Fake News Bias And Media Literacy

Although news outlets are meant to be impartial, they have never been perfectly unbiased. After the 2016 U.S. presidential election, the term "fake news" became part of everyday vocabulary, adding to the public's mistrust of the media. In today's society, learning how to cultivate media literacy by spotting unreliable sources and biased reporting is crucial. This volume explores the fake news phenomenon and offers readers tips on how to be critical of what they see reported. Full-color photographs, annotated quotes, engaging sidebars, and discussion questions enhance the compelling narrative as it explores this crucial aspect of a democratic society.

Since the 2016 U.S. presidential election, concerns about fake news have fostered calls for government regulation and industry intervention to mitigate the influence of false content. These proposals are hindered by a lack of consensus concerning the definition of fake news or its origins. Media scholar Nolan Higdon contends that expanded access to critical media literacy education, grounded in a comprehensive history of fake news, is a more promising solution to these issues. The Anatomy of Fake News offers the first historical examination of fake news that takes as its goal the effective teaching of critical news literacy in the United States. Higdon employs a critical-historical media ecosystems approach to identify the producers, themes, purposes, and influences of fake news. The findings are then incorporated into an invaluable fake news detection kit. This much-needed resource provides a rich history and a promising set of pedagogical strategies for mitigating the pernicious influence of fake news.

Educators have long struggled to teach students to be critical consumers of the information that they encounter. This struggle is exacerbated by the amount of information available thanks to the Internet and mobile devices. Students must learn how to determine whether or not the information they are accessing is reputable. Fighting Fake News! focuses on applying critical thinking skills in digital environments while also helping students and teachers to avoid information overload. According to a 2017 Pew Research report, we are now living in a world where 67% of people report that they get their “news” from social media. With the lessons and activities in this book, students will be challenged to look at the media they encounter daily to learn to deepen and extend their media literacy and critical thinking skills. Now more than ever, teachers need the instruction in Fighting Fake News! to teach students how to locate, evaluate, synthesize, and communicate information. Grades 4-6

This edited collection is not a response to the 2016 United States Presidential Election so much as it is a response to the issues highlighted through that single event and since when incredibly smart, sophisticated, and intelligent members of our society were confused by misinformation campaigns. While media literacy and critical media literacy are ideas with long histories in formal education, including K-12 students and higher education, the need for increased attention to these issues has never reached a flash point like the present. The essays collected here are confrontations of post-truth, fake news, mainstream media, and traditional approaches to formal schooling. But there are no simple answers or quick fixes. Critical media literacy, we argue here, may well be the only thing between a free people and their freedom.

Fake News in Context defines fake news and sets it within a historical and international context. Helping readers to become more skilled at detecting misinformation, the book also demonstrates how such knowledge can be leveraged to facilitate more effective engagement in civic education. Distinguishing between fake news and other forms of misinformation, the book explains the complete communication cycle of fake news: how and why it is created, disseminated and accessed. The book then explains the physical and psychological reasons why people believe fake news. Providing generic methods for identifying fake news, Farmer also explains the use of fact- checking tools and automated algorithms. The book then details how various literacies, including news, media, visual, information, digital and data, offer unique concepts and skills that can help interpret fake news. Arguing that individuals and groups can respond and counter fake news, which leads to civic engagement and digital citizenship, the book concludes by providing strategies for instruction and tips for collaborating with librarians. Including a range of international examples, Fake News in Context will be of interest to teaching faculty, and students of library and information science, communication studies, media studies, politics and journalism. Librarians and information professionals will also find a valuable resource in this book.

Since the 2016 presidential election, the term fake news has become part of the national discourse. In this book, leading civic education scholars unpack why fake news is effective and show K-12 educators how they can teach their students to be critical consumers of the political media they encounter.

Educating for citizenship was the original mission of American schools, but for decades that knowledge—also known as civics education—has been in decline, as schools have shifted focus to college and career, STEM, and raising reading and math scores. But over the last few years, spurred on by political polarization and a steep decline in public understanding, civics education is seeing a nation-wide resurgence, as school leaders, educators, and parents recognize the urgency of teaching young people how America works—especially young people who have been marginalized from the political system. But this isn’t your grandmother’s civics. The “new” civics has been updated and re-tooled for the phone-addicted, multi-cultural, globalized twenty-first century kid. From combatting “fake news” with fact checking in Silicon Valley, to reviving elementary school social studies in Nashville, to learning civic activism in Oklahoma City, journalist Holly Korbey documents the grassroots revival happening across the country. Along the way, she provides an essential guidebook for educators, school leaders and caregivers of all types who want to educate a new generation of engaged citizens at a critical time in American democracy.

News Literacy and Democracy invites readers to go beyond surface-level fact checking and to examine the structures, institutions, practices, and routines that comprise news media systems. This introductory text underscores the importance of news literacy to democratic life and advances an argument that critical contexts regarding news media structures and institutions should be central to news literacy education. Under the larger umbrella of media literacy, a critical approach to news literacy seeks to examine the mediated construction of the social world and the processes and influences that allow some news messages to spread while others get left out. Drawing on research from a range of disciplines, including media studies, political economy, and social psychology, this book aims to inform and empower the citizens who rely on news media so they may more fully participate in democratic and civic life. The book is an essential read for undergraduate students of journalism and news literacy and will be of interest to scholars teaching and studying media literacy, political economy, media sociology, and political psychology.

This book explores the place of Media Studies in the age of ‘fake news’, analysing the calls for a curriculum of critical news literacy as part of a cyclical policy debate. With the need for young people in democracies to understand mainstream news agendas and take a critical perspective on social media news, including so-called ‘fake news’, this book argues for Media Studies as a mandatory subject. However, ‘fake news’ is not presented in the book as a stable, neutral term with a clear definition, but is instead defined as an idea that risks obscuring the key critical and political premise of Media Studies. All media representation requires critical deconstruction: therefore, any distinction between ‘real’ and ‘fake’ media is a false binary. The author draws together two narrative strands: one analysing contemporary news and journalism, featuring interviews with journalists and news commentators, and the other re-appraising the discipline of Media Studies itself. This bold and innovative book will appeal to all those interested in the nebulous and often confusing media landscape, as well as students and practitioners of Media Studies.

At a time when misinformation in the media is abundant, this book explains the difficulty in nurturing students to become critical researchers and offers practical lessons that empower students to excavate information that will help them learn. This guide to teaching news literacy explores a wealth of resources and classroom-tested lessons that educators in grades 7–12 can use in their own libraries and classrooms. To introduce the concept of news literacy, the authors explain the steps of the inquiry and research process in detail and examine the Stanford History Education Group (SHEG) 2016 report "Evaluating Information: The Cornerstone of Civic Online Reasoning" and related research studies. Lesson plans corresponding to each stage of the process are coordinated to relevant standards from the CCSS and ISTE and are accompanied by rubrics for providing students feedback on their progress as well as samples of student work as it evolved through the stages. Furthermore, the authors' anecdotal insights from their experiences in collaboratively implementing the lessons with colleagues are an invaluable addition for any librarian seeking to work with teachers to help students become critical researchers.