1. Fake news and digital literacy
Dr. Nicole Johnston
Edith Cowan University

2. What is digital literacy
Paul Gilster first made the term popular in his 1997 book ‘Digital literacy’
He states that “digital literacy is the ability to understand and use information in multiple formats from a wide range of sources when it is presented via computers”.
In 2011 the American Library Association defined digital literacy as, “Digital literacy is the ability to use information and communication technologies to find, understand, evaluate, create, and communicate digital information, an ability that requires both cognitive and technical skills.
Digital Literacy, Libraries and Public Policies content/uploads/2013/01/2012_OITP_digilitreport_1_22_13.pdf
Gilster, P., & Glister, P. (1997). Digital literacy. New York: Wiley Computer Pub.

3. Media Literacy
Media literacy is concerned with the creation, production, reading, communication and critical assessment of media and texts. It also encompasses both the technical and cultural forms of media and the way media ─ texts and visuals ─ communicate meaning
Littlejohn, A & Beetham, H et al. 2012, ‘Learning in the digital frontier: a review of digital literacies in theory and practice’, Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, vol. 28, no. 6, pp ning (Littlejohn, Beetham and McGill 2012: 553).

4. At West Point, Annual Pillow Fight Becomes Weaponized
Real or Fake?
At West Point, Annual Pillow Fight Becomes Weaponized
At West Point, Annual Pillow Fight Becomes Weaponized – real

5. Real or Fake?
Pope Francis Shocks World, Endorses Donald Trump for President, Releases Statement

6. Real or Fake?

7. Passenger allowed onto flight after security confiscate his bomb
Real or Fake?
Passenger allowed onto flight after security confiscate his bomb
Passenger allowed onto flight after security confiscate his bomb – real
Edmonton – Canada, allowed to board flight after pipe bomb confiscated. Teenager – several officers suspended.

8. Real or Fake?
Man Arrested After Police Find 19 Female Bodies in Freezers with 'Black Lives Matter' Carved into Skin
Passenger allowed onto flight after security confiscate his bomb – real
Edmonton – Canada, allowed to board flight after pipe bomb confiscated. Teenager – several officers suspended.

9. Real or Fake?

10. Clinton Versus Trump Voters
People who say they voted for Hillary Clinton were less likely than Trump voters to view the claims made in these fake headlines as accurate, according to the survey. This may be partly due to the fact that the majority of top-performing fake news stories about the election on Facebook had a decidedly pro-Trump or anti-Clinton bent. However, it’s notable that a majority of Clinton voters still believed the fake news stories to be very or somewhat accurate.
On average, Clinton voters judged 58% of familiar fake news headlines as accurate, versus 86% for Trump voters. (These percentages are based on 434 judgments by Clinton voters and 634 judgments by Trump voters.)
A fake story about the pope endorsing Trump was seen as accurate by 46% of Clinton voters compared to 75% of Trump voters. The hoax about an FBI agent connected to a Clinton investigation being found dead was seen as accurate by 52% of Clinton voters and 85% of Trump voters.

11. Video – Fake news Video about the implications of fake news
06/-pizzagate-brings-fake-news-into-the-real-world-video

12. PEW research

13. Real or fake How fast can news spread.
Within hours the video had been posted around the Web; it had been shared with the Twitter followers of Time magazine and Ellen DeGeneres; and it had been broadcast on NBC’s “Today” show and its “Nightly News” program, ABC’s “Good Morning America” and Fox News, where the “Fox & Friends” co-host Brian Kilmeade said of it, “You couldn’t do this at Warner Brothers as a cartoon and make it seem more realistic.”
But the video was thoroughly staged. It was created for a new Comedy Central series, “Nathan for You,” with the help of some 20 crew members, including animal trainers, scuba divers and humane officers, and required the fabrication of a plastic track to guide the pig to the goat (which was never in jeopardy).

14. Post truth
Oxford dictionary word of 2016 post-truth adjective Relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.
The concept of post-truth has been in existence for the past decade, but Oxford Dictionaries has seen a spike in frequency this year in the context of the EU referendum in the United Kingdom and the presidential election in the United States. It has also become associated with a particular noun, in the phrase ‘post-truth politics’.

15. Common terminology
confirmation bias: the tendency to believe information is credible if it conforms to the reader’s/viewer’s existing belief system, or not credible if it does not conform
content farm or content mill: a company that employs a staff of freelance writers to create content designed to satisfy search engine retrieval algorithms with the goal of attracting views and advertising revenue.
echo chamber: “In news media an echo chamber is a metaphorical description of a situation in which information, ideas, or beliefs are amplified or reinforced by transmission and repetition inside an “enclosed” system, where different or competing views are censored, disallowed, or otherwise underrepresented.” (Wikipedia)
native advertising: paid, sponsored content designed to look like the legitimate content produced by the media outlet
Used by journalists

16. Common terminology
fact checking: the act of verifying assertions either prior to publication or after dissemination of the content
filter bubble: When search tools present with the stories we are likely to click on or share based on our past activity, potentially affirming our biases, we need may be experiencing what Eli Pariser calls a filter bubble.
herding phenomenon: as more journalists begin to cover a story, even more journalists are likely to join the herd, imitating the angle the story initially took rather than developing alternate or original approaches or angles.

17. Common terminology
satisficing: a portmanteau of the words satisfy and suffice introduced by Herbert Simon in 1956 to refer to the tendency of people, bounded by time limitations, to select good enough information over optimal information
triangulation or cross verification: Researchers establish validity by using several research methods and by analyzing and examining multiple perspectives and sources in the hope that diverse viewpoints will can shed greater light on a topic.
virality: the rapid circulation of media from one user to another.  When we forward sensational stories, often from social media without checking their credibility in other sources, we increase their virality.
librarian-way-a-news-literacy-toolkit-for-a-post-truth-world/

18. Content Mills

19. What’s happening in Australia?
Parliament to launch inquiry into 'fake news' in Australia
launch-inquiry-into-fake-news-in-australia gv9xwz.html
“It is understood internet giants Facebook and Google would be called to discuss how they are combating the phenomenon”.  
“The inquiry, for which terms are still be negotiated, would look at identifying groups most vulnerable to fake news, measure the impact on traditional journalism, and assess the liability of online advertisers and "click-bait" in spreading the hoaxes”. 

20. https://sheg. stanford

21. Stanford History Education Group Project
Evaluating Information: The Cornerstone of Civic Online Reasoning
18 month project
Prototyping assessments
Validation
Field testing at schools mostly in L.A
Designed, piloted, and validated fifteen assessments, five each at middle school, high school, and college levels.
Tasks assessed with rubric: Mastery, Emerging, Beginning

22. Task example Completed final piloting with 203 middle school students.
More than 80% of students
believed that the native advertisement, identified by the words “sponsored content,” was a real news story.
We piloted several drafts of this task with 350 middle school students. We completed final
piloting with 203 middle school students. Results indicated that students were able to identify
traditional news stories and traditional advertisements: more than three-quarters of the
students correctly identified the traditional advertisement and the news story. Unfortunately,
native advertising proved vexing for the vast majority of students.

23. Task example The final version was given to 170 high school students.
Nearly 40% of students argued that the post provided strong evidence because it presented pictorial evidence about conditions near the power plant.
Various drafts of this task were piloted with 454 high school students. y and large, students across grade levels were captivated by the
photograph and relied on it to evaluate the trustworthiness of the post. They ignored key details,
such as the source of the photo. Less than 20% of students constructed “Mastery” responses, or
responses that questioned the source of the post or the source of the photo. On the other hand,
nearly 40% of students argued that the post provided strong evidence because it presented
pictorial evidence about conditions near the power plant. A quarter of the students argued that
the post did not provide strong evidence, but only because it showed flowers and not other
plants or animals that may have been affected by the nuclear radiation.

24. Task example
This task with piloted with 44 undergraduate students at three universities
More than half of
students failed to click on the link provided within the tweet.
We piloted this task with 44 undergraduate students at three universities. Results indicated that
students struggled to evaluate tweets. Only a few students noted that the tweet was based on
a poll conducted by a professional polling firm and explained why this would make the tweet
a stronger source of information. Similarly, less than a third of students fully explained how
the political agendas of MoveOn.org and the Center for American Progress might influence the
content of the tweet. Many students made broad statements about the limitations of polling or
the dangers of social media content instead of investigating the particulars of the organizations
involved in this tweet.
Less than a third of students fully explained how
the political agendas of MoveOn.org and the Center for American Progress might influence the content of the tweet.

25. Fact checkers

26. Fact checkers
List of fake news sites.

27. Fact checkers
The goal of the Hoax-Slayer Website is to help make the Internet a safer, more pleasant and more productive environment by:
Debunking and Internet hoaxes
Thwarting Internet scammers
Educating web users about and Internet security issues
Combating spam
Hoax-Slayer has been operated by Australian Brett Christensen since 2003

28. Fact checkers

29. Search Engines http://hoaxy.iuni.iu.edu
Visualize the spread of claims and fact checking
EMBED tutorial
<iframe width="560" height="315" src=" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

30. Search Engines

31. Resources for the classroom
Ripped from the headlines
Lesson outline
Key concepts such as balance, bias, fairness
Grade level – college, elementary, high school
Objective
TOPIC: How news consumers can recognize fairness and bias in presidential campaign news coverage and their impact on the pursuit of trustworthy sources of news.
CONCEPT: Fairness, balance and bias.
OBJECTIVE: Students learn to recognize fair language, fair presentation and fair play, when balance contributes to fairness, when it undermines it by creating false equivalencies and how to spot bias, both in news coverage and in themselves. We also explore how media and audience bias affect the choices news consumers make as they seek trustworthy news sources.

32. Resources for the classroom
false-our-news-literacy-program-challenges-fourth-graders-to-find-out/#_
News literacy program
3 weeks of lessons – fourth graders
hree weeks with fourth grade students, building off of their previously mastered website verification skills and putting these skills into the new context of online current event reporting: blogs, news and fact-checking websites, satirical news sources, and more. The unit spread over three one-hour classes in the school’s media lab.

33. Resources for the classroom
Evaluating Sources in a ‘Post-Truth’ World: Ideas for Teaching and Learning About Fake News
Ideas for lesson plans from the New York Times.
post-truth-world-ideas-for-teaching-and-learning-about-fake-news.html?_r=0
Skills and Strategies | Fake News vs. Real News: Determining the Reliability of Sources
NY Times blog
news-determining-the-reliability-of-sources/

34. Resources for the classroom

35. Resources for the classroom

36. Resources for the classroom
Below I have collected a slew of resources to aid teachers and their students with the task of spotting fake news. The articles, guides, lesson plans and videos deal with the importance of evaluating websites. If you have any more to add, please comment below. - See more at:

37. Resources for the classroom
Below I have collected a slew of resources to aid teachers and their students with the task of spotting fake news. The articles, guides, lesson plans and videos deal with the importance of evaluating websites. If you have any more to add, please comment below. - See more at:

38. Fake news quiz
spot/article /
Just google fake news

39. Evaluating online information
So what we check our kids about evaluating information on the internet.

40. Evaluating online information

41. Critical literacy

42. Critical thinking