially during an election, it’s also important to be able to recognize and dismiss outright disinformation: the deliberate spreading of false or misleading information. To a large extent, attitudes towards information and expertise themselves have become politicized, with people on the left being more likely to trust experts and their advice and those on the right being less so.
Four Steps to Getting Better Political and Election News
Broaden your news diet. Probably the most important thing you can do is make sure that you’re not only getting news that confirms what you already believe. At the same time, it’s important not to “overcorrect” and seek out sources that have a totally opposite bias from yours, which will almost certainly just make you angry and reinforce your current opinions. Instead, find sources from a more moderate, different point of view.